2024: Jones Island

This afternoon I'm sitting on Amy Marie and listening to live classical violin  being played by the skipper of the vessel Vya Lynn.  The notes just seem to hang in the air.  A perfect compliment to a lovely location. 

We are in a typical PNW cove on the north side of Jones Island.  Why the north side?  Today some nasty cold south winds have been blowing and we sought shelter here.  It really is a sanctuary of sorts.  Our fellow voyagers are a mix a small cruisers and sailboats.  Throw in a couple of motor vessels approaching 40 feet in length and you have the whole crowd.  

We meet one fellow who has been here a week.  He motored over from Anacortes on his 16 foot center console.  He is retired and travels with his dog, a  Corgi.  He and the Corgi were camped in  an orange dome tent from the '80's.  Those of you who use to backpack know the tent.  It used to be ubiquitous back then.  You could visit a High Sierra lake and not see its shoreline dotted with these tents.  

We encountered this fellow while hiking across the island to the south cove.  A pleasant hike through a forest that had been devasted by a storm many years ago.  As this is parkland, the fallen giants were left in place.  They became nurse trees for the next generation.  In some cases the offspring were taller than the host trees.  This all was quite unique and of course covered in PNW moss.  So the retired fellow, who worked 35 years for the Washington State Park System, had also crossed the island to find warmth.  Unfortunately, the chilled south wind made the Jones Island South Camp a place you didn't want to linger.  So we wrapped up our chat so we could continue hiking to generate some body heat. 

We found an old orchard with a variety of ancient apple and pear trees.  About half the trees were still producing great quantities of fruit.  The other half were in their declining years and barely hanging on....   Still it was a great find.  We made plans to return with our boat hook to harvest some of the high hanging fruit.

On our return, we hopped in our dinghy and motored out to a good looking boat in the anchorage.  Something with which we were not familiar.  It was larger than Amy Marie and looked quite comfortable.  So like pirates we circle the boat talking and pointing.  This got the owner's attention so they emerged from their cabin to ask what we were up to.  We replied that we liked their boat, were really thinking of upgrading to a boat like theirs and by the way what is it?  We discovered it was a Helmsman 38 with one stateroom, two bathrooms, a very large salon/kitchen area that was the full width of the hull, a raised pilot house and a flybridge.  They could see us salivating, so they invited us aboard for a tour.  What a treat!  Very nice couple, both retired and boating every chance they got.  Traveling on a Helmsman 38, such as theirs, would be a much more luxurious experience than what we've come to know on Amy Marie.  

Not that we have suffered in any way.  We continue to be afflicted with a disease all to common to boaters.  The dreaded virus called "Two Footitis", you know, that yearning that keeps whispering in your ear that you really deserve a boat that is just two feet larger than the one you own.  The question, one left un-answered, is were we too far gone that we would act upon it.

We will just have to wait to see.