My old college friend and I were eager to get away and forgot the daily details that usually preoccupy us. And as we slowly ghosted into Jones Island’s broad horseshoe-shaped cove, I knew we’d chosen the right spot.
An almost 200-acre state park in the San Juan Islands, Jones is an amoeba-shaped island with coves on its north and south faces. Each is framed by a pebbly beach abutted by a woodsy campground. The east and west ends of the island sport a variety of oak groves, meadows, conifer forests, and a winding trail offering breathtaking water views.
After tying up at the dock, I surveyed the scene. Nearly all the craft were trailerable, including ours. The boaters surrounding us had clearly come here to relax, just like us. But on this warm weekend in July, one thing was noticeably missing from our boat: kids. Unlike some marina destinations in the San Juans, Jones Island State Park is typically swarming with families. Today, youngsters seemed to be everywhere, like in the 22-foot aluminum fishing boat now approaching the dock. A gaggle of kids crowded the bow, camping gear cluttered the middle, and four crab traps were neatly stacked in the stern. I could sense the excitement.
My own boys are grown and having their own adventures now, so it was refreshing to sit in Luna’s cockpit, entertained by other people’s kids, with zero responsibility. Glancing toward the shore, I smiled at the sight of half a dozen 5- to 10-year-olds clambering over a rocky outcropping in pursuit of a sizable rock crab.
“Ooh, there he is! I’m going in,” yelled one boy, then hesitated before his feet touched the water.
“Did you get him?” asked a girl crouching back from the action.
“I touched him,” bragged another wader, before admitting, “but he was too fast to get.”
Here at the dock, more kids were busy: trying to pull starter cords on dinghies, hunting crabs by dangling a chicken leg into the water from a string, and climbing from rafted boat to boat. Meanwhile, the crew on the beach was now boring a large hole on the sloping beach, which filled back in with pea-sized pebbles almost as fast as they dug.
The kids seemed to be everywhere and lacking any kind of supervision. They were playing pickup soccer in a field near the picnic shelter, poking sticks in a fire, and making a seesaw out of a 20-foot driftwood log at the high-water line. Watching this unsteady contraption, I anticipated someone falling off any minute and hoped that wouldn’t happen, especially with no parents in sight.
That changed when a skiff pulled up to the dock, a stocky guy in a baseball hat at the helm.
“Who wants to go on a wood run?” he called.
With impressive speed, a bevy of kids and adults scooted aboard. In no time, I counted a dozen people on the now dangerously (to my eyes, anyway) overloaded skiff. The bow dipped, but nobody seemed concerned. Miraculously, all the kids seemed to have acquired life jackets, even if the adults were going without. With laughter and hoots of glee, the boat zipped out of the harbor, heading to some other island for the night’s ration of firewood.
Watching them lurch out of sight, I was reminded of my own free-range youth. My parents owned a fiberglass fish/ski boat, and I remember the thrill of zooming around in it and camping far from our suburban home. I recall wandering up streams and down paths into the woods, as well as fishing and collecting all manner of flotsam from the shore.
Despite starting out in motorboats, my father and I both took an interest in sailing later on. But thinking over my recent cruises, I could recall spotting only a handful of kids on sailboats. Watching the families and their motorboats at the dock, I wondered what the lack of sailing families might mean for the future of boating. Would it look more like the crowd at Jones and less like the local dinghy sailing club? Or was there another cove somewhere nearby, full of keelboats and kids in tiny Opti sailboats?
And then a boy appeared, piloting an inflatable dinghy with aluminum oars. I watched him circle the cove, testing the capabilities of his craft and himself. He looked to be about 12, intent on his rowing, and perhaps a bit solitary.
I slid my dinghy into the water and sidled up to him.
“Wanna race?” I asked.
He nodded. We maneuvered to the far end of the dock. One of his buddies called a countdown, and in a fury of splashing, we were off toward the shore. The kid looked like a windup toy, paddle-wheeling his oars. I was pushing so hard that water from my bow wake splashed onto my back. When we reached the finish line, we were both smiling (although one of us was breathing considerably harder than the other).
Later, looking through the photos someone took of our wild contest, I hoped that powering through our race imprinted something positive and unique in that kid’s mind. I wish the same for all the other children at Jones, too, whether they’re jammed in an aluminum skiff, paddling a kayak, or learning to drive a big motor cruiser.
Whether they cruise under sail and oar power like me isn’t the point; I’m excited to see them outside, without electronics in their hands, smelling the salt air, touching the tide, and hearing the birds. In this age, that’s really something to remember.
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.
