Attention on deck: They're off. Really.

When the shore feels like Velcro: Last year Karen waxed poetic about sailing off into the briny blue, the vasty deep, the billowy acres etc, but this year after all the delays, the latest one being a little bout of food poisoning for Jim, we are just grateful to be going out to busta wave. So we will keep in touch periodically as civilized towns with wi-fi cafes present themselves, but our intent is to get good and lost in the wild again. Here's a little free-verse poem. Happy Spring.

Our boat's green bow is a plow.

The slippery sea-loam chuckles,
delighted to be cleaved
and tossed aside all a-shimmer, tickled
that the crop it raised
on this sunny, wind-scudded day
is quiet joy.


How do you like our new look for Sockdolager? (kidding, kidding.) This is the Lady Washington during her "battle sail" with the Hawaiian Chieftain in Port Townsend Bay last week. Cannon fire, hearty huzzahs and piratical utterances of "Arrrrgh!" were the order of the day. It's very cool to be outnumbered by square-rigged ships bent on each others' mock destruction. Cannon fire was fun and deafening.

Here's another view of the sails and rigging close up.

And for comparison, here's our rig. 3 sails. Simple, huh?


Jim is hooked on fishing. Beyond redemption, actually. Last summer he invented a new technique. I am not making this up. With an expert flick of his wrist he managed to hook a salmon rig onto the out-of-reach float line of our crab trap and drag it to the boat where, viola! we pulled it in. We must have saved 100 calories on that one. In the session pictured below, he managed to catch one pillowfish, a LAMPrey, and a WALLeye. We're gonna eat gooooood this summer.

Actually, Jim is just winding up some 130-lb test fishing line on his hew herkin' rig, which replaces the old, nice, civilized, more delicate rig that had a puny 40 lb test line. After hooking Codzilla two weeks ago and watching the entire boat being held still in a current, (see below) we ain't takin any more chances. Not nohow, uh-uh. Next fish lands in the oven. Note the prehensile toes. Very handy for clinging to the boat.