We are full time travelers. We live in a 34 foot motor home. We travel from place to place towing a white Sprinter Van full of my tools and two Cattrikes.
I like to play bluegrass music and you may find me at Bluegrass Festivals in Arizona during the winter months and in Washington and Oregon during the summer. We will also visit our daughter, Renee and her family in the Austen Texas area.
Who can’t resist a bargain? As a mater of fact we can’t. At least my son, Glen, decided to check into a really stiff “Y” valve. You see, Canada is behind the curve when it comes to pump-out stations for the ship’s Head. This is our 10th day in Canada, and only one of the ten marinas have had a pump-out stations. With five adults aboard the black-water tank is good for two days, period. Well Glen found an orphaned three way valve at the Maple Bay Marina and bought it. We decided to install it this afternoon
I am sure some of you watched Robin Williams in
RV. With the possible spectacle on the order of Robin’s I fitted
the Canon camera out with a nice fast zoom lens, and signed aboard as
Plumbers mate.
We carefully documented the existing installation,
and marked all of the hoses with labels.
We traced each line from the sea-cock to the
overboard discharge. We donned rubber gloves, I gave a thumbs up to
Glen signaling that I was ready. The first hose clamp came off easily
and we walked the hose back until it popped off and immediately we
were pooped all over.
I say we, but I was actually out of the line of fire, and we only lost perhaps a cup of sewage. We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the bath/head room. And then we all took showers. The action is captured in the photo gallery.
We just spent two days in Naniamo B.C. exploring
the waterfront. Our marina, Waterfront Suites and Marina, is at the
end of a grand esplanade that skirts the waterfront from our marina
to the boat basin about a mile and a half away. In the middle is
Maffeo Sutton Park. The whole waterfront is clean attractive and
well used by the locals. There are hundreds of upscale, (read
expensive,) apartments and condos all along the waterfront.
We also took the shuttle boat to Newcastle Island
Park and hiked another 2.5 miles there. This island is just across
the channel from our marina so we got a nice picture of Abby Normal
from the island through the trees.
Barb on Newcastle Island on a Perfect Day.
We are long on time on this end of the morning. We must take ourselves back south through Dodd Narrows later today. This is a tiny slot between Vancouver Island and Mudge Island of the Gulf Islands. This is similar to our Deception Pass between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands. The tidal currents are on the order of 7 or 8 knots and reverse twice daily. The prediction table Tells us to be ready at 3:55 pm this afternoon, so we are napping and reading and writing a blog while we wait for the right time and the right tide. Remember the sailors adage, “Time and tide wait for no man.”
Abby Normal and Eye Gor
If you go to my website you will get to see several of the photos we have taken here in Naniamo.
Dodd Narrows from the South on Our Trip North
Gary, Judy and Glen Hiding from the Dragonfly in Maffeo Sutton Park
We had one more adventure on the way to
Ladysmith. Ed and Phil, my old sailing buddies, will identify with
this. We painted Abby Normal’s keel paint on a submerged rock not
two boat lengths from our slip. Apparently without further
complications. We went back to our slip and checked keel bolts and
bilges and found no evidence of damage. I got the wind knocked out of
me when I fell down the hatchway to the main cabin when the boat
literally bounced off the rock. Glen is planning at least a diver
inspection when we get back to Brownsville.
Yes, we made our date with Dodd Narrows with an
hour to spare.
Here we go again this year for a Grand Adventure sailing the 34 foot Hunter sailboat, Abby Normal, around The San Juan Islands and up into the Canadian Gulf Islands. Because of the Independence day Holiday this year the event will encompass almost 4 weeks from July 3rd to Sunday July 28, three days short of 4 weeks.
The first three days do not really count. That is
for transporting us’ens and the boat to the San Juans. We made some
changes this year. We spent the evening of July 3rd in the
Poulsbo harbor at anchor to watch the “Independence Day Fireworks.”
Yes, a full show on the 3rd of July. We were anchored in
the middle of the bay and when the show was over we watched a
procession of several hundred boats go in front of us as they
returned to their moorings.
We discovered several items missing from our inventory so the next morning we returned to our slip in Brownsville to be met by Christine with a load of forgotten items. It was almost right on our way to our second destination, Everett. We were just in time for Everett’s “Independence Day Celebration” and got a second round of fireworks.
What we failed to fully appreciate, is that Everett is on the Skykomish River and this particular day was the highest to lowest tide of the season. Translation: When we got ready to leave around 9:00 am the current past our mooring was probably on the order of 5 knots. We were tied stern-to the seething ebb tide. So instead of leaving we made a six mile trek to the nearest Safeway store to pick up a couple more items we left home.
Finally at 1:00 pm the current had dropped to a
mere 1 knot and we were able to spring out from the float and back
away from the big ugly barnacle and muscles encrusted pilings a few
feet from our bow and get under way.
Swinomish Channel leisurely glides through La Conner
Our next stop was in La Conner, Washington. Stark contrast to Everett. It is a quiet town on the Swinomish boat channel. This is a quiet channel cut through the lowlands between Fidalgo Island and the mainland. The current is mild but the channel is only dredged to about 20 feet deep. It is an alternative to the rip roaring sleigh ride through Deception Pass that we did last year.
The most exciting time on Saturday’s trip from
La Conner to Cap Sante Marina in Anchorites was when we spotted a
flock of around fifty Great Blue Herons just where we enter Padilla
Bay at March Point.
Comparing the old and new sea water strainers.
Cap Sante marina at Anchorites is a great place to
restock your stores. The Safeway is just cross the street and West
Marine is a block up. We made good use of both of these stores,
Saturday for groceries, but this morning while “pre-flighting”
the Abbey Normal for the day’s voyage Captain Glen broke the bronze
bolt that holds the lid on the sea water strainer. Replacement seemed
the only option so we hiked on up to the West Marine Store and picked
up a bran-new Sea Water Strainer and spent most of the day installing
this important auxiliary device in the engine compartment. The space
is very limited and Glen and I were both working at full arm’s
extension into various service ports to mount the strainer.
For a celebratory lap we went out and checked our
crab trap. We had a single legal crab. He will be supper. Yum!
However the day is far spent and we will snuggle in here in Cap Sante
again tonight.
Last week I celebrated my 77th birthday. I get to share it with my father, Chester, who died on April 26, 2005 at the age of 87. I almost got to share it with the next generation of Dinsmores: Charlie Dinsmore arrived on scene on April 28, 2019. These three photos represent three points in time when there were four generations. In the first photo, taken on November 3 1966, I am there in my narrow tie, Chester Dinsmore, my father is next, Glen Dinsmore, my son, and Maudina Dinsmore my grandmother round out the group. The next opportunity was in 1992. This time Chester was the elder statesman, me and Glen joined in with Cody the tag end. This weekend we have put together another four generation group. This time I am the elder statesman, Glen and Cody are the middle men and Charlie fills out the quartet. There was one more time, I was the infant and my great grandfather, Elwood Mann Dinsmore was the elder statesman. I will get a copy of that photo into this blog if and when I can find it.
I can’t describe with any justice, what a thrill it is for me to
hold the next generation of my family and ponder what he will
experience. Changes in my lifetime have been profound. I was born in
a war to end all wars, World War II. My uncles and one aunt were in
the service. I remember asking “Will I have to go to war too?” I
think the answer was “There will always be war.” I can only
speculate what would have been without that war, The generation just
ahead of us, buckled down and won that war with ever improving
technology.
Then “Sputnik” shocked us and we plunged into the cold war and
the race for the moon. Again technology blossomed and we have become
used to “New and Improved” advertising and mass marketing. We
have come to expect our products to have twice the memory, twice the
speed, more features and half the cost every two years. In less than
70 years we have gone from episodes of the “Lone Ranger” on
scratchy old AM radios,to Harry Potter on BlueRay, Dolby sound on 80
inch TV behemoths.
What will the tiny babe see in the next 70 years. It is fun to
speculate. I see suborbital Spaceliners delivering us safely from
Denver to Australia in about an hour. Autonomous vehicles that pick
you up at your door and deliver you to your chosen destination
exactly on time. There would be no reason to own one yourself, they
would be pool vehicles owned by your housing association. They will
travel in a network of subterranean tunnels and elevated roads. You
may not like my next prediction, I think in that interval we will
have run out of pristine drinking water. I think we will be using
several grades of recycled water. The poorest grade going to our
landscaping. Higher grades being used for more sensitive uses with
the highest grade being used for cooking and drinking. “why do you
think the old square rigger sailors drank rum in their water. Answer:
you never knew what bugs were in that water. Often times it was
loaded into the water barrels out of coastal streams. Who knows what
upstream residents dumped into that water?
I hope they will have conquered Parkinson’s disease,
cancer and Alzheimer’s disease by then. Perhaps even as we
speculate this young babe will grow up and solve many of the
mysteries surrounding these troublesome diseases.
