The Easter Drag

Saturday morning dawned bright, mostly clear, and without a breath of wind. We prepped the boat and cast off for a trip across Puget Sound to go visit my family for the weekend. I'd tell you it was for Easter, but really, it was for food. Mom was putting a ham in the oven and making baked beans. If my husband could have teleported to her house, he would have. The boat was the next best (though it must be noted - not the next fastest way) across the water.

We hadn't taken the boat out since Christmas. The cats had kinda forgotten that their house moves, but they were 100% clear that they DO NOT LIKE that their house moves. Despite a seasick cat making a mess in the master cabin, it was a perfect trip across. We made excellent time. A line of clouds lingered on the horizon, but the sun shone and it was warm. We consulted the tide tables because hubby really wanted to anchor out rather than pay for space at the city dock. I mentioned that the weather was supposed to turn. He squinted at the sky, shrugged and went back to calculating tides.

It's the time of year for big tidal run. On Saturday, when we got to Poulsbo, the tide was going out a long way - 11 feet in just a few hours. We were going from a high of 10 feet to a low of -1.5. He picked a spot and signaled. I dropped the anchor and 70 feet of chain to the mud bottom.

Maritime trials over. We shut down the engine and kicked back. The still air stirred, then began blowing in earnest. The clouds shuttered the blue sky and rain slanted in sideways.

KACHUNK

The boat trembled. I got up and glanced around.

"I think we just straightened out all 70 feet of our chain in one go," I said, running to check the depth sounder. "And we are super close to shore. Super, super close. 8 feet of water underneath us."

We didn't drag - which is when your anchor comes up out of whatever was holding it on the bottom. In the case of Liberty Bay, that 'whatever' is stinky, black mud. Our anchor held just fine. The problem was the rode.

Rode is what connects your anchor and your boat. It can be a line (rope) or chain. Most people use a combination. We have 70 feet of chain on the anchor end, and another two hundred feet of line. The theory behind using chain is that it's heavy enough to rest flat on the bottom, which keeps your anchor at the proper angle to the bottom to help it dig in so you don't drag. When we anchor in Liberty Bay, we drop the anchor and then let out all of our chain. We count out extra feet of line based on weather conditions and what kind of scope (the ratio of your boat length to length of rode you pay out) we think we'll need to stay safely anchored in one place.

Thing is, if you're a boater, you already know we missed a step in the anchoring process. We didn't set our anchor. That's when you drop the anchor overboard and then gently back up until the anchor catches and stops the boat. THEN you put out the rest of your rode. Not that it would have made any difference for us. We'd forgotten the cardinal rule of boating: The wind always wins.

Because the tide was going out, we imagined that we'd swing with the current. Instead, the wind blew us against the current, into shallower water. And when the wind REALLY kicked, all 70 feet of our chain went from piled up in the mud, to straightened out in the goo and we went from anchoring in 20 feet of water to 8 feet.

Hubby started the engine. I got on my rain gear and went on deck to haul up the anchor. We could have repositioned and set the anchor in deeper water, but it would have meant rowing the dinghy into the city dock in the wind and rain. Instead, we motored to an empty guest slip and tied up for the weekend. It made the cats happy when the sun came out on Sunday morning and they could get out of the boat to roll on the concrete dock.

Musical Spring

For your listening pleasure. Frog song in Western Washington. This was recorded at my parents' house which is in the midst of wetlands. I went out to the front porch to record. There's nothing to see in the video - the lights that appear briefly are a neighboring house.

 

I love the frogs and listening to them sing is one of the things I miss living on the boat. No frogs on salt water, alas. So every spring, I go spend a night at my folks' place. Just to get my hit.

Apologies May Be the Death of Me

I had to apologize to my mom today. I called her up to deliver my apology, so naturally, she answered on speaker phone. Fortunately, it was because she was on her hands-free set in the car. (Begin PSA: Cellphone use without a hands-free device of some kind will get you stopped and ticketed in Washington state! End PSA.)

Mom and my sister had some concerns about my health. I'd made light of them, but asked my doctor about their specific issue just the same. Why leave any base not covered, right? The doctor assured me there was nothing at all to worry about. Yay. But still. I'd realized that I maybe hadn't handled my family's concerns gracefully. Thus the phone call. I made my apology.

Mom said, "Eh, I didn't feel blown off. If I had I would have told you. We're family. We shouldn't have to worry about how you or I interprets what the other says."

I can see the point. But I think it's precisely because we are family - and I value both of my parents and the relationship I have with each of them - that it's vital to make apologies when I've been callous about their feelings. The death of any given relationship rarely comes from one major injury. It comes from a thousand tiny cuts that aren't bandaged with a simple 'I'm sorry'.

It's so easy to take family for grated and assume that apologies aren't necessary. It seems really twisted to me that it's often easier to apologize to a stranger than to a loved one. Or is that just me?

Maybe it's harder to apologize to someone I care about because I already feel small for having hurt whoever it was. If the person is REALLY mad or upset, I'll feel even worse. There are huge (possibly selfish) emotional stakes in procuring forgiveness. And what if you don't? What then? I totally get not approaching someone I care about to apologize. It feels so like I'm yanking the scab off of a wound that may make me bleed out. Yet if I don't, the fact that I've potentially been a jerk to someone I love spins round and round in my head, feeding the 'you're worthless' voices that occasionally pop up.

This is where being socially awkward is like the internet. On the internet, you don't feed the trolls. When you're socially awkward, you don't feed The Voices. They have enough fuel already, thanks.

SteamCon IV - Where There Were Monsters

Steam Con IV is over and we're all trapped firmly in the mundane world once more. However. For a few brief days, the Hyatt in Bellevue was the site of an in invasion of hideous (but polite!) Victorian monsters and those that hunt the diabolical creatures. Enough chatter. On to the photos! Behold, Baba Yaga! And a well dressed mummy - note her mummified companion at her side.

 

Dr. Jekyll and the nortorious creature, Hyde. A very small dragon invaded the mercantile at one point causing a stampede as the shoppers were lured in by the creature's fiendish cuteness.



Medusa and the brave Perseus (AKA Mike and Casey Spence) Also, a glimpse of a pair of monster hunters - loaded for whatever danger might wander into their sites.

This man is on stilts. In costume. Playing a bagpipe. The blurry is invalid.



 

Below, we have the Vampire Rhiannon and the lovely Lady Anna K. Sunnamun, explorer, late of Egypt. (AKA Rhiannon and Melissa Thornley)

 

And here, we have the entire crew. From left to right: Emily Olesin, Casey Spence (Medusa), in the pith helmet Mike Spence (Perseus), in front Keith Burnard, Rhiannon Thornley, Melissa Thornley, Melissa Denny and Alden Denny.

 

 

 

I was a Victorian Black Widow. Sadly for a number of people, they mistook me for the superhero variety rather than the arachnid and thus venomous type. The costume wasn't elaborate, but the tragedy is that I don't sew and the great bulk of my creative impulse appears to be reserved for writing stories. It took a very long time for me to complete the pattern I'd chosen. We won't talk about the number of seams I had to rip out because I'd misunderstood a set of instructions. Nor will we discuss the blood that I may have shed from sticking myself with pins during the constuction phase.

 

 

From fabric, to half sewn objects.

To completed outfit (without accesories) to the con where the vampire and I were caught conferring about the relative merits of poisoned bites.



Join us next year for SteamCon V. The theme is Around the World. Costumes are optional, thought clothing is not, but costumes are a good portion of the fun.

One of the Dangers of Boating

A day of fishing turned deadly this past Friday. It was a clear, blue, sunny October day. Two men took their 16' aluminum boat out for a day of fishing in the water just outside of Shilshole Bay Marina. At 4pm, they were a mile or so from the breakwater when a 44' power boat collided with them. Their fishing boat capsized. Both men went into the frigid water.

One of them suffered a heart attack and could not be revived. The other man was pulled from the water and is recovering from his injuries.

I won't post the photos. Some of them can be distressing (no photos of the people - but the overturned boat being towed by the Coast Guard and the damage to the fishing boat are heartbreaking enough, especially knowing that the accident cost a man his life.) If, however, you want to understand what  kind of damage a collision like this can do, click here - this is KIRO 7's coverage - photos and video.

The investigation into what cased the collision is ongoing, so there's no point in trying to place blame. I wanted to mention this accident because when you're on the water, collisions and near collisions are far more common than you might think. Boaters have insane lists of rules for right of way. The link takes you to just one site dedicated to a summary of the rules, but allow me to boil this down.

Rule 1. Know the navigation rules and follow them.

But when that fails, see:
Rule 2. The safety of your vessel and everyone on it is your responsibility. Do whatever is necessary to avoid a collision so long as your action endangers no one else.

The School of Dad (where I learned to sail) put it this way: "You can hollar that you had right of way the entire time you're sinking."  Yes. Collisions happen. People die. In Washington State, a number of people die in boating accidents every year. Most of those accidents involve alcohol and drowning. Sometimes, it's collision and loss of boats and sometimes loss of life. There's a lot of water out there, but not so much that you can allow your attention to stray when you're at the helm.

If you're writing fiction, a collision, especially at night or in low visibility conditions (fog, rain, snow), is a perfectly valid disaster to have befall your characters. Have a look at current conditions and water temperature conditions for your region.There are places in Washington State and up into Canadian waters where the currents run so hard and fast that if someone goes in, the chances of survival are slim to none. Point of interest: Most of the water north of Washington state is warmer than it is at the Washington coast. Here's the NOAA guide for water temperature observations for most of the nation. Though, I'm linking you directly to the page for Seattle and surrounding waters. Click on the nav menu on the left to find other areas of the nation.

If you go out on the water for real, remember your life jackets, please. And remind everyone on board to help you keep watch for other vessels.

Boats and Electricity

I owe you a post about power boats - I will post it. I swear. It's a bigger subject than I'd originally thought. In the meantime, however, I bring you this: Photo of something you never, ever want to see on YOUR boat.

How to burn your boat to the waterline in one easy step: Don't check your connection to shore power on a regular (at least weekly) basis. The photo above is the result of that. If you don't want to lose the boat to fire, check your plugs! Oh. And if you *think* you smell something burning? Check the shore power connection.

Most boats have batteries. The bigger the boat, the bigger the battery bank. Cabin lights, sailing instruments and running lights all operate from the batteries. However, while boats are in dock, most of us are also hooked into shore power. This recharges the batteries, but it also allows us to run computers, our refrigerator, and anything else that requires a regular plug to operate (like heaters). Shore power connections are exposed to the elements. This isn't usually an issue - think of your outdoor holiday light displays. These plugs and the cords are designed for outdoor use and they serve reliably for years.

The problem is that when these cords fail (and they will, it's just a matter of time) they almost always fail at the BOAT end (the picture above) not on the dock end. When they fail, it's almost always in the fashion shown in the photo - heat, melting and scorching from runaway current. Boat fires can and do start this way. Yes. That picture is of our plug. Once I found this scorch, we did not plug back in - we immediately went to the marine store and bought a new shorepower plug solution called SmartPlug. (I'm not affiliated with the company in any way, shape or form - we just picked it for safety reasons that made sense to us.) We went that route because those plugs have fuses and temperature sensors. If heat builds up in the plug, the fuse trips and shuts down all current. This makes it much harder to burn down the boat.

It's amazing how I took electricity for granted until we moved aboard a boat. To a certain extent, I still do - the power just shows up ready for me to plug into at the dock stand. But the line into the boat is 100% our responsibility and there's clearly maintenance - even if it's just checking the connection from time to time - required to keep everyone and everything safe.

The nice part, if you're writing fiction, is that you now have a believable disaster that could befall your fictional boaters. (Note: I knew we had a problem because our 'Reverse Polarity' light came on in the onboard electrical panel. So if you want to rescue your boater before the boat catches fire - you can have one of them see the red Reverse Polarity light shining and question it. For the record, the rest of our electrical panel indicators are green - that one's the only red light.)

Release Day for The Hallowed Ones

Let's get the BUY link out of the way, shall we? This book is by the fabulous Laura Bickle - you may have read her other books, Embers or Sparks, or possibly Dark Oracle or Rogue Oracle.

From Amazon's description of the book:

"Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers can get a taste of the real world. But the real world comes to her in this dystopian tale with a philosophical bent. Rumors of massive unrest on the “Outside” abound. Something murderous is out there. Amish elders make a rule: No one goes outside, and no outsiders come in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man, she can’t leave him to die. She smuggles him into her family’s barn—at what cost to her community? The suspense of this vividly told, truly horrific thriller will keep the pages turning."

The writing is gorgeous, even more so when the scenes are intense and chilling. I love this book and this heroine. I hope you do, too.