I need to fast forward through several adventures, mostly because I didn’t take any notes and may not remember them very accurately.
Cozumel
After landing from the Ketch Angelique in Camden my travel mate Tommy dropped me off at the Rockland airport, where I took a puddle jumper to Boston, crashed Brad’s birthday party that night, and the following morning departed from Boston to Cozumel, where I joined Faby, DJ, Ronnie, Bekah, Connor, and Keira for a week of R&R at an all-inclusive resort. Mexico is still very paranoid about Covid, so I am glad to report that the resort employees were very good at wearing their masks and maintaining social distance.
It was a good, relaxing week, where going snorkeling in the beautiful reef was one of my highlights. Ronnie, the little fish, snorkeled like a pro and was delighted with sightings of colorful fish, starfish, eels, and rays.
Another highlight was a trip to Isla Mujeres, which I instigated with the sole purpose of spreading the ashes of my parents in the waters of the Caribbean. My thinking was that after more than 65 years of marriage they should rest together, in a place that had brought them (and all of us as a family) great happiness. The two places that came to mind were Tecolutla, in northern Veracruz, and Isla Mujeres, whish was one of the stops in one of those epic family journeys that one only get to take once in a lifetime. I had the additional constraint that my Mom had many times said that she wanted her ashes to come to Veracruz, the town where she was born (but my Dad never really enjoyed going to Veracruz), so I put on my oceanographer thinking cap, and figured that if their ashes were scattered in the Caribbean, then the Gulf Stream would carry them into the Gulf of Mexico, past Veracruz and later Tecolutla, where we used to visit as a family every other year. A little scientific knowledge can carry you a long way!
I had some misgivings when we landed at the ferry terminal in Isla Mujeres. The place was packed with unmasked tourists! I had the memory of a bucolic fisherman’s hamlet, but in 50 years the place had changed into a tourist mecca. How were we supposed to find a quiet stretch of beach for a very private family moment? As I recalled the island is long but very narrow, so to try to escape the crowd we walked 100 meters from the south to the north shore of the island (the Caribbean side), and found a solitary walking path atop a rocky cliff. It was lunch time and we were lucky enough to find a small bar along the path, where we had a tasty lunch of fish and chips, accompanied by very cold beer. Afterward I explored the cliff, found a path down to the seashore, and there, in complete solitude and privacy, returned the mortal remains of my parents to the sea and nature they had loved so well.
Here is a photograph of the spot, so you too can imagine the
beautiful setting
Road trip from California to Oregon to Washington to
Alaska
As soon as we got back from Cozumel, Ronnie, DJ, and myself packed the truck and the pop-up trailer to start on a road trip adventure to northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. The plan was to drive slowly north all the way to Salem, Oregon, where DJ’s brother and family have just bought a home, and at that point split with the boys driving the truck back to California, and myself continuing to Seattle to visit Ceci and family, and then further on to exploring the Aleutian Islands (as it happened I had to cancel that last leg, because due to Covid it is almost impossible to move from one island to another).
Our first push brought us to Chico for a night, where DJ introduced his son to the haunts of his youth (including enjoying a cheeseburger and pitcher of beer at The Bear), and then to Red Bluff, where we visited with Erin and Josh for a couple of days. They are made of real pioneer stock, and their 10-acre property is a very respectable self-sufficient farm. But the real treat was “the pond”. Now, I know Josh and what he can do with a tractor, so I imagined he had just scooped a wallow and filled it with water, and that in this hot weather it was probably more a mud puddle than a pond. Oh, no … this was a properly engineered, 8-foot deep pond, with retaining walls, a plastic liner, a recirculating system, and a few lotus for artistic reasons. It was wonderful, and Alton, JoAnna, and Ronnie had a blast swimming to their heart’s content.
From there we headed to Mount Lassen, which was open and pretty well sponsored by tourists. This was going to be the 4th of July weekend, so people had come from all over the place to escape the brutal heat of the valley, the confinement of Covid, or just to have a few beers in the middle of nature. We were lucky enough to secure a camping place for one night, and DJ had to do some glib talking for us to keep it for a second night, but at the end we had a very pleasant time in Lassen. Ronnie was suitably impressed by Bumpass Hell, but fairly neutral about Chaos Jumbles and all my tales about how this is what many Martian landscapes look like. We all enjoyed the hike around Manzanita Lake.
Our next stop was Burney Falls, precisely on the 4th of July, which was completely overrun with visitors. We ended parking outside of the state park, right under a highway sign that sternly stated “No Parking Anytime”, and then just went over the levee to find ourselves right in the middle of the campground. Burney Falls is not only a beautiful waterfall in its own right, but the cirque around the waterfall weeps groundwater, which in turn creates a myriad of additional waterfalls. This may be the only place in the world where you can see a groundwaterfall!
We pushed farther north that day, but because of the forest fires we changed our destination from Mount Shasta to the Modoc Plateau, in the most northeastern corner of California, where we stopped at Lava Beds National Monument. It was hot and dry, but the campground was practically deserted so we were able to pick the most convenient spot, with as much shade as the sparse scrub pines could provide We were trying to spend at least a couple of nights at every place, just so we didn’t have to pack the camping pop-up trailer every morning (by the way, the pop-up trailer is great, with plenty of space for us three).
Lava Beds was one of the highlights of the trip, because in this mal país, formed by basaltic lavas that issued from the north flank of the Medicine Lake volcano, there are dozens of lava tubes that we explored with the gusto that only a 6-year old can experience when entering a dark and chilly cave. Ronnie had his headlamp, and although he was a bit apprehensive in the first couple of caves he pretty soon got the explorer’s bug, crawling in narrow spaces and taking shortcuts to surprise us at the deep end of some caves. He even relished the moment when we would find a place to seat and then turn all lights off, to experience the sense of absolute darkness inside the Earth. DJ found an audio kids version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which we all enjoyed the following day, when we went to Medicine Lake. The trip to Medicine Lake was great, as we went into the central part of Medicine Lake volcano, where one can find spectacular glassy rhyolite flows. We did a hike to look at obsidian, and Ronnie dutifully flaked an obsidian arrowhead and cut himself in the process; he was so proud of his bleeding cut! Our only regret is that Mommy was not here with us, so we have bowed to return in her company.
On the geologic observations side of things, I am convinced that Medicine Lake volcano has some parallels with Los Humeros, where I did my PhD research and dissertation, and perhaps also with the pateras of Venus. In addition, just as at Los Humeros, some of the surrounding basaltic cones erupted through groundwater-saturated sediments to form hydro-magmatic maars and tuff rings. Something to look further into.
Pushing into Oregon we drove past Klamath Lake and from there headed for Crater Lake, where we were superlucky and found a nice camping slot in the almost full Mazama campground, where we also stayed two days. Incidentally, all this visiting National Parks and National Monuments allowed me plenty of opportunities to flex my Senior Citizen life pass, so for most of the nights we only paid a modest fee of $10 per night. Yes, there are benefits to becoming old 😊
Crater Lake was beautiful, as always, and we made some very good hikes. Perhaps the most strenuous was hiking down the north rim to reach the water, swimming for a bit in the cold water, and then hiking back the 700 m high cliff. Ronnie did it without complaint, which is the sign of a stalwart character. He also “unpacked” the bicycle we were bringing to his cousin Amelia, and had a very good time terrorizing the campground and making occasional friends. The lack of friends to play with weighed heavily on him, but I guess that goes with the whole experience of taking a road trip. He did make friends, and for half hour they played like fiends, but by the following morning they were gone, or we were going, so the poor kid was back in square one. He has now formally expressed his desire to have a little brother or sister.
From Crater Lake we cut across to the Oregon coast, where we had a good time flying the two-handed kite, wading into the nearly frozen water, and having clam chowder for lunch. We stopped by at the Dilles-Grunder homestead in Philomath, but they were in their own road trip so we got to spend the night on their front yard before heading for Sheridan (near Salem) where Reina and Ryan have bought a new home.
Ronnie was very glad to see his cousins Amelia and Emma, their joint Nanna Sandy, and Aunt Reina and Uncle Ryan. The house is very spacious and is located along the small bluff of a stream that obviously floods its banks every other year. So their backyard can be as narrow as the run of the staircase that goes down the small bluff, or as wide as the flood plain (200 feet) and the walls of the channel (another 50 ft). The flood plain is where the grass is for the girls to play in, at the shade of a couple of centenary walnut trees; the channel, in contrast, is the playground of Ryan, who is an avid fisherman and crayfish enthusiast. The perfect house, with something for everyone!
A couple of days later DJ drove me to the Greyhound station in Salem, for I was pushing forward to Seattle. The following day DJ, Ronnie and Sandy started on their way back to California driving the truck and the pop-up trailer.
I wanted to visit Ceci, Greg and little Evan in Seattle, partly because they are a lovely family, and partly because I wanted to meet their new daughter Elisa. Ha, silly me, I had completely forgotten that two years ago I had taken a weekend trip to Seattle to meet the new baby! It is very sad when a bright mind goes. In any case, I spent a delightful three days with them, while at the same time trying to figure what I was going to do with myself over the next 13 days. I had by this time realized that this is not the year to go visit the Aleutian Islands, so with that part of my trip blanked out I needed to find something else to do. I though about renting a car and spending the time driving across the Columbia River Flood Basalts, but the car rental rates are absolutely crazy these days! The cheapest you can find is $200 per day! I also wanted to look into flying to Winnipeg, and from there taking the train north into Churchill, along the western shore of Hudson Bay, but Canada remains tightly closed against tourism, so that plan was a wash. Let me see … what else is there around here … oh, look, the San Juan Islands. This exotic and faraway group of islands are tucked at the end of Vancouver Island, thrusted between the Washington mainland on the east, the Olympic Peninsula in the southwest, and Vancouver Island in the northwest. To the north one would approach them through the Strait of Georgia and to the west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Surely there is a windjammer sailing those waters!
I did let my fingers do the walking, and found out that indeed there is at least one windjammer, the Schooner Zodiac, that had a four-day cruise departing Bellingham the following day. I called and my sheer miracle was able to secure the last bunk, looking at a 10 am departure. I quickly looked at my options, which included a midnight Greyhound ride to Bellingham, and four days later a puddle jumper from Bellingham to SEATAC, and from there an ignominious return to California to “cool my heels” (more like roast my brains) for a week before proceeding to the Europe part of my meanderings.
So I said goodbye to my lovely niece and her family, took an Uber to the Greyhound station, and at 4 am was in Bellingham marking time for the 10 am embarkation.
Zodiac is an older lady, built in 1924 as leisure yacht able to undertake world travel. In her heyday she probably had a crew of 10 to 15 sailors, a captain, and enough capacity for maybe 10 guests. A few years back she was rescued by a non-profit organization, and now provides a very nice opportunity for adventure travelers to explore the San Juans and for future sailors to train in the art of sail navigation. As you can see in the photo below, she is a schooner, because her tallest mast is in the rear, which gives her that characteristic profile of a shark’s fin. If you compare her with Angelique, you will notice that she does not carry gaff topsails, on either the main mast (the tall mast in the rear) or the foremast. As I understand it, schooners do not have a mizzen mast.
I am not going to try a day-by-day description, simply because I didn’t take good enough notes, so I will just have to record random stretches of the sailing, and some of the colorful characters I came across.
On the first day we motored out of Bellingham Bay past the
tip of Lummi Island, and the threaded our way through Rosarito Strait to reach
Lopez Island. We didn’t get to sail that day, which was a pity, but we wanted
to reach Lopez Island by early afternoon because we had a wine tasting arranged
for us. But maybe I need to back up a little. Our four-day cruise is called Wine,
Seafood, and Sailing, and part of the draw is that we would have the
opportunity to savor the wines of the region. Washington is a wine producing
region? Well, yes. It turns out that the northern climate is not that very
different from the climate of northern France or central Germany, so some of
the “noble grapes” of the Old World are doing quite well in the climate of
Washington. Furthermore, eastern Washington, with its dry climate “challenges”
the grapevines to mature into flavorful grapes. Add to that the fact that the
modern vintner can buy grapes from far afield to practice his/her craft, and
you have all sorts of opportunities for boutique wines that, with the right
marketing, are sold to the cognoscenti for prices that got from $50 to $100
per bottle. With those prices a vintage of say 1,000 bottles (about 3 or 4
barrels, at an average of 300 bottles for a 60-gallon barrel) can actually
bring in a tidy profit. Our Wine, Seafood, and Sailing cruise was
significantly enhanced by the presence of Rob Newsom, owner and vintner of
Boudreaux Cellars, high in the Columbia River Plateau, and his cellar manager Audré
Kelley. So the two of them joined us as regular guests, but as part of their
dunnage they brought along six cases of Boudreaux wine, which we enjoyed over
the next four days, getting in effect a short course on wine tasting!
But getting back to my story, we landed on the northeast end of Lopez Island, and were picked up by two “taxis” (actually a truck and a regular car that perform the taxi service in the island) and after a short drive landed in a tiny little farm (not surprisingly called the Lopez Island Vineyards), where we were treated to the good stories of an older island couple who out of the blue decided to produce some wine out of 10 acres (one acre can produce from 2 to 4 tons of grapes, and a ton of grapes can produce 2.5 barrels of wine, so you can figure that they have an annual production of maybe 25 to 50 barrels of wine, or 7,500 to 15,000 bottles). Not bad for a Mom and Pop operation.
I don’t remember where we spent the night, probably because I was befuddled by wine. I do remember that it was a very nice cove, and that the crew took this opportunity to go out in the tender and drop some crab pods all around the boat. Speaking of the crew, the crew of Zodiac was different than that of Angelique. For starters, Captain Tim is a very quiet and subdued personality, quite in contrast with the personality of chatty Captain Dennis, who talks non-stop. Captain Tim is glad to be in the background, issuing all his directives through Cyrus, the First Mate. He sits on the Captain’s Chair behind the wheel, but mostly lets his current trainee make the decisions. If he is not on deck, he can be found in the chart house, quietly reading. But there is no question that he is the absolute skipper, and that he is deeply committed to the education of his crew and his passengers. He will walk all the length of the boat to talk quietly to one of the hands and explain why, in the course of such-and-such maneuver, the sail has to be held in such particular position. He also holds daily crew meetings, where he instructs them in the particular modality of sailing he has selected for the day, and why he has made that decision. Finally, the guests are invited to take turns doing bow watch, learning about the charts, and piloting the boat. I did the latter when we had to tack, and Captain Tim was very good at explaining the role of the rudder and the timing that he wanted on changes in steering to tack effectively.
Cyrus is the First Mate, and for all practical purposes he is the one running the minute-to-minute operations. Knowledgeable and personable, he is a fun person to talk with. Margaret and Tanith are our female sailors, and they are as amazing as our female crew on Angelique. Margaret is training for the post of First Mate, and Tanith has the long term goal of becoming a shipwright. The comes my friend Ron, a smiling bear of a man who is trying to learn the craft of the sailor as efficiently as possible, because he would like to be selected for the 100th anniversary trip in 2024, through the Panama Canal and up the East Coast. He is a retired military airplane mechanic, easy-going, and loves every task he gets assigned; he was also the captain of the Fore Staysail, which was my sailing station, so we spent quite a goodly amount of time heaving on lines, sweating the lines, securing lines, and then coiling the tail ends into handsome Ballantine Coils. Finally, we had the benefit of David and Brian, both of them hobby sailors in their late 50’s, who volunteer to come along just because; I very much enjoyed talking with them about things maritime. Oh, wait, I forgot young Brandon and our cook Mary. Mary was the only kitchen staff and, although others might help her with washing the dishes, she was pretty much a one-woman show who produced absolutely delicious meals for us, apparently with little effort.
Back to the first evening, Rob Newsom took over the proceedings, and broke open his first case of wine, to regale us with the story of his Pinot Noir. Rob is tall and lanky, and has a wonderful Cajun droll. He started us by telling us that his winery is named after Boudreaux, an infamous Cajun folklore character known for his brilliant sense of humor and pursuit of high adventure. Boudreaux’s best friend is Thibodeaux, and the two of them together get into all sorts of funny situations that are actually a biting social commentary on Southern culture. For example: Boudreaux and Thibodeaux were out on the golf course last weekend, when they caught up to two ladies a little bit ahead of them, who were playing really slow. After a couple of holes, they couldn't take the slow game anymore, and Thibodeaux says, "Dammit, Boudreaux, I'm gonna go tell dem wimmen to either play faster, or get off de golf course." He walks toward the two ladies, but after going only about halfway, turns around and comes back without saying anything to them. Boudreaux asks him why he didn't say anything to them. Thibodeaux tells him, "I can't go talk to dem. One of dem is my wife, and de other one is my girlfriend." Boudreaux says, "Mais, never mind. I'll go tell dem sumting." He walks a little way but also turns around without saying anything. Thibodeaux asks, "I tought you was goin' tell dem to move." Boudreaux says, "Mais, I couldn't let dem see me, Thib. I got de same problem you had !"
So, by the time he finishes the first joke we are mesmerized, and then Rob proceeds to give us a lesson on grape-buying in Walla Walla, how he chooses “his acre” in the vineyard, how he visits his acre and thins it out to achieve grape perfection, and finally how he drives his couple of tons of grapes to his mountain facility, presses the grapes, and starts the whole wine-making process. All along Audré is passing along these beautiful large glasses (which they also brough in cases), dispenses the wine, and under Rob’s direction we see the wine, swirl it, smell it, sip it, and savor it. Heavenly. The only thing is that we had to compare and contrast with a couple of cabernets also from his cellar … and please feel free to have another glass of your favorite wine … and that night we all slept very soundly
On the second way I woke up to see random pieces of clothing spread all over the cabin. Clearly the party had continued long after I went to bed, which in my case is a lower bunk along the sides of the big cabin. I imagined this was where the junior guests slept, while their elders played at cards, smoked cigars, and sipped Port on their trips around the world. The cabins for the officers and the married couples are either in the stern (that is pirate talk for the back of the boat), and the crew bunks are normally to be found near the bow or front of the boat.
I remember the second day because of “breakfast” and as our first sailing day. True breakfast was actually coffee and scrambled eggs but, while we were having our second cup of java, Brandon and Ron hopped on the tender to go around and collect the crab pods they had set the previous afternoon. In the meantime, Cyrus brought a setup like I have for frying a turkey, and got some seawater boiling. At about 10 am the boys came back with the pods wearing big grins: They had 42 Dungeness crabs, 2 to 3 pounds each, for us to feast on (I am a crab connoisseur only thanks to DJ, who has taken us many time crabbing to the San Francisco peer, where you can only keep the brown rock crabs, “Dungees” being an absolute no, no. But we were on a boat, and there were plenty of fishing licenses aboard, so we kept them all! Cyrus gave us a short lecture on how to “pop-off” the outer shell of a crab so the whole offal fell into the water, and for lack of any volunteers shelled and halved all crabs into the pot of boiling water (actually, Tanith tried it, but she was too squeamish to do the dastardly deed in one fluid motion). And then we had our true breakfast, munching on our freshly caught and steamed crab right by the side of the boat, as so many hamsters chewing on sunflower seeds. It was dee-lee-cious!
We also got to put the sails up, which was a lot harder than I remembered from Angelique. First, we got our sail positions, and I was glad I drew out the fore stay sail, which is a lot smaller than the main or fore sails. But the joke was on mee, because what Cyrus did not say aloud was that we had our sail assignments and general heaving and furling assignments for the big sails. Man, all of a sudden those gaffs look like they were sequoia trunks! So we heaved, huffed, and puffed and pretty soon the sails were catching wind and we were on our way. I love this business of being on a tall ship 😊 The only thing is that we were sailing down wind, so the booms were far to the side and the sails were simply pushing us forward.
Eventually we worked our way through the strait between Orcas Island to the north and Shaw Island to the south, and we headed for the north end of San Juan Island, where we spent another tasty night enjoying a variety of white wines enjoying additional Boudreaux and Thibodeaux stories. I want to believe I learned from my mistakes, so I retired early, but from the debitage the following morning I can infer the party extended into the wee hours of the morning.
The third day was the best, as far as sailing was concerned. For one, this time we were sailing against the wind, which is the best point of sail for a windjammer. Zodiac is a bit more ponderous than Angelique, maybe because it is a bit longer and wider, so tacking down the strait between San Juan Island to the west and Shaw Island to the east was a more deliberate, technical zig-zag, which gave Captain Tim plenty of opportunity to school his crew into the fine points of sailing. Me, I was simply in Heaven. Our target for the day was Friday Harbor in eastern San Juan Island. We were there to go to a tasting into a gin distillery (fancy gins in very long and thin bottles that sell for $75 a bottle), followed by a leisurely promenade through the marina, to watch how the rich and famous spend their extra millions. I need to play the lottery more consistently and buy me one of these yachts!
We finished the day by reaching the southern end of Lopez Island, which tomorrow will make for a straight shot north back to Bellingham Bay.
The fourth and last day was a bit sad, both because we knew that the cruise was coming to an end, and because there was not a lick of wind to move us along. Knowing we all wanted to sail, the skipper executed a hairy maneuver and with all sheets to the wind made a very slow turn inside our narrow cove, in the hope that we would catch some wind at the mouth of the cove. No cigar. So we motored to the southern end of Rosarito Strait, caught some wind from the south, and sailed downwind at a snail’s pace toward Billingham Bay. It was “nice”, but about half way to our destination the Cap gave us the order to furl the sails (which means taking the sails down and folding them nicely for the next cruise) and we motored back to port. In true style the skipper didn’t say a word while Cyrus brought the boat to port and turned it around.
We docked at exactly 3 pm, as promised in the brochure, and the cook and I scampered like rabbits, she to do whatever, and me to catch an overpriced Yellow Cab that brought be to the Bellingham airport in the nick of time to take my puddle jumper to SEATAC, from where I flew to Oakland airport where Fabiolita picked me up.
I have been here home for almost a week, getting some work
done in my sabbatical project, and lining up flights, hotels and rental cars
for my travels through Europe. Fortunately the car rental agencies in Europe
are not gauging travelers the way American companies are doing, so my next
adventures might be a little more gentile. We will see what the next newsletter
has to offer 😊
