Narratives

Derek Jensen

Well folks, I’m happy to report that we have completed yet another trip that is sure to go down in the annuals of potter history. The weather was great, which made up for mostly challenging and fluky winds, and the crews were made up of both familiar and new faces with a great mix of boats. Of the Thirteen boats that had signed up for the trip, all thirteen rigged and launched and left Zittles, with one boat turning back after a couple of hours. Ed Gies on his p15 “CB” was forced to turn back when his Seagull outboard proceeded to leak fuel. I guess someone forgot to tell him that Seagull outboards are supposed to leak fuel … kinda like a Harley! It was a valiant effort by Ed, considering problems on past cruises, I have to tip my hat to him for his perseverance. Hamada participated in a little “pre-cruise”, in which my longtime sailing buddy Rick Dalman and I sailed from Zittles to Oro Bay on Anderson Island and dropped the hook for a peaceful night. We covered 14.7 nm in the trip out and back to Oro Bay, and my GPS track shows that the fleet traveled approximately 30.6 nm on the rest of the trip. Not a bad stretch of water. Here are the details …

Hamada was washed, packed, provisioned, and ready to go by 12:30pm on Friday, and we rolled down the hill and towards Olympia with high hopes. The weather in Portland was partly sunny and quite warm, with a nice breeze blowing. As we headed north, however, the clouds thickened and looked like they had some rain. Within a mile of Zittles, a light rain began to come down, intensifying as we pulled down the steep driveway by the ramp. At the dock, Jim Ferguson’s “Esmeralda” was the first boat in the water, and parked on her trailer was Dave Scobie’s unnamed M15, sans tow vehicle. We made lunch aboard Hamada and waited out the showers, which passed quickly and proved to be the last we would see the whole weekend. While we rigged the boat, Bob Olson rolled down to the launch with his M15 “Sequel”, making the showing so far a 50/50 Montgomery/Potter affair. After waiting for the Geoduckers to clear the ramp, we launched Hamada and bade farewell to Zittles for the night. The sails went up within 50 yards of the Zittles gas dock, and we cut the motor for good. Running and broad reaching, we slowly puttered down to the Nisqually Reach, watching the scenery slowly pass by, and enjoying the warm though cloudy day. Turning into the narrow entrance to Oro Bay, we lined up for some short tacks to try to shoot the close spaced markers that identified the deep water. About 100 yards to go, we fired up the iron genny and picked a quiet place to drop the hook and shut off the motor. Steaks on the BBQ and lots of good salty sailor talk capped off a great sail.

Up and out of the bay at 6:00am, we motored the whole way back to Zittles, and the sunrise boded well for weather, but the wind had not yet filled in. Back at the dock, many of the potters had arrived during the day and evening at Zittles, and folks milled about sipping hot coffee and munching on breakfast. Boats that arrived that morning were rigging in the parking lot, and those at the dock began preparing for the days journey. The skippers meeting seemed a bit superfluous at that point, and the orders of the day were “Sail north until you hit the end of the inlet, and look over your port beam for the public dock in Allyn.

Last out of the marina, Hamada was in a prime position to observe the fleet. Staying close to Johnson Point, we watched the bulk of the fleet take the long way over by the Key Peninsula shore, where they appeared to be finding more wind than us. We sailed for several hours before admitting that it was many miles to Allyn, and we had better start covering some ground. All boats finally succumbed to some amount of motor-sailing, and the fleet was soon spread out over several miles of the Case Inlet. The day began to really clear, and the sun was hot and felt great. Hamada picked up a mooring at McMicken Island, and was joined by Tom Luque on JoJama, who threw out his lunch hook a little closer to the shore. Lunch and sunshine spelled nap, so the crew of Hamada rested a bit before trying to grab the light zephyers that played on the water. Harbor Seals began engaging in a rather strange behavior, laying on their backs with the fins in the sun for hours at a time. While my crew slept, I raised the sails and sailed off the mooring, looking for some wind, but was soon forced to motor across the glass-still water off the Pickering Passage. Nearing the southern tip of Reach Island, we again sailed, and cut a close line past Reach and Stretch Islands, sailing until we were nearly off the Public Dock. Dropping sails, we motored into the dock, which was now officially NWPotter Town, having taken most of the available dockage, save one large powerboat.

Hungry sailors demanded an earlier dinner, so we contacted our friends down at Lennard K’s and moved the troupe down the busy highway and invaded the restaurant. The food was plentiful, and the help were certainly amused by our wind-blown and sunburned visages. Rick and I attempted to make contact with the adolescent sons of Tony Amort, but alas the gap between grizzled former rockers and home-schooled teeny-boppers appeared to be to great. We were forced to communicate with hand signals and broken Chinook jargon, like traders of old. Their attempts to trade off their Dad’s beer supply was thwarted when we were informed that it was of a low-grade, so we simply made plans to steal it in the dead of night.

After dinner, we headed back down to the dock, where Hamada performed her ritual of abandoning the rest of the fleet to the noisy realm of bouncing off the dock all night, and we pulled out into the inlet to drop the hook in 15ft of water for a calm night at anchor. Rising early the next morning, the crew of Hamada once again joined the folks at the dock for breakfast and coffee, and talk of the plans for the day ahead. As the wind slowly filled in, it proved to have been one day late, as it now blew from the south, directly from where we wanted to go. Raising sail at the dock, Hamada never started her motor until the wind died off of the Pickering Passage. Dueling in the light winds, it took us a good long time to beat out of Allyn, but we finally put the p15’s rail down, and had our sights set on the rest of the fleet before we were becalmed and gave up sailing for the rest of the trip. Firing up the motor, we engaged the autopilot and headed towards Zittles. While on watch, I noticed a large deadhead about a ½ mile ahead, so I trained my binoculars on it, and was surprised to see a dark blue kayak slowly drifting down the Inlet. Altering course slightly, we hove up on the abandoned craft, now missing it’s aft hatch and looking like it had perhaps met the bow of a boat or two. Deciding that the laws of marine salvage were apropos, and wanting to rid the waters of an obvious hazard to navigation, we took the craft in tow and brought it back to Zittles with us. Once on dry land, we were able to ascertain that it had a registration sticker of some sort, and attempts are now being made to contact the owner of the craft.

Back at Zittles, the ritual of pulling and de-rigging and securing the boats commenced. The good memories of the trip were fresh in our minds, and the good friends, both old and new, said farewell and headed off to their respective home ports. Thanks to everyone for making the trip, and we’ll see you next time. Fair winds and full sails.

Derek Jensen

p-15 #694 "El Nino"

HMS-18 #11 "Hamada"

Portland, OR

Tom Salzar

CIC: Whisper's tale

Short version: What an extraordinary April weekend! What a great time! What a great place to sail!

Longer version...My weekend started on Friday with a mid-afternoon launch from Allyn. With the wind blowing from the south, and a 600-foot-long pier immediately to the north as I launched, I crossed my fingers and hoped the outboard would be reliable. Just in case, I had my anchor ready to drop over the side.

Since it was late, the wind was on the nose, and I wanted to get a good ways closer to Zittel's before dark, I motored gently down Case Inlet. As I approached the last sheltered buoy at McMicken Island, a motorboat swooped in and snatched it up. I looked at the buoys on the south side of the island, but decided to wander a bit farther to Joemma Beach State Park and tie to the new docks there. That would let me stretch my legs a bit, too.

Unfortunately, the docks at Joemma Beach were still out of the water. I took a buoy and had a very calm evening...but got very little sleep as the wind picked up out of the south or southwest all night, and the fetch allowed a two-foot swell to build up that bounced me up and down all night long.

Saturday morning I was awakened by a tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap on the hull. My eyes a little blurry, I quietly peaked out of the hatch, and found some silly little duck-like birds (scoters?) pecking at the hull. Away with you, silly birds!

An easy motor to Zittel's followed, and soon the small forest of masts resolved and I could see a few P15 sails up, and several P19 masts. I docked, topped off my gas (float valve failed over the winter, so the full tank registers empty), and helped Bob B launch his 21-foot Sea Pearl.

And we were off! A gaggle of geezers, a pod of Potters, bright hulls and sails bursting northward like an explosion of springtime joy. Try as I might, I could not come close to matching Bob's Sea Pearl for speed, but I did find I could point a few degrees higher. Derek headed into Dana Passage, but the wind seemed to favor those of us who stayed toward the eastern shore of Case Inlet.

Later, it became a game of sail a bit, motor through the calms, then sail a bit more. To the Allyn dock we headed, and everyone secured their boats without incident...although we had a few close calls as the wind had picked up by that time.

We took up about half the dining room at Lennard K's in Allyn. I counted 19 people at the table, and I know another Potter couple was sitting nearby. What a delight when plates of appetizers magically appeared in front of us! The Butter's had planned to come to dinner but at the last minute had to cancel, so they very generously purchased appetizers for us. What a grand gesture, and very much appreciated.

With plenty of food and a bit of brew to wash it down, the conversations ranged from flying Hobie 16 hulls to a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Sunday morning dawned calm but the spring scent hinted at a morning breeze. Another explosion of Potterific colors graced the waters of Case Inlet, a site I'm sure the local folks have never seen before. I motored my way past the shoals near Allyn, but many sailed out. We picked up a mild breeze and soon Whisper was making 3 and occasionally 4 knots under main and full genoa, tacking back-n-forth into more open water.

A wind shift toward the southeast allowed me to make some long port tacks that carried me well down toward Fair Harbor. As we neared Pickering Passage, I bid adieu to the group and turned northward, drifting slowly downwind to Stretch Point State Park where I tied to a buoy for a few hours. While there, I did some reading, readied the boat for takeout, and got a few new memories marked on the hull as a flotilla of power boats rumbled by in celebration of the opening of boating season. Unfortunatley, their wakes slammed Whisper's hull against the mussel-covered buoy, yielding some new gouges on Whisper's starboard side.

About 2:30, I unclipped from the buoy, and motored at idle slowly northward toward Allyn. Jan met me at the ramp at 3:30, and we extracted Whisper easily. After packing away the rig and securing the boat, 30 minutes later we were home to unload and wash down the hull and trailer.

The weather? It could not have been nicer, although a more regular wind would have been well received. What a great bunch of folks to sail with. What a great waterbody, with almost no commercial traffic to worry about (there is one ferry, and an occasional/rare tug). Mansions, cottages, cabins, wilderness. All are seen from Case Inlet, a quiet corner of the South Sound.

Tom P19 #1555 Whisper