Departure and the Fourth

July 3, 2013

Slipped out of Shilshole at about 10 in calm, sunny conditions and motored up Saratoga Passage until the last couple of hours. A nice breeze picked up off Camano to carry us into Utsalady Bay where we anchored off the Lemkins’ house. They kindly hosted us for dinner featuring Jeff’s slow food spaghetti sauce. In return we unloaded the last of our wine and beer oversupply.

Anchoring at Utsalady Bay.           photo by Jeff Lemkin

After dinner an onshore breeze kicked up. Launching the dinghy we waded into the waves in our thin waterproof jackets. Splashed repeatedly by adverse wind and waves, we arrived at the boat quite drenched from the waist down. Our teeth chattered as we hosed ourselves down in the cockpit. It was a reminder that we are not in warm Mexican waters any more.

July 4

The National Holiday dawned grey and calm. I dinghied to the house for crab bait and a gauge, kindly lent by Bonney. Back in the cockpit Charlie set up our workbench and extracted the power jigsaw. We still had plexiglas saved from the broken windshield caper back in ’04! I traced the gauge and cut a new one out for measuring adult male Dungeness crabs, 6 1/4 inches across the shell. Plexiglas is easy to cut but messy! It makes sandlike staticky grains.

Due to the project we arrived at the Utsalady Parade a bit late, but it didn’t matter. Half the main street residents had put out chairs and then abandoned them to stroll down the road. Many stopped to buy goodies at the Ladies’ Aid Society. Just about everybody had remembered to wear red, white and blue, even the dogs and goats. We found several Lemkin friends from Seattle including our future crew, Bill and Colene, who had kindly bought us milk. (How could I forget that??) Eventually the whole gang ended up assembling on the front law of the last waterfront house in front of an enormous flagstaff with about 7 hoists. Some local kids struggled to raise the flag. We sang the national anthem and My Country Tis of Thee and then rambled back up the street. The rest of the day involved eating again and again at the amazing, endless, Lemkin potluck, setting the crab trap and taking a nap. Luckily only females liked the chicken bait.

That night’s fireworks were the longest if not the most magnificent we’ve ever experienced. All up and down the beach families popped off colored displays that must have lit up many smiles on the neighboring reservations. We sat cuddling in the cockpit wrapped in a laprobe until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any more