**This article was written for the Good Life Magaine, May 2016 edition**
I started to fall in love with sailboats during middle
school. In art class, I would spend hours painting watercolors of sloops,
schooners and colonial trading vessels. I would sketch small figures in striped
shirts manning the decks and would imagine that it was me. My art teacher told
me that, in dream psychology, boats represent a desire to escape and be free. That
revelation couldn’t have felt any closer to my own personal 13 year-old
truth. This was also about the time when
my family acquired a small, single-sailed Sunfish. During the hot summer
weekends, my dad would load the small craft into the back of the truck and
would take us sailing on Crystal Lake. On windier days, we would race the
little boat as fast as possible to see how far she would lean before catching
water in her sails; eventually swamping or flipping. Over time, our family
dynamics evolved. Weekends of taking the little sailboat out on the water made
way for pre-college employment and other teenage distractions. The Sunfish was
eventually sold and my sailing days came to an end. However, in the years that
followed, I found myself gravitating toward the water now and again, if only to
admire the beautiful sailboats that were moored along every coast that I have ever
visited. I kept having this urge to jump aboard the deck, throw the lines loose
and sail away on some epic deep sea adventure….but it never happened; until
recently.
Robin Kodner has been my best friend since college. She is a
take-charge kind of woman and her adventurous spirit never ceases to amaze me.
During grad school on the East Coast, Robin found herself leading multi-week
sailing courses for Outward Bound during her summer vacations. After graduation,
she crewed for a private family and spent time sailing around the Canary
Islands and various other exotic locations. For years, we have joked about
running away and becoming pirates; two women on the high seas with wind in our
sails and salt in our hair. So it came as no surprise, when she found herself
permanently residing in Bellingham that she would end up as a partner in a
3-way boat share of a 38 foot sloop named ‘Arpege’.
Peg is a beauty. Built in the 70’s, her interior is composed
of impeccable mahogany with sleeping space for 5 people, a small kitchen and an
even smaller ‘head’ (bathroom). Her lines are classic and graceful and her
previous owners showed obvious care for her (including all new upholstery and a
full engine rebuild). Although a financial stretch for a single, professional
woman, Robin couldn’t refuse her and drained a good portion of her savings to
both purchase the boat and pay for moorage. During the first months of
ownership, Robin defaulted to her more experienced boat partners and never took
Peg out in Bellingham Bay or the San Juans without a few additional crew
members to help out with the lines and the rigging. But when mid-summer
arrived, I could tell that Robin was itching to become the captain of her own
vessel. I talked her into taking me out
on an overnight sail as her only crew member. Just the two of us, like we had
always imagined.
My summer work schedule is hectic. I am often limited to
trips that can happen within 36 hours or less from door-to-door. I knew that
taking on an overnight sailing trip in this amount of time was pushing the
limits of what was logistically possible coming from Leavenworth. But the idea
of taking Peg into the San Juans with my best friend was too good to pass up. I
was in my car by 10 AM on a Monday morning in July. By about 1 PM I was at
Robin’s house. By 2:30 PM we were loading up the boat and throwing off the
lines. The weather was sunny and bright with a variable wind of 5 to 10 knots.
The water was flat and glassy; a perfect afternoon for sailing.
We tacked our way across Bellingham Bay and crossed Lummi
Channel with a favorable wind. Peg glided through the water at a reasonable
pace and we only needed to tack one time while shooting through the narrow
channel between Lummi and Eliza islands. We set ourselves on course for Vendovi
Island, a remote private island that is now held in a preservation trust. We
reached Vendovi without incident and went on a quick hike around some of the
most amazing, pristine forest I have ever visited. All vistas on Vendovi looked
out over the water and the multitude of small islands that dot the Washington
coast. Vendovi closes to the public at sunset with no overnight moorage
available, so we hopped aboard Peg and motored our way back over to Lummi
Island where we spent the night anchored in Inati Bay. We entered Inati just as
the sun was sinking into the water; the heavens ablaze in oranges, reds and
purples. The night entered the sky clear and calm, with the stars in full array
across the horizon. I fell asleep to the gentle swing of the boat on its bow
line as Peg swayed back and forth with the surging tide.
In the morning, we awoke to an unforeseen bout of weather.
Although Inati Bay was calm, we could see that the Lummi Channel was surging
with five to six foot swells and a wind blowing a steady 20 knots in the wrong
direction. Feeling slightly out of my league as first mate, we motored across
the channel and only raised the sails after passing into calmer waters,
coasting gently back to Bellingham.
True to plan, I was back in Leavenworth by Tuesday afternoon
having completed my first overnight sail with one of my favorite people. This
summer we plan on sailing together out to the Sucia Islands. It’s our practice
trip for when we really do run away and become pirates.
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