As the steward of three wooden craft, I look forward to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival as a highlight of the boating year. So I feel guilty admitting that I wasn’t there this past September. Instead, my wife, Kate, and I loaded up Luna, our 19-foot catboat, with sleeping gear, a stack of books, and plenty of food and drink. Heading down our street away from the highway and Port Townsend, I felt like I was experiencing a slower, sailor’s version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
I’d taken the second week of September off for a mini cruise. In the weeks leading up to it, my mind was spinning like a compass dial, trying to settle on a destination. Should I go to the festival, just because I had the means to drive 200 miles each way? It would be fun, I’d get to hang out with old friends; yet getting there and back would eat up a big chunk of my vacation time. Or maybe we should just go someplace more local?
A relaxing three-day cruise close to home won out.
How close to home? We started at the Columbia River, a mere eight miles from our house. Not in the scenic Columbia Gorge, or the mysterious backwaters of the estuary, but at the launch ramp near the runway at Portland International Airport. Admittedly, the industrial edge of Portland has less cachet than the Olympic Peninsula. But launching after a brief 20-minute drive meant more time on the water and the opportunity for a more immersive cruise with an increased window to do whatever we wanted.
Despite our best weather forecasting, it rained as I rigged Luna. But by the time we were ready to launch, the sky was almost clear and an unexpected breeze had filled in. The rain had done its work and the river was nearly empty of other craft, so my only concern was keeping the boat moving upriver against the ever-pushing current. Our goal was Government Island, a 2,000-acre state park straddling the Oregon/Washington border, just four miles away.
Viewed with a jaded eye, the Columbia near Portland is a monotonous stretch of houseboats, sandy islands topped with cottonwood trees, industrial docks, and marinas. We took a more accepting, Zen view. Anytime our gaze scanned upriver, there was scenery enough—majestic with a touch of lingering snow, Mt. Hood hovered in the distance. For now, we opted to regard the commercial traffic as a curiosity, and the familiarity of our own river as an opportunity to reinforce our sense of place. It felt good to be on the water, to escape the orbit of home and the pull of daily life, all with a modicum of effort.
With a four-day supply of food and water aboard, we could roam or linger as we pleased. Government Island has free, well-maintained docks that are often lightly used in the fall. As a destination, the island is close to home, yet remote from city life.
The wind held until we reached Bartlett Landing, where one of the docks is located. As expected, only a few boats were there, and one peeled away almost immediately. We tied up and sat in the cockpit, taking in the view downriver.
I watched the water flow past Luna’s transom. ‘Is it blue or silver?’ I wondered. Maybe it’s lime with a touch of muddy brown, giving way to a dull emerald? Whatever color it was, I sat there long enough to realize that the angle of the sun, combined with the reflection of the trees on the island, and the state of the tide, created a dynamic combination of hues that I was only able to observe because I’d taken the time to just sit and look.
During the next few days, we ate snacks without regard to meal time. We wandered up the beach, studying flotsam and jetsam along the shore, speculating on how a large, rusty anchor had been abandoned here, and carefully skirted an unsavory collection of beach chairs, odd junk, and a deflated raft. We watched huge barges come and go like components of an irregular clock, passing at all hours of the day and night.
In the morning, with Kate cocooned in the cabin, I drank tea in the cockpit under our tent that doubles as a bird blind (they can’t see me from above, so they fly past, unaware). A swarm of barn swallows flashed over the water, swirling upward like wisps of smoke, then alighting on the gangway. With the next bit of breeze they were off again, snapping up bugs too small to see, diving and rising through the air, then settling on the gleaming stanchion of a stout trawler farther down the dock. The swallows lingered long enough for me to glass them with my binoculars. They weren’t dull brown, as I’ve always assumed. Instead, the birds gleamed with a blueish sheen that provided contrast against their crimson cheeks and forehead. I studied the swallows, enjoying their nuanced features. That is, until the captain, noticing his stowaways, emerged from his cabin and testily shooed them away.
Life at the dock was good. With no wind and no place to be, we couldn’t think of anyplace we’d rather spend three days. Chatting with the occasional sailor, reading, noticing plants growing in the cracks of a railing, we whiled away our time, seldom making it more than a few hundred feet from the boat.
Even when a wave of gray overtook the sky, our spirits remained high. We drank tea, watched a lone seagull circle overhead, and went for a swim. When I try to remember specific incidents of the cruise, I can scarcely recall anything, other than to say it was all supremely pleasant.
As our time came to a close, I realized that, regrettably, we hadn’t seen a single other wooden boat. Yet in our own way, we had embodied Ferris Bueller’s inquiry about his day off, “The question isn’t, ‘what are we going to do?’ The question is, ‘what aren’t we going to do?’”
If cruising can be perceived as laziness, we achieved it. We made few sail adjustments, completed no chores, nor did we travel far; but we did exactly what we set out to.
Bruce Bateau sails and rows traditional boats with a modern twist in Portland, Oregon. His stories and adventures can be found at www.terrapintales.wordpress.com
