This summer Gypsy spent fifteen days south of the border in addition to a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island and a couple of shorter local jaunts. Here are some disconnected observations from the log.

WHERE TO LAND AND STAY

In the US, nearly all foreshore is privately owned. All commercial and "Port of (whatever)" marinas offer four hours free moorage, allowing access to stores, shower facilities, and so on.

The most convenient places to spend the night are at the state marine parks. There are quite a few of them. A brochure showing locations is available from www.parks.wa.gov The other publication worth having is Northwest Boat Travel, which also covers BC.

Most marine parks have buoys at US$7 per night… or you can anchor free. In some cases there are also wharves to tie up to.

RADIO

I never listen to channel 16 in BC waters in the summer because of the constant and unnecessary yakkety yak ("Saltspring Marina; this Texas Ranger"). Even at Anacortes you can hear the Spirit of Vancouver Island announcing her impending passage through Active Pass; but aside from that there is hardly any CH 16 activity south of the line. Why is that? And why does BCF have such powerful VHF transmitters when the only potentially interested parties are maybe a mile or two away?

Fortunately CBC AM can be heard throughout the San Juan islands.

HAZARDS TO NAVIGATION

I saw maybe two dozen crab traps in US waters. All were marked with red and white buoys. None were in my way. They were not to be seen at all around harbour entrances. Yet there were plenty of crab. I set the trap several times and was never disappointed.

Also, I saw no logs in the water. Not one.

PORT MADISON

A shallow inlet is on the south side of this bay separating Bainbridge Island from the one to the north. Seattle Yacht Club and Port Madison Yacht Club have facilities there. Quite shallow, but lots of room to anchor. Right near the entrance is a dock which is actually private to a collection of houses but can be used for access to the shoreline for watering dogs and so on.

AGATE CANAL

By the north end of Bainbridge Island. It takes you from Port Madison to Keyport and Poulsbo. I had no trouble bucking the currents here. Half way along is a huge highway-facing neon sign encouraging the public to lose their money at the Casino operated by the Port Madison indian band.

The boundaries of the reserve lands are extraordinarily convoluted. Look at the chart. Seems that bits and pieces of the original land allocation were sold off to various parties including one better-off-than-the-rest indian. He divided what he had amongst his six sons, some of whom sold parts of their lands back to the tribe. Something like that. In any event, the boundary is hilarious.

PORT TOWNSEND

You can anchor just off the main drag which has lots of juppie shops. There is also a dock for brief stays or dinghies. To get groceries, follow Taylor St. east, up the stairs, two more blocks and then one left.

KEYPORT

… is a little town next to a US naval base. On the corner of Washington and Sate Streets is a house draped in Old Glory with a big sign declaring "One Nation Under God". The naval facility designs and makes torpedoes and mines. There is also an impressive Undersea Warfare Museum. One of the exhibits is of an air-droped mine; 75,000 of which were dropped in Haiphong Harbour. That's right,there are three zeroes in that number. August Picard's "Trieste" is among the exhibits.

The dock says there is a six hour limit for visitors. I stayed all night. The combination for the gate is 3241.

POULSBO (Honk if you are Norwegian)

Worth a visit. Originally settled by Scandinavian fisherpersons. The wooden church overlooking town has definite stavechurch lines. You see signs like Velkommen til Poulsbo and God Mat I Stabburet. The main drag is Havneveien. Here are concrete plaques in the sidewalk that announce Velkommen til Kong Harald of Dronning Sonja. Another reads Sara McClusky - I love you - John.

A new soft drink is being marketed here using the slogan Romance in a Bottle. Its name is Niagara. This is the truth.

PORT ORCHARD

This town has several large free boat launching ramps at the municipal marina, each of which has outboard engine fresh water flushing facilities. First time I've seen that.

Otherwise Port Orchard isn't much to write home about. It's very shallow.

GOVERNMENT HELP

On this side of the line I came across several community level projects sponsored by our federal government. At Winter Harbour a small building has been erected which contains the library and a public telephone. The money was supplied by the Community Economic Adjustment Initiative of Western Economic Diversification (sic), or CEAIWED. Try repeating that without peeking.

At Hope Island there is a new mile-and-a-half, sixty foot wide highway connecting the dock and a settlement of 10 or so souls. The dock is brightly illuminated all night and the highway has streetlamps, high tension line and firehydrants. Then there is the generating plant and the fuel pipe line. This project must have cost you and me quite a bit.

THE COAST GUARD

… insist on kilometres on floating signs such as buoys, but allows nautical miles on fixed signs and most other applications, but in the Fraser River they use cables for indicating distances. No, really. Listen to CH16 for announcements about the river.

A cable, by the way, is equivalent to 0.1185 nautical miles, 720 feet, 120 fathoms, or 480 biblical cubits, which as everyone is aware, is 457.9 Roman cubits or 724 Japanese kane-jaku.

MY NEW ENGINE (New to me. It's actually 14 years old)

This year I graduated from a quiet, relatively inexpensive, troublefree and almost maintenancefree outboard to a noisy diesel. Changing the oil has got to be one the messiest things I've done.

On the other hand, I love the comforting sound. The thump-thump says "Reliable. Strong. Loyal."

But, I've gotten stuck twice - once in the path of the sea-bus in Vancouver Harbour - because the flora (or is it fauna?) that grows in diesel tanks clogs the fuel filters.

Addition of a biocide to the fuel and regular filter changes are a must. Also, the algae from the ocean will clog the cooling water filter from time to time.

I didn't know these things before. But now I do.

On my boat is a large funnel with a very fine filter screen at the bottom. I have learned that when filling my fuel tanks, it pays to run the fuel through this filter. You would be amazed at some of the stuff that you intercept on its way to your fuel injectors. You heard it here first.

SPEAKING OF VANCOUVER HARBOUR

I go to Vancouver twice each summer. West Vancouver Yacht Club is one of our reciprocals. It has a nice clubhouse and there is bus-service available at the front door. It's close to Howe Sound.

In the harbour proper there is the Rowing Club, which is right in Stanley Park and just a few minutes walk from the nightlife of Denman and Robsonstrasse.

On the north side, there is Burrard Yacht Club which isn't too far from Popeye's junk marine supplies. I am always amazed at their pricing system.

But the real fun is Second Narrows Bridge with Deep Cove and Indian Arm beyond.

Call the railway bridge on CH 12 when you are ten or fifteen minutes away, and they will lift it so that you can proceed majestically through. Makes you think you're important. Well, it makes me feel that way.

Last time I was in up this way I saw a huge ocean-going yacht transporter. It was about the size of a regular 15,000 tonne ship, but the cargo hold was actually a floating drydock. While I watched, around 20 yachts, including a really big one, manoeuvred onto a submerged platform. Then the pumps were activated, the monster rose from the deep, the engines started and off it went - to Hawaii, I was told.

Well, that's enough for now.