AdventuresNW
Bellingham
Before casting off, we met friends at the Cabin Tavern. It was dark and wet beyond the cold windowpane but warm and convivial around the table. Ordering at the bar, I told the bartender she wouldn’t see me for some time as I’d be sailing the Salish Sea. “Oh, that sounds great!” she said, likely picturing the summer version of sailing, with warm sun and light winds. I said, “It is great, but there’s a reason no one else is out there this time of year.” Her expression shifted as another rain-soaked patron walked in. “Oh, right,” she said, looking worried. “Be safe!”
Bedwell Harbor
It’s a lovely sunrise, breaking into blue skies, but I am wary. The forecast is for bitter cold and gales over the coming week. It’s a good day to move on, though we had hoped to stay out another week. Winter sailing requires constant readiness—things can go wrong in moments. The responsibility can feel heavy, but that’s what maximizes the joy. I always have two backup plans: checking and rechecking and, above all else, ensuring my guests are safe and comfortable. It’s been this way since I started taking boats around the Salish Sea at age 13. It’s a rush, heading out into uncertain waters. Winter out here is like turning up the volume.
Oak Harbor
I took cover here just on the inside of the floating seawall. Thirty-mile-per-hour winds were predicted. As the front bears down, though, we have sustained winds of 50 mph with gusts to 75. The docks are grinding. The wind turbine on the boat next to me began to howl and now shrieks. S/V Selkie heels over in her slip, bucking and straining at her mooring lines. The cleats could part at any moment and dash us into splinters along with the driftwood. I repeatedly don my weather gear and venture into the cockpit to check the lines, putting more fenders out, expecting disaster. Wave after wave breaks over the seawall and dashes across Selkie’s dodger and into the cockpit. No sleep. Not for me. Not for the people in the boats across the way. Headlamps bob about in the darkness as they work to save their boats. I wait for dawn to see the damage.
Rosario Strait
Captain George Vancouver said, “To describe the beauties of this region will, on some future occasion, be a very grateful task to the pen of a skillful panegyrist.” He was right: The infinity of greys. The low-angled light. The ombre of the islands to the vanishing point. Ever churning, flinty dark seas. Bedeviled by the scene, words can’t capture what it’s like to be in this moment. They only serve to take me out of it.
Carr Inlet
No one else out here. No one. Alone so much, I’ve been thinking about my first adventure buddy, Tom, who was like a brother. He was my first companion on the Salish Sea, and he’d have wanted to be here. When we were 11, we survived our first squall together in a rowboat. Now, I realize I’m seeing the beauty and experiencing the action for him, too—since he chose to leave the adventure early. He’d have had 17 more years of all this if he hadn’t done it. I wonder what we’d have discussed tonight over whisky and lamplight. It’s lonely out here tonight.
Peale Passage
Seventeen thousand five hundred years ago, the front edge of the glacier that shaped the Salish Sea came this far south but no further. It stopped right here before retreating, leaving granite boulders from Squamish littered throughout the region, piles of till, sloughing cliffs, gouged seabeds, carved sandstone formations, and endless undulating shorelines. Now, I take shelter in these coves and islands the glacier left behind. Thank you, glacier. Good things take time.
Cypress Island
People have used this beach for thousands of years: eating, drinking, laughing, playing music while pulling their sweetheart close as the night chill creeps in at the fire’s edge. Generations have, like us, shared the same stars and same sun, while Raven, Heron, and Eagle perch on the rocks and trees around us. Seemingly consequential and historical changes have happened over millennia, but what provides our primary satisfactions doesn’t change and never will.
Job Posting
Needed: Salish Sea Watcher. Help keep countless opportunities of breathtaking beauty and moments of stunning evolutionary magic from going unappreciated. Job requires a quiet mind, an open heart, and willingness to fully utilize any of all five senses. People with disabilities, current troubles, past traumas, broken hearts, and consternation issues encouraged to apply. Training provided by team in supportive atmosphere. Excellent entry-level position, though those with experience will be considered. Generous compensation packages available to candidates willing to dedicate themselves. Please submit your application here, now, as opportunities are unlimited.
Chuckanut Coast
The sea breathes in tides. Big, long breaths twice a day. I watched her in-breath this morning as she filled her bays and estuaries. At sunset, she breathed out, sending her waters toward the ocean. During the night, she turned and filled again. It has been this way. It is this way. It will remain this way. We can fight it if we want, though it takes a lot of energy, and there’s little to show for it if you do. Kayakers and sailors know that well. Pay close attention to the flow of the currents and eddies as they dance among the islands, shores, and shoals. When we pay attention, traveling through gets much easier and kinder.
Portland Island
Walking the shores and forests here, we came across a long-ago harvested cedar tree, its bark peeled in a long strip. Cedarbark can be used for all manner of things, from rope and netting to clothing and baskets. People have a good friend in the cedar.
Liberty Bay
On the Fourth of July, Liberty Bay is packed! But today, Selkie and I are alone at Poulsbo’s guest docks, enjoying a well-deserved rest after a long day’s exploration of Dyes Inlet and a spicy sail from Bremerton. She and I were ecstatic with the driving rain and winds behind us. A needed resupply had me walking up to the big box stores and mini-malls by the highway. Like so many other towns along the Salish Sea, Poulsbo only has restaurants and gift shops on its waterfront now—the vestiges of their original business districts when the front of the town was at the docks. In the 20th century, each town turned to face the highway. After a day in the Wild, navigating four-lane roads and the aisles of a mammoth Safeway felt jarring. I happily returned to Selkie and look forward to casting off in the morning to catch the slack water in Agate Passage.
South Sound
When the English, Spanish, and Americans first explored and charted the Salish Sea, they sailed ships that could barely point to wind, had no engines, no depth finders, no weather reports, no current charts, and were all in competition with one another for furs, naming rights, staking claims on who should own what, and ridiculous orders and expectations from their superiors. They hit reefs, were becalmed for days, went aground, died of scurvy, were shot to and fro by currents, and lost rank for difficulties beyond their control, all while far from home on a voyage they had a good chance not to survive. The indigenous people must have watched in wonder at this strange mix of incompetence and power.
Hope Island
On this little voyage of mine, I’ve never felt closer to the explorers than tonight, moored here after a strong wind blew me too close to shore on a minus-two tide. My depth finder showed that I had very little water beneath my keel. For hours, I did what I could to readjust my position, predict how low the tide would go, and where Selkie would swing as the wind grew stronger. The waves crashed louder and ever nearer to me on the lee shore. I created a lead line, just like the explorers used to measure the water below their vessels, so that I could check the accuracy of my depth finder. As I pulled the lead line in and considered my narrowing options, the wind and the tide turned, and now, all is well.
Strait of Juan de Fuca
We crossed today on a 25-mile sail in good winds. Entering Rosario Strait was exciting as we had a consistent and strong blow against an ebb tide. We passed Watmough Bay on Lopez Island, where, on June 10, 1792, a Spanish expedition set up a telescope and observed the transit of one of Jupiter’s moons to aid them in locating their latitude. That day was much warmer than the 40 degrees we had just experienced on this crossing. The following day, the men complained of the heat—98 degrees. I am thrilled by the expedition’s descriptions of tacks, wind direction, and observations of the original inhabitants. We will follow their course home to Bellingham through the Guemes Channel tomorrow. To an observer, I’ll be standing in the cockpit dealing with lines and such, chatting amiably with my companion, but inside, I’ll be in reverie, imagining a different time, as the Spanish, so far from home, traded with The People who came by canoe to their ship—dried clams strung on cedar bark in exchange for metal buttons—and by day’s end go aground while anchored in Bellingham Bay.
Salt Spring Island
We came across a midden yesterday. It is likely the result of 3000 years of clam bakes and clam processing on a wide beach facing the south, made up of stacks of shells in a low bluff above the beach. That’s about 100 generations of The People. I sketched it today while my companion read aloud from a charmingly outdated post-war sea novel as the wind howled outside. I drank a cup of broth and enjoyed being dry and warm inside the boat while I let my imagination run wild. I would have liked to have known these early residents of the beaches, the first of whom emerged from a clamshell into the world, according to the Haida.
Stuart Island
I want to say a few encouraging words about reading aloud to one another. Nights are long, and the weather often demands we stay in. Streaming video and social media are always right there to fill the time, but they are thin compared to reading aloud with your people. It brings you together into a warm, entertaining embrace that feeds you food you forgot you needed. It’s not unlike telling stories around the fire. People can draw, knit, play with Legos, and do all manner of things while someone reads. I can hear my mother’s voice reading countless books to me. It’s in my bones. My son and daughter know my voice in this way, too. It’s a memory that stitches us together as we share the power of story. It is easy to forget this powerful, primary way of circling up and being close. If it’s been a while, consider giving it a try on these dark, cold evenings. You might, like me, re-discover something we lost along the way.
Rosario Strait
The Irish blessing, ‘May the wind be always at your back,’ was made true over the last few days. Riding the current north throughout the morning and early afternoon has been welcome as we head closer to home. Winter rains have added to the transcendent brooding grey-shaded wash we’ve been taking and make the warmth of food, drink, and heat in Selkie’s cabin all the sweeter afterward. We seek comfort, and understandably so, but enjoying those comforts too much and too often may well be more dangerous than a winter passage across cold, rough waters. I’m going to miss the excitement.
Peter Frazier grew up on Chuckanut Bay, where he still lives today. After a career in communications, design, and hospitality, he works with others to build a resilient, thriving Whatcom County. Besides family and friends and the people of the PNW, being on the Salish Sea matters most to him.
