The plane was half an hour late. Normally, I wouldn't care---planes are like buses, they're always late anyway. But the plane was due to arrive at 8:40, I hadn't had dinner, and I was hungry as hell. Stepping out into the Seattle airport, searching the sea of faces for her. No one. Oh well, to the baggage claim I go, and then I see her. We beam at each other and hug. How are you doing? Oh, I always forget how good a friend she is. Ever since we met in 1995, first on the net, and then in Scotland, we had been in touch, and have even made a long tour together with Radek. We go to dinner and bitch about our respective problems.

In the morning, I try to gather a crowd for lunch. It's been more than a year since I last was in Seattle, and this is my last chance to see most of them, as I don't really expect to have the energy to see them after the sailing trip, and the last lunch before my flight was already pre-booked. I call various people in rotation, and eventually get through to some of them. Carol, Peter, and Przemek all agree to meet at the Jitterbug for a brunch. I had to call Larry at his cousin's place, to tell him to drop by at 4:30, and Scarlet eventually succeeded in reaching Lea to ask her to meet us for breakfast to decide on provisioning.

We arrive a little early, but Peter was already there. His Dad was visiting so he couldn't stay, and we talked a bit. Peter now has a girlfriend, Nina, who was the National Track pursuit champion. A good match for Peter. Peter had taken a break from racing, however, since when he stopped racing he decided he didn't miss it. Maybe it's just as well, since his NSF fellowship was running out, and he was looking to get out of graduate school as soon as he could, a good idea under any circumstances. Peter looked really good, though, and seemed very pleased.

Peter left, and while waiting for others, Lea, Scarlet and I talked about provisioning. Or rather, Lea and Scarlet talked about provisioning and I kibitzed. I'm not much qualified to talk about provisioning, but the plan looked good to me. You always end up with too much food, but as someone once said, if you ate everything you brought, you didn't bring enough.

Then Carol showed up, looking good and spiffy. She seemed to be enjoying her new job. Carol and I used to be roommates back in 1991, along with Debbie. I was the nerd, Debbie was the business woman, and Carol was the laid back one who always did papers at the last minute and got straight As. Which meant that Carol was smarter than any of us. But she was one of the few roommates I kept in touch with over the years, and worked in the public sector, which meant that she and Scarlet knew people in common. Przemek was my classmate from graduate school, and he looked like he was doing well too, though he seemed a bit sensitive when I asked him when he was going to graduate. "One does not ask a fifth year student when he's going to be finished. He's always so close and yet so far." There but the grace of God, go I.

Brunch was pleasant, with the sort of bantering and cheerful noise-making once expects from old friends, except that while everyone at lunch knew me, they didn't know each other. Yet there weren't the sort of awkward silences that one might expect. I was pleased. Every time I visit Seattle and see these few people I find myself thinking, "I need to visit more often."

I was sad when it came time to break the party up, but we had things to do. Scarlet took me to see her new love, a Rivendell Road bike she had just bought. It was gorgeous, very pretty, and elegant. We picked out some handlebar tape for it, and asked for the Simplex deraileur to be put on it. A pretty deraileur for a pretty bike. And then back to the house to meet Lea and start provisioning. We visited Trader Joe. I'd met Lea (for Eleanor) more than a year ago, when I was visiting Scarlet after a business trip. When I first arrived at the house, Scarlet was not there, but Lea arrived on a bike soon after I did, and we had a minor little chat. I didn't know much about her, other than that she was a medical student who had done a lot of travel in Africa, but I found her pleasant in my short interaction with her.

Lea's high spirits, though, were infectious. After loading provisions into the car, she grabbed the shopping cart, and skated it, skate-board fashion back to the cart accumulation area. "Whee!" She cried. I looked at Scarlet and said, "This is going to be a great trip!" More shopping, and then back to the house, where we waited for Larry to show up. When he was dropped off by Cedric, we got a good look at Cedric. Cedric's about 7 feet tall. Larry's 6 feet 3 inches. Larry is a great landmark if you're lost and looking to get back with your friends. But Cedric towered over him. Cedric had mentioned the possibility of joining us on this trip, but we really didn't have room for him on a 30 foot boat. Maybe next time, when we get a much larger boat.

We all sat down and got to know each other's passport. Lea's passport was fantastic, filled with places she'd been to. A veritable history. Mine was pretty new, and had only a couple of stamps in it from reentering the USA from Canada and France. Scarlet bemoaned her lack of stamps.

We went over to a boating supplies store, and then a party, where we met some of Scarlet's co-workers. One of them was moving to anchorage pretty soon, and Scarlet was missing her already. But all too soon we had to leave, as we had to get up at 5:30 the next morning to be at Anacortes in time for the briefing.

Getting up that early, especially to drive 90 miles to Anacortes, is always a problem, but we had preloaded the cars the night before, and Scarlet was very familiar with the route. I could have tried to sleep in the car, but decided to talk the drive away with Scarlet instead. I was happy with this crew. Everyone had boating experience (and indeed, Scarlet had more experience than I did, though she was without certification), Larry had sailed with me countless times, and my recent practice had me if not polished, at least confident that I could get out of most situations in one piece. Lea was closer to a wildcard, but so far her enthusiasm was a delight to behold.

The skipper's briefing started ominously, with a series of pictures about beached boats, looking all the sorrier for being out of the water. Then a litany of dangerous places, and places to watch out for. If they'd given this talk before we paid up I might have gotten scared off. Well, I reasoned to myself, sailing is supposed to be the safest sport, bar none.

Then it was checkout time. We walked down to the boat, called The Healer (a Beneteau305), after using the rest rooms, and were greeted by Butch Cassidy (no kidding, that was his real name!), who gave us an overview of the ship's systems, capacity, quirks, and locations of various items. What we had to do then was to take the boat out, take it around the block so-to-speak, and bring it back safely to the slip before he would turn the boat over to us. This was the moment of truth, since we were all up since 5:00am, and he mentioned darkly that he had failed someone the week before. What the heck, two weeks before, I had checked out a similar vessel, and docked and undocked her repeatedly until Sam, Larry, and Sam's girlfriend was quite sick of it. So I gathered the crew, gave them directions about getting on and off the boat, how to stop the boat, and how jumping off the boat in a docking situation was sternly discouraged. We disengaged the power cord, stowed it, I started the engine put the boat in reverse, and off we went. I wasn't in a hurry and took things slowly, as is my wont on a new boat. She handled really well, without noticeable prop walk, unusual in a sailboat. Most sailboats swing in a particular direction in reverse, since the torque of the propeller usually meant that the boat only wanted to turn one way. This boat had a prop walk, but it was very mild, and once I put the boat in neutral, I could actually control which way the boat would go in reverse. Impressive.

We must have impressed Butch, since he let us have the boat without much thought, and then we simply loaded the boat. We then proceeded to load up the boat with our provisions, which suddenly made the thirty foot boat look a lot smaller than we thought it would. By the time we were done we were all exhausted and hungry, but there were still a few things left to buy: propane, a crabbing license (since Scarlet wanted to try hunting them) and lunch. We were hungry enough to eat at Burger King (which Larry had never been to before), went back to the boat, tied the dinghy to the stern, and started on our way.

The start of a trip (for me), is always filled with anticipation, disbelief (at having gotten away from work, and at the complete crew), and joy at being outside again. I don't understand people who don't take vacations to places they've never been to before, or have never tried something adventurous on a vacation. How can you not do that? It was a hot, clear day, and I was eager to get the sails up, so as soon as I felt a light breeze blowing and identifier the surrounds, I asked for the sails to go up. The Healer sailed like a dream, handling so much better under sail than under power, even in a light wind, that I was delighted. We handed the tiller around so everyone could rave about it.

Once out onto the Rosario Straits, however, the wind died, forcing us to turn on the motor and power through into the Islands. As we neared Friday harbor, the winds came back again and we tried sailing again, though at this time it was getting late. We also tried using the VHF to radio Friday Harbor, but found that the VHF simply did not reach. Calling Friday Harbor on the cell phone didn't work, since the Harbormaster would not take reservations over the phone. By the time we called again it was too late and the operator told us to just raft up against boats on the breakwater.

Coming into the harbor was interesting, and we came up against a beautiful boat called the Jolly Dragon, and asked if we could raft up. The owner stared at us, and said, there's space right behind me, why don't you just tie up there? Oh, we were told that it was full, so we thought this was illegal--don't worry, those guys just left a minute ago. So I turned the boat around and he helped to tie us up. After we were secure, I went down to tie-up our spring-line and thank the skipper of the Jolly Dragon, and he helped us again, by demonstrating his expertise with spring-lines.

Dinner was burritos with black-beans, chilies, and some other stuff that I forgot. I was so hungry that I just inhaled the food without tasting it. It sure was good, though.

I woke up in the Salon, saw that Larry was up, gathered my things and walked down to the lavatories to wake up and take a shower. On the way, I paid for the parking on the breakwater ($21.50, at 75 cents a foot). This gave me a chance to explore Friday Harbor at 7:30, and look around. After I was done, I came back to the boat. By this time, Lea was up, and Larry was walking off to do what I just did. I talked to the Jolly Dragon's skipper again, and asked him on pointers as to where to go, what to do, and how to go about doing it. He dragged out a huge map, and proceeded to tell me about the wonders of the San Juan islands, the windless nature of the place, the choicest harbors and places to drop anchor, and lots of other stuff which I promptly forgot. He told me that our intention to sail straight to Sidney was too aggressive, and I surmised from that that on a sailboat as with everything else, less was more.

Breakfast then, was a matter of poring over similar charts with my crew, and discussing possible destinations. We settled on Reid harbor for the night, with the intention of sailing to Sidney the next day. That gave us plenty of time to go to the Whale Museum, which was on Larry and Lea's "to-do" list for the day. We all headed there as soon as we locked up the boat, and proceeded to enjoy ourselves in the small museum. All throughout, I wondered if we'd get a chance to see these creatures, as adapted to sound as we are to light, yet so like us that they have to surface to breathe, and live as long as we do even in the wild.

I bought a few postcards, and was about to buy stamps when I realized how given that the next stop was Sidney, Canada, there wasn't much point. Hence we bought some food, and went back to the boat. We first motored out to the fuel dock to gas up ($2 in diesel), and then asked around for a pump-out station to pump out our holding tank. Having found one, we proceeded to power up to it only find it occupied. We docked nearby, filled the boat up with water, and then worked our way back to the pump out station. Pumping out is theoretically a simple process. You open the waste fitting, set the valves to direct the holding tanks to the waste fitting, hook up the waste fitting, turn on the vacuum, and off it goes. When done, turn off the vacuum pump, pull out the waste fitting, close everything off. There was only one minor catch: none of us had done this before.

So there was much confusion and debate over what the right way to do this was, whether it was working, and how to go about doing this. Another boat pulled up and waited impatiently to use the pump-out station. Well, under pressure and in confusion, the hose came off from the deck fitting. The result: Scarlet, Lea, and I got splattered by sewage, with Lea getting the worst of it. "Thanks, I needed that!" I said. "Quit whining, Piaw, Lea got the worst of it." The boat that was waiting was suddenly no longer so impatient. Back to the water hose dock, Lea wiped off and the three of us prepared to take a shower. One of the few times when you could have said to us, "You smell like shit" and be literally right. EW!

After my shower, I came back and got between Larry and I, started hosing off the boat. When the crew was back on board, we cast off and headed away from Friday Harbor, away from unpleasant memories, and total embarrassment. I needed to keep the engine running for a bit to recharge the batteries, so I asked for music to be turned up, and headed north, towards Reid Harbor on Stuart island. After an hour, we raised the sails, and once again traveled the ways of the wind. Except there wasn't much wind. But as Butch Cassidy said to us, "Motor boats just want to get somewhere. Sailboats are already there."

The crew of The Healer

We sailed gamely for a good two hours before finally running completely out of wind and turning on the power. Travelling into Reid harbor, we were amazed by the quietness and how sheltered the place was. It looked calm--and also incredibly crowded. All the mooring buoys were taken, forcing us to use our anchor. I picked a place that looked good, free and clear of other boats with enough room to swing around on a three to one scope. As tightly packed as the place was, there was no way we were going to be able to do the regulatory seven to one scope. Some of the other boats had chain going straight down from the boat, and if the waters weren't as calm as they were, would have made me quite nervous.

Anchoring was uneventful, compared to the other events of the day. We secured the anchor, watched awhile to make sure we weren't drifting in an alarming fashion, and Scarlet proceeded to barbecue up some hotdogs for us. Having skipped lunch and just munched on snacks all day, we were all quite hungry and eager. Dinner was over just as dusk set, and we sat out on deck chatting, watching the stars for meteor showers (Scarlet saw a few, I saw one) and generally passed the time. I had brought a few novels along with me on my Palm Pilot, but who was going to read when one had friends to talk to, and a beautiful quiet harbor to look at? Well, ok, and the fact that one is nervous about the anchor and possible collisions with other boats in the night. We took the precautions of putting fenders out along the boat. I asked Larry if he was comfortable sleeping on the boat (I had brought a tent so we could row ashore if he wasn't) and he said it seemed so calm he'd like to try it.

Larry seems to be good at getting up early. At least, I haven't managed to get up earlier than him yet. I wasn't particularly trying, but one can't help notice things like that. This is not a bad dynamic, since Radek and I have a tendency to egg each other into getting up later and later. Once up, I run around the boat checking the lines and checking our relationship to the surrounding boats. Things are incredibly quiet, and though the sun is high, it is not high enough to start peaking out over the mountains. Well, I have a bag full of camera equipment, and a tripod. Let's see if anyone else wants to go ashore. Lea is awake, and I ask her if she wants to go ashore. Larry seems pleased by the idea. Scarlet wakes up and when told of the plan galvanizes into action.

Larry and Scarlet get into the dinghy, and I finally get on it. The camera bag isn't quite waterproof, but the dinghy doesn't appear to get wet enough to penetrate, so I take the risk. Larry starts paddling the boat towards the shore, with Scarlet giving him directions. I sit there feeling redundant. We take a couple of false turns while Larry gets the hang of it, and head towards shore. As we approach, Scarlet gets off the boat and pulls us in. We all get off and Scarlet ties the boat. The tide is rising, but we don't plan to be ashore that long. We have walkie-talkies with us so we can communicate with Lea, who has elected to stay with the boat. Stuart Island has steep slopes where Reid harbor is, and the first minutes are spent struggling to climb up to a suitable vantage point. The light doesn't look great, nor are the views, but I set up my tripod anyway to take a few pictures. While I was taking pictures, Scarlet and Larry found a trail. We follow along the trail, coming up against a tiny beach (complete with litter, which Larry picked up), and then the trail cuts across the island into the other harbor. Fascinating. Following the trail brings us to private property, the end of the marine park.

Not much to do now but to return to the boat. A quick breakfast of bread and jam. I describe the procedure by which we shall weigh anchor, complete with protocols. Every time I've weighed anchor it's been an incredibly hard thing. But the anchor on this boat is a Bruce anchor, a different design than the usual Danforth anchors that I frequently see on other boats. Bruce anchors are designed to be easier to raise than Danforths, had good holding power even under relatively little scope, but had the disadvantage that the anchor could drag more easily if not dug in well. Once we're all above deck, I show Larry how to yank on the line, and how easy it is to do it by hand initially. I went back to start the engine in preparation for weighing anchor. Larry must have hauled the line in at a ferocious rate, because the next thing I heard, the line was all on deck and there was only anchor left. The three crew grabbed the line simultaneously and hauled on it, and then I heard the clink of chain on the boat. Pretty soon after that I heard "anchor's aweigh" and kicked the boat into reverse gently. The anchor was hauled up and placed on the bow spit, and away we went. "Is there anything for us to do?" someone said after washing the anchor and chain off. "Not that I can think of." I gave the tiller to Lea and went forward to look. Oh yeah, it might be a nice thing to tie the anchor down so it didn't slide off, and here's the line I untied yesterday that was for that. I tied a bowline and went back to take the tiller.

We motored out of Reid Harbor at 9:30. Once out into the straits we headed towards Vancouver Island and Sidney. The sails went up, and the winds, though feeble, tugged us along at a gentle rate. I was confident of hitting Sidney by 12:00pm. Well, I'd always wanted to know what it was like to get towed in the dinghy while the boat was under sail, so I handed the tiller over to Lea and climbed into the dinghy. A couple of knots feels really slow aboard The Healer, but from a smaller vessel, the boat feels mighty fast. There was some bantering about how the crew could untie me so I could row to Sidney, but after staring a bit at the transom of The Healer, I got bored at the situation really quickly and went back aboard.

Once across the border, it was legal to dump the contents of the holding tanks overboard, so we proceeded to do so to avoid another accident at a pump-out station. Ah, the donations of nitrogen from American vessels into Canada must be amazing. Naturally, as we approached land the wind died down again. We puttered around for a bit, and then I gave in to the inevitable and turned the engine back on. This was getting to be a bad habit.

We tried to raise Sidney harbor via the VHF, but succeeded only in confirming that our VHF was mostly broken. I looked at a few pictures of the marina which Larry had kindly found in the chart kit, and proceeded towards the marina entrance while Scarlet and Lea tried to hail the marina, to no avail. It wasn't until another boat helped to relay for us that we could get through, and even then we were breaking up. Oh well. We furled the jib and powered into Sidney port marina, right into a queue of waiting ships. Everyone was crossing customs today, it felt like, and we had to line up for the customs slip. While we were waiting the boat ahead of us started backing up. Great. We had to backup but unfortunately the main was still up, catching enough wind to drift us sideways and I had to turn the boat tightly around to avoid hitting other boats. The crew scrambled to bring the main down afterwards, but the incident still left me sweating.

At last, a customs slip cleared up, and we docked the boat. I got off with the boat information and walked up into the customs dock. No customs official in sight, but two poles with telecommunications devices on them. I walked up to the open one and spoke, but that resulted in my voice booming over loudspeakers. Oops. I guess it's the one with the line behind it. I stood in line and waited for my turn, and then was connected to a pleasant-sounding female voice on the line. I gave her information as she asked for it, and in return she gave me a customs clearance number, which I was to write down on a piece of paper and paste to the windshield. "That's all?" "Yep, that's all, and have a great day." I could deal with this. What a far cry from getting my panniers searched during my first bike tour. I guess sailors are supposed to be rich and therefore not looking for trouble.

I then got a dock assignment, and we headed off to dock. Sidney port marina, now that we had a chance to look around, was an exceptionally clean port, at least, judging by our American standards. As we powered towards our slip, everything felt clean and under control. We were therefore non-too-surprised to find a dock boy at our slip waiting for us to hand him our lines as he pulled us in. Amazing. Once docked, we ran around getting things together as we prepared to disembark. Lea chatted to the dock boy as I dock a picture of him. Pretty soon, we were locked up and prepared to head off to our first stop--the rest rooms. I was out of the rest rooms before everyone, and hence took the opportunity to pay for our dock space as well as get tokens for our showers (C$40 total). While so engaged, I also heard that at Sidney port marina, the dock boys deal with the pump out, rather than the clients. Full-service indeed, though there was a price attached. If only we had known! I got a bus schedule, directions on how to get to the bus station, and then proceeded out, where the others were waiting. Given the arrangements of the bus schedule and the timing, we decided to see the Buchart Gardens first.

A quick lunch (though not quick enough, as we missed the bus), and then we spent an hour waiting at the bus. I took the opportunity to write and mail off some postcards. Once on the bus, we chatted about advertising, Thieves & Kings, and various other literary art forms. At the Buchart gardens, we paid for the entrance and proceeded to the flowers. I've been to the gardens twice before, and not being a flower kind of person, would have been bored on the third time. However, I had my camera and a macro lens. So I played photographer instead. Larry took his time walking around jotting notes. Scarlet checked off flowers from a brochure, indicating which ones we had identified. Lea took great pleasure in managing to photograph Larry and I while playing our respective roles.

It had turned into an incredibly hot day, and the crowds did not help. But we eventually made it into the Japanese garden, a good place for us to take Totoro pictures, much to the amusement of some other guests. Near the end of the day, after the tripod had been folded up and I was quite finished, we split up to perform our respective duties: gift shopping, flower identification, and postcard writing. We had determined to go to Victoria for dinner, since Victoria in the evening was quite a sight, and not to be missed. Besides, Scarlet and Lea wanted to look at the Empress Hotel and see if they wanted to have high tea there, which was apparently quite the thing to do.

We barely caught the bus, and it turned out to be a very long ride. By the time we were in the city, it was dusk. We were also a little too tired to talk, though the houses and passing scenery was interesting. I had ridden this whole area before, but didn't remember much, since your perspective is so different on a bus, and besides, that was five years ago. One thing I remembered, though was two girls getting on the bus and managing to get away with riding it for free by essentially staring down the bus driver.

We were all starving by the time we got off the bus. Looking around didn't yield much by way of restaurants, but there was a promising looking pub nearby, so we opted for that. It turned out to be a very good meal, though we were very tired and crabby at the end of it. "Wow, I'm pretty zapped. I've been up 14 hours." "So has the rest of us, Piaw, stop thinking only of your own martyrdom." Well, I guess I wasn't going win any sympathy from this crowd. We found out from the waitress where the bus-stop was for the bus back into Sidney, and then proceeded to walk out into the warm night. Crowds were all on the streets. There was some kind of street show going on near the inner harbor; someone was making fun of the passers-by. The Empress Hotel and the Capitol building were both lit up in all their pomp and glory, and rickshaw drivers were carrying clients and standing in the night in their T-shirts and shorts, looking cool and collected. The others went into the Empress Hotel to scout while I took photographs and took in the scene. It's been too long since I was here last.

After awhile the others came back out. They looked around too, and then we decided to head to the bus stop so as not to miss the next bus to Sidney. The return trip was quiet, almost dull, though the bus was packed and it looked like most of the people on the bus were going to Sidney. When we finally got to Sidney, we were all quiet and subdued, and walking into a silent town and marina late at night gave us an eerie feeling, as though all of humanity had deserted us. Until we ran into a security guard at the marina, that is. Larry and I decided to take showers while the restrooms were deserted, and after that we went quickly to sleep.

The morning came sooner than I anticipated. Well, it always does, but by the time I was awake it was 7:30, and both Lea and Larry were up. Scarlet then woke up and we had our discussion on trip planning. Too many nice guys and gals on a boat makes for an indecisive vessel. We eventually pinned down our ideas, however, and decided that on our last night, we needed to be close to the mainland, off of Orcas Island so we could return the boat on time. That essentially meant that the next two nights should be in U.S. waters, which demanded that we be in Roche Harbor that night to clear customs. The intervening night would be spent at Sucia island, which had come highly recommended by other sailors. This decision meant that Scarlet and Lea had to give up the idea of having High Tea at the Empress Hotel today, and I would have to give up the idea of being at Ganges Harbor, spending another day in Canadian waters. There was also a questionable idea of being away from supplies for two nights, but with conservative use of water, gas, and electricity, we could probably make it with no discomfort.

Both the women headed for the showers, while Larry and I worked on getting the boat's water tanks filled up. Given that we were going to be in Roche Harbor tonight, this wasn't strictly necessary, but we had spent last night anchored out, which left the water bladder depleted. That we had water bladder instead of tanks meant one inconvenience: we had to bleed the bladder of air as we filled it with water, which meant that someone had to be below decks giving the bladder a little burp once in a while to ensure that air bubbles did not get trapped in the bladder and reduce the capacity of the boat's holding bladder.

We then met up with the others and agreed to meet at the breakfast place, a diner in central Sidney. It was a slow breakfast, in a relaxed community. Lea marveled at the fact that they served tea hot in a pot. "It's the right way to make tea," she exclaimed. Breakfast over, we bought some groceries and then headed back to the boat.

The slip was tight, with the wooden dock on one side, and stone shore on the other side and not much room to turn around. This was going to be a hard one to pull off, I thought. Well, time to get the show on the road. We disconnected the electrical cord, and I started up the engine. The boat was hand pushed backwards to clear the boat ahead of us, and then I kicked her in reverse. This was going to be just like a three point turn, only boats can't really turn on a dime, and there are crowds watching. To sink my boat in front of tourists out to see Mt. Baker out over the San Juan islands was exactly what I signed up to skipper this boat for. The boat inched ahead slowly as I pulled her to the left. Then as she headed right for the rocks I pulled her back towards the dock. Hey, this is working. Then I tried to turn her to the left again, but the stern kicked backwards from the inertia of the turn. Good grief I can touch the rocks, that's how close we were. Nothing to do now but to rev the engine and give her the full thrust forward. Wee! Out from the rocks. The Healer sails another day! It wasn't until two days later that Scarlet and Lea told me that had actually heard a scraping sound from the bottom of the hull as I pulled her forward and away from the rocks. Thank goodness I hadn't heard that, because powering out of that situation was exactly the right thing to do.

We putted slowly out of the harbor, and then headed away from the nice clean marina that we had spent a night in. I headed the boat South, and then asked for sails to be put up, so we could sail in the light wind. We had a full charge on our batteries, I was happy, the mountain was out, and I wanted to see the rest of Sidney spit. So we made our way slowly South. On the chart, there were a couple of islands south of Sidney island, D'Arcy and Little D'Arcy. To our right was James Island.. Between Sidney island and D'Arcy island was a passage known as the Hughes passage. That indicated that the passage was navigable, yet it was marked with rocks. The wind slowly died down and we were forced to motor along a bit until we came in sight of D'Arcy, where we could sail again, albeit nominally. From where we were, the rocks looked foreboding. We debated about the wisdom of attempting to sail the Hughes passage. On the one hand, the ominous radio was giving us information about others we had floundered or ran aground (and given the feeble VHF we had on board, that meant that the ones involved were fairly close). On the other hand, Roche Harbor was to the North of us, and I did not relish going further South than necessary. As we got further South, the Hughes passage looked less and less dangerous and more and more appealing. What the heck, I had already survived one narrow scrape today, so I decided to try the passage.

We came about. And then again. And again, each time inching along the passage. And then the rocks were behind us and I could fall off a bit. Hooray! Of course, the wind died just then, but as Larry said, we had a proof of concept. I pushed the boat on the engine past Wymond Point and then Hamley point, and then we could sail again. What a difference a day makes. Light winds yesterday on the Haro Strait, but today, the wind was steady, if not strong, and the tide was in our favor. My hand-held GPS read 6 knots to the boat sensor's 3. Sailing downwind, the crew was relaxed, with Scarlet reading, Larry writing, and Lea occasionally spelling me on the tiller In less than two hours we were off of Henry island, well within U.S. waters, and heading North towards Battleship island, the gateway to the harbor.

We rounded Battleship harbor and prepared to start the engine. I ordered the sails furled and dropped, not wanting another incident like yesterday, and powered into the harbor according to our charts. Pretty soon, Roche harbor was apparent. As we neared the harbor we could see the customs dock clearly marked, and maneuvered to come up against it. A man in a blue uniform with a cap came up to help us dock. He turned out to be the customs official. He was the oldest looking customs official I had ever met, but he was friendly. He patted me on the back, chatted with the crew, and asked everyone if they had had a good time in Canada. I then came ashore with him with my materials and he checked me in through his computer, asking me for my driver's license, which I led him back to the boat to see. He gave me a customs receipt after that, and waved us along.

I radioed Roche Harbor and asked for a slip for the night, and Roche Harbor came back loud and clear. We were assigned a slip in due course, and arrived at it to find it already occupied by another boat. The dock boys came up, however, and assured that it was standard operating procedure to double-park us. "I hope we get a discount!" said Scarlet, a little miffed. We docked the boat with little incident (though the dock boys certainly had to help us cancel out the forward momentum as we came in), and then proceeded to try to wrangle a power cord out of the harbor administration. I went off to try to work through the administration, and finally found the harbormaster office right next to the customs office (no wonder that bloody VHF came through loud and clear!). But by then they had already taken care of The Healer, so there was nothing to do but to get back to the boat. When I got there, Scarlet had gone ashore, and Lea had taken the dinghy to explore the dinghy experience.

I went ashore to use the restrooms, and then came back to find Lea and the dinghy had returned. I asked her if she was interested in helping me look for the fuel dock via the dinghy. No problem, she said. We got into the dinghy and rowed along. Rowing the dinghy is an interesting experience. I'm not particularly strong, but it doesn't take much muscle, and the stamina required seems minimal. Furthermore, the wind was with us, so all we had to do was to stay clear of others. Control, while not natural, wasn't unnatural, so we found our way to the fuel dock with little incident. On the way back, Lea spotted a beautiful wooden sail boat, and we stopped at the slip where it was parked to look at it. Her neighbor greeted us and kindly allowed us to tie up against it and look at the boat. We gaped freely and spoke to her inhabitants, and they told us that it had just been shipped over from Taiwan, where it was hand-built at the cost of five hundred thousand dollars. (I thought that was probably understating it a bit)

On the way back to The Healer, I somehow cut my right thumb on a line. "Ouch!" "Let me look at that," Lea said. Oh yeah, I forgot that we have a medical student on board. Conveniently, she had some alcohol with her, which she proceeded to dab on my wound with cotton. I breathed in sharply. "Oh, you're such a baby, Piaw" said Scarlet. "It's alcohol, it's supposed to hurt!" said Lea. Scarlet and I have this funny relationship where by we'll start a trip quite happy to be taking a trip together (especially when the trip has been as longingly anticipated as this one), but by the fourth or fifth day, we would usually have conflicts. I theorize that this is because we don't really see each other very much during the course of a year, so we don't have time to work out our conflicts in due time. When we do see each other we tend to go on trips that last for about a week or so, which forces us to be in close quarters all the time, producing conflicts of personality that don't show up on weekend get-togethers. We have altogether too many similar traits in both personality and interests for there not to be conflicts. Yet when the storm passes we'll find that our friendship has held fast anyway. If we had to put up with each other more often, I suspect that we would be forced to work things out explicitly, but as it was, we both simply just hung on and waited for it to blow over, as we knew it eventually would. One would think that on a small boat, there wouldn't be much room to avoid touching each other off without uncomfortable moments, but with two others on board, we could be very graceful about it and we had enough respect for each other that we could work together despite all that.

Then it was dinner time. Dinner was a nondescript affair, though punctuated by the one apparently interesting event at Roche harbor daily, which is the striking of the colors, also known as the flag lowering ceremony. You know that not much happens in town when the lowering of the flag is announced over the P.A. system, but there it is. After dinner, Larry volunteered to do laundry and collected dirty clothes from everyone. I grabbed my camera gear and tried to capture some images of the harbor, and then proceeded to do the usual preparations for the night. On this trip, we had not assigned permanent cabins to each person, but had decided on rotating sleeping positions for the night, so everyone could get a taste of what it was like to sleep at a particular spot. It's a nice idea, but what happens then is that everything gets moved around every night just before bedtime.

Larry returned with the laundry, and horror stories about shallow upper-class college students with too much bonding with each other by bragging or fooling around outside the Laundromat. What an interesting place for a teenage hangout! With that thought I fell asleep.

We were up at 8 this time, and after morning showers Scarlet made pancakes, which we all proceeded to eat as though none of us had eaten for days. I'm surprised at how much I'm eating on the trip, since there's really not much physical activity involved when sailing. It's more energetic than driving, of course, but that doesn't say much. Then came the usual ritual of grocery shopping, filling the boat up with water (an exercise which required the help of our neighbors in supplying water hoses of the appropriate length), and then heading over to the fuel dock for some gas.

Then we were off, at 12:30pm, the usual late start for The Healer. Back onto the Haro Strait, to make our way around Stuart and Waldron islands, with a short trip to the Canadian border to drop some more gifts for them. The wind was pretty dead that day, forcing us to turn the engine on before too long, and just putter around. It's not good for engines to be turned on and off repeatedly, but the wind patterns around the islands gave us no choice. Just as we approached Patos and Sucia islands, we saw fins in the water. They were dark and black, but moving slowly, unlike the dolphins we had seen in the Channel Islands sail trip. I idled the engine and we spotted several more mammals, but they never came close enough nor far enough out of the water for us to be able to tell what they were.

Thus it was late when we headed into the West harbor of Sucia island, where we found to our dismay that the harbor was incredibly crowded. I ordered the anchor dropped, but nobody was very happy about how close other boats were to us. I finally gave in to the inevitable and asked for the anchor to be raised, and off we were again. We headed South around Sucia, and encountered one full anchorage after another, with not much swinging room at all. Leaving Sucia left us with Matia island, a National Wildlife Refuge with one mooring and a couple of slightly promising coves. As we approached Matia, the engine kicked down a notch, and what I thought was the engine temperature (this turned out to be simply an engine clock) was way up. This forced me to stop the engine and look into the sea strainer, but I saw nothing that could cause problems so we kept going, albeit at a slower pace in case there really was something wrong with the engine. The mooring at Matia was of course taken. I was getting desperate, as the sun was getting low, so I asked a couple of a similarly sized sail boat moored to a buoy if we could raft up against them for the night. They declined us, and so we headed back out and around the North of Matia.

We passed one empty cove, which was exposed and surrounded by reefs that would probably break the waves for us ,but also probably give us something to break the boat against if the wind and waves had their way with us and the anchor. The other cove was more protected, but unfortunately occupied, so it was back to cove #1. I dropped anchor into the middle of the cove. All around us was pretty hard rock, so I prayed that the bottom would be gravel (which is ideal for Bruce anchors). We were at high tide, with a tidal variation of about 10 feet, so I ordered the anchor dropped at 20 feet, giving us 10 feet of bottom room. I asked for 60 feet of rode to be paid out (30 feet of chain, 30 feet of rope), giving us a 3 to 1 scope, the minimum I felt comfortable with. I then backed the engine hard to maximum thrust, power-setting the anchor to ensure it would hold. The anchor seemed to catch and hold. On the kind of engine we had, this would be the equivalent of a 60mph wind. At 3:00am at low tide, 60 feet would give us 6:1 rode, which would make me very comfortable indeed, if we had that much swinging room. The danger zone would be in the next couple of hours, but the crew would be awake then, and we could cope with any situation. I set my alarm watch at 3:00am so I would wake up and check the lines then.

I wanted to deploy a second anchor from the stern to hold us, but Scarlet had a better idea: she would take the dinghy out with the crab pot to measure depth and give us an estimate of the swinging room we had. Larry would go on board the dinghy with her to row. The result of that campaign was one of the funniest moments of the trip: picture two people on a dinghy with a crab pot, rowing around in a dinghy while tethered to a sailboat. Larry would paddle in one direction until the line became taut, whereupon the dinghy would shoot off in a different direction, causing Scarlet to lurch around. I pulled out my camera, loaded it with fast film, and proceeded to shoot away between giggles. Larry was having fun, and so was Scarlet. 60 feet turned out to be relatively little singing room in this cove, and we had 15 feet easily even as close to the rocks as we could get, so our hero and heroine came back aboard the boat with big smiles. "Dinghies rule!" declared Larry.

Dinner was what was left of our hot dogs, and we watched as the sun slowly set around us. Before we knew it the dark had come, with a nearly full moon lighting up the sky. Larry still had plenty of energy left, so he suggested a photo excursion ashore for pictures. I did not hesitate to take advantage of his suggestion, so as soon as we could we loaded up the dinghy with the camera bag and off we went. Over the last couple of days, Larry had honed his dinghy handling skills by an amazing amount. He could now point a bout wherever he wanted and push it there. Thus, we made a beeline right for the beach, and I grabbed the dinghy as we hit the shore and pulled up and forward. My camera bag came with me, and I was soon set and clicking happily away with a tripod. Larry took the time to explore the beach, and found the usual garbage on the National Wildlife Refuge.

The scene was breath-taking. The water reflected the nearly full-moon, The Healer off in the middle of our little bay, and all around us were the white bark of dried and dead trees on a heavy gravel beach. The moon light reflected off all these surroundings and gave us a beautiful monochromatic scene, and the only color around us was the light from The Healer. The wind blew on-shore quite strongly and consistently. Larry read the sign on shore out loud. "National Wildlife Refuge."

I took various pictures, going through a roll of film. Larry then waded back into the water with the dinghy as I climbed aboard and then we were off again, back to the boat. It was 11pm by the time we were back and ready to bed. It didn't take me long before I was sound asleep.

The boat was lurching and dancing around the waves like a horse. I looked at my watch: 2:17am. Oh well, I might as well get up and check the lines. We were near low tide, and so had substantial scope on our line. She's not going to give way unless the winds were really strong or changed directions quickly enough to break the anchor out from holding on to the ground. I put on a shirt and climbed out on deck to check for chafing along the anchor line. Larry spotted me to make sure I didn't fall into the water. The line looked pretty solidly hooked in, and there were no signs of chafing. So I climbed back into the boat and fell into another deep sleep, assured that we would not be dragging anchor for at least awhile.

The boat was really bucking when I woke again at 7:00am. This time, the tide had risen, so I asked Larry to let out another 10 feet or so of rode. I did not dare let out too much rode, but I reasoned that we were going to be done fairly soon, and the extra rode would just make breakfast more comfortable. Breakfast was quickly over, and I again had the engine powered out. We could sail off the hook, since the wind was really strong, but I did not want to risk the boat, and having the sail up made the boat unwieldy if we needed to power out of the situation. The fenders were made ready, the deck cleared, the boat hook placed along the rails. Once again, the Bruce anchor proved itself, as the crew weighed anchor without a problem, and I drove the boat out of the precarious cove we had spent the night in.

Once out of danger I asked for the main to be raised and the jib unfurled while pointing the boat directly into the wind. Both tasks were done quickly, since the crew was now practiced in such matters. But when I fell off the wind and the sails drew power I was impressed. The boat heeled over almost immediately and started splashing into the waves. I wanted to make sure the crew was going to be ok, so I fell off towards Orcas island.

"You have a choice. Dead calm or Howling Wind," I said. "Howling wind," said Scarlet. How about Larry. Did you sleep well last night? No, not really. I'd really prefer it to be calmer. So we sailed towards calmer waters and suddenly the wind died down. The waves did not, however, and Larry soon felt that if he was going to suffer the waves, howling wind might as well come along with it, so we headed the boat backed up. The Healer heeled over and once again we were sailing, going 4 knots into the wind.

Sailing in high wind is a hoot. Sometimes the boat will heel over hard, sometimes it'll head up and right itself. Your world is turned upside down as you thump thump thump into the waves. Before I left I had spoken to Sam Mahoud, another certified sailing skipper and also an avid photographer. He told me that he wanted a picture of the boat heeled over all the way, the crew scrambling to manage the boat, and the skipper therefore calm enough to pull out his camera and take a picture. I decided that this was the right moment to indulge him, so handed the tiller to Scarlet and went below to search for my camera. I found my point and shoot, and when I showed up at the hatch with it, Larry must have remembered that conversation I had with Sam and started cursing me. This was really good. The boat wasn't in any danger of course, despite being heeled over, so I was quite comfortable letting the crew handle her.

We rounded Clark Island and the three sisters and the wind died a little, but still enough to keep us going at a good clip. At this rate we were going to end up in Anacortes today, a whole day early. We hugged the coast, following along Orcas island heading South. I was looking for Doe Bay, one of the first places I had been to in the San Juan islands in my 1993 cycling trip. Right past Doe Bay was Doe Island marine state park, and the map showed there were moorings near that.

By the by, we were soon at Doe Island State park, sailing into the cove. I spotted a mooring buoy and asked the crew to prepare to moor. "Where's the boat hook." Shit! It must have fallen off the boat while it was heeled over. Well, too bad. Larry, you've done this without a hook before, right? We're going to sail onto the buoy. We sailed in, headed up to wind and started easing out both sheets. Scarlet went forward to help moor us. I went below and kick started the engines. I didn't want the boat to move too far forward, not knowing how deep the waters were, so I backed the boat up so the buoy was along side. "Oh great, I dropped my glasses!" I was busy keep the boat head into the buoy so ignored the commotion until the boat was properly tied up. I then encountered a frustrated, unhappy Scarlet. My glasses fell into the water. Oh great. What are we going to do? I'm going below to get my goggles. She went below, and came up in a swim-suit. Are you really going to dive in this? It's cold. You're not going to see anything down there, you're practically blind without your glasses. I'll dive for them, said Lea.

Another sailboat, The Puffin, swings into the harbor and parks on the other buoy. With a boat hook, they manage it with no loss of items aboard the vessel. I feel like an oaf.

You're cursed Piaw. Every time you go sailing someone has to dive. That's not true. I did an overnighter to Monterey and that wasn't necessary. Hmm… Maybe it's me, said Larry. Ok, Lea was going to dive. We rafted around, and gave her a line to hang onto. The water was cold. She couldn't stay under long enough, and couldn't see much from the surface. It looked like a lost cause. Someone who had a boat moored nearby felt sorry for us and gave us a wet suit. Lea squeezed into this. Hey, it looks like you'll fit into this, Piaw. Well, you're already wet and cold, Lea, you might as well finish the job. I wasn't going to volunteer to jump in for a lost cause. Boat keys yes, important documents yes, but a pair of glasses while important, aren't exactly irreplaceable. Scarlet, desperate, offered to marry the person who found her glasses for her. Scarlet made hot tea for when Lea came back.

Lea dived some more, circling the boat. Where might the tides have taken the spectacles? With scuba gear, it would be easy, but without, it was pretty much futile. It was an effort to stay under water. Pretty soon, Lea had to give up and come back aboard. Lea made a couple of phone calls: to her boyfriend, to see if he could help in any way. No, he was coming up to Orcas on Sunday, but that would be too late. If he was there he would dive for them. Oh, by the way Scarlet says she'll marry the person who finds her glasses. Lea looks at me. Piaw, I think you should dive for the glasses. Then you'll have the option to marry Scarlet. No, declares Scarlet. Leave them there! Hmm, I think I just made sure that he wasn't going to dive for them.

A family on a motor boat comes by. "Hey, that's our buoy. We're going ashore to drop stuff off, but then we're going to need this." Great. Disaster on top of disaster. We tie the dinghy up and I start up the motor. Larry starts to untie our hard-won mooring buoy. The man comes back with his motor boat. All these mooring buoys are private. Great, where can we go. Hey, is that dock on the island public? Yes, it's a marine park. Awesome. We're going to dock against it. We cast off and maneuver in and dock cleanly against the wooden dock. Should have done this in the first place. Well, there was someone else here at the time. Oh, ok, I don't feel like a complete dick, then.

We meet the other couple at the docks. Kate and Stuart. They were friendly and chatted with us. I registered, came ashore, and looked at a campsite. Hey Larry, you want to camp out tonight? Oh yes! Solid ground. And to think I was unhappy about giving up the buoy. All these boats have marine park stickers, so the mooring and camping is free. We move camping equipment ashore, and set up the tent. Larry's not used to the new style camping equipment and is quite impressed by shock-corded tent poles and other new-fangled gear.

I then grabbed my camera equipment and headed off to hike the island. I first ran into a bunch of kayakers. A bunch of staffers from the University of Washington Medical School had kayaked out here and decided that this was a good place to spend the night. I had fun chatting with them, discovering how similar kayakers were to cyclists. They were both self-propelled endurance sports which tended to be male-dominated, and they also had their crazies who did incredibly long distances (like Ocean crossings) and boasted incredible feats. I had encountered some of the moor staid types. My friend Radek would have fit right in with them, of course, he is a kayaker too. On the water, I'd rather make use of the abundant wind when I can. I run into the couple that chartered The Puffin. They had just come from a road trip to Desolation Sound, and just stopped off at a random sailing center and chartered their boat spontaneously. They had even gotten a better deal than we had, which made me miffed. They too echoed the raves about 80 degree water, and being able to swim all day in Desolation Sound. I made a note to visit that next time.

I made my way around the island, looking at photo opportunities. Kate and Stuart invited us to a marshmallows BBQ with them when we were done with dinner. When I got back to the boat, I saw the Lea and Scarlet had broken out the bottle of wine and were enjoying themselves. What a good idea. I didn't drink, nor did Larry, so the girls enjoyed themselves. I told Scarlet about the kayakers. They all have wet-suits, Scarlet. Maybe you can convince them to dive for your glasses, especially for your hand in marriage. That's right, this is a good way to get the smartest and strongest. Lea pours cold water on that idea. Scarlet, you're just weeding out the smart ones. The smart ones won't do it. I giggle and silently thank Lea for saying that before I did. Scarlet practices her doleful eyes look on Larry. This isn't serious, I don't think, but maybe she's going to get herself drunk enough to do it. We're all laughing. Dinner is being made even without me noticing. Water is boiling, apparently spaghetti. Pasta is made. Larry passe up the pasta and opts for a sandwich instead. I enjoy the beautiful sun while eating dinner, and then proceed to run around for more pictures after washing up.

I take pictures of the scenery. I ask for permission to take pictures of the kayaks. Scarlet and Lea are sitting with Kate and Stuart. The light's pretty flat. I make conversation too, and then see the moon rise over the islands. Excuse me, and I leapt into action, juxtaposing the moon with every object I could think of. I hope some of these turn out. I return to the fire and make some marshmallows, and take some more pictures. Coming back to the boat I find the kayakers missing. Oh, I know where they are, says Lea. Doe Bay, finishes Scarlet. Ah, that makes sense.

I eventually stagger back to camp, where Larry is already half asleep. I roll into my sleeping bag, and chat with Larry. He thinks getting up at 5 to catch the sunrise is a pretty good idea. I set my alarm and we fall asleep.

We woke up at 5:00am, just like the alarm clock said, to a gray sky. Perfect for portraits, lousy for scenics. "And to think I suggested getting up at 5:00am," said Larry. So we packed up the tent, stuffed everything into our backpacks, and took a walk around the island. It was beautifully still and quiet---the straits had calmed down overnight, and the fog was just beginning to settle in. When we got to the boat, both Lea and Scarlet were up. Did we want to get going, or did we want to sit and have breakfast first?

I looked at my watch and made a quick determination that if we were quick, we could leave here at 8am and still return the boat on time. Besides, I wanted the fog to lift a bit first. So we hurriedly make pancakes and wolfed them down. Then a mad scramble to get the boat ready, and we were off. The couple in The Puffin had awakened and waved us on.

While we were having breakfast, the fog instead of lifting had set in even more heavily. Once we left Doe Island we could see nothing, which was a scary experience, since we did not have radar. The tide was moving the boat rapidly, and after a close encounter with land, I headed us on a course more directly away from Orcas. I gave Lea the tiller and pulled out Sam's GPS. This was what would save us. Technology! Later on, I spoke with Sam and he said that that was why he got the GPS. "It's not to be a yuppie hiker, but I figure if it saves your bacon once it's paid for itself." Damn straight. It was a particularly sophisticated GPS unit, with way-point features and fortunately I had actually read the manual, so could program in the various places on the chart that I wanted to look out for. Larry and Scarlet took the fog horn up forward and blew on it every so often. Larry was enjoying it.

I plotted our position from the GPS, and charted our progress. Though I had the engine going at a low power and water speed was 1 knot, the GPS told us we were really going 3 knots. I had no desire to go any faster, so we aimed the boat to keep a bit of Orcas Island in sight and steered with an eye on the GPS, an eye on the compass heading, an eye on the depth sounder, and the fog horn blowing away. In retrospect it was fun, as we weren't really in any danger, but at that time I was tense and scared, as was the rest of the crew. It's a bummer to wreck the boat on the last day of the sail trip.

By and by, the fog slowly lifted as we approached the southern end of Orcas Island. I could now see Obstruction Island, Blakely Island and Cypress Island. We were clear. I asked Larry to retire the fog horn, though he was enjoying himself so he gave one last blast on it before doing so. We then powered up the engine and headed back as the blue sky peeked in over the nearby mountain tops and the sun came out. None of us wanted the trip to end---it had been so good to us. I wasn't looking forward to starting work on Monday.

The return to the docks was uneventful. Docking was easy and snag free, and just about the only thing that was an incident was forgetting to pay the fuel dock for our gas, an easily remedied situation. But now we had a problem: Scarlet was barely able to see, and it was pretty much illegal for her to drive. But she didn't trust me with her stick shift car (despite my much vaunted experience driving stick-shift in France), so she used the cell phone to call in an appointment at the optician's near Seattle, and I got into the car with her (Larry got into the car with Lea), and off we went.

Being the seeing-eye dog for a myopic person who's driving is an experience. I read signs to her, watched for traffic, and looked for intersections. A day without glasses had actually helped, since there was no adjustment period for her while she learnt to sight read. Once on the freeway, we were in much better shape, since the road was straight, there wasn't much traffic, and I was used to spotting for my brothers when we drove, since my brothers and I tend to drive that way anyway.
We reached the shopping center where the optician's was without any major incidents, and Scarlet ran in to her appointment. I took the opportunity to fix up my glasses and to replace the scratched lenses (which had happened while the boat was heeling over the day before). Lea and Larry arrived, and when Scarlet came back out with her prescription it was too late for her to get a pair of glasses that day, so she opted to go home to her spare pair, but not before we ate some lunch.

Then a mad scramble to get home, get cleaned up, and dinner. We did not recognized each other when we had all gotten out of the showers. We had all tanned darker during the sail trip. We had not seen each other cleaned up for days, and the feeling of clean clothes was something quite pleasurable by itself, and the anticipation of good food almost too much to bear. We walked down to the restaurant like close friends out for a night on the town. The preceding days had given us an easy companionship that made the night seem friendly, easy, and warm.

I woke up at 8:00am, and proceeded to clean and pack everything up in preparation for returning home. I was due to meet Tyrie, an old classmate of mine at the University of Washington for breakfast. Tyrie was one of those brilliant students who graduated from college when she was 19. She had been involved in a car accident last year, which gave her a head injury which effectively disabled her. I hadn't seen her since before her disablement, so this was a good time to catch-up.

I called her at 9 in the morning, waking her up, to tell her we had to be there at 10, since Larry's plane was at 12:00. That didn't leave us very much time at all, so we had to move things along fairly quickly. We arrived at her place exactly at 10 (thanks to the directions on my Palm Pilot --- in previous years, I would have just kept the directions on a piece of paper and promptly lose it on the boat), and then spent 20 minutes hunting around for a place that would serve breakfast.

Breakfast was a lively conversation. Tyrie was very happy, and not as depressed as she seemed to be when I last spoke to her via e-mail. Larry and Scarlet both spoke to her, learning about her family and just generally having a good time. I really had been too long since I saw Tyrie. She hadn't changed much despite her disability, and her strength of character in dealing with her disability was still something I found admirable. After breakfast, we rushed to put Tyrie back in her home, and then towards the airport.

Larry rushed in, and after several failures screwing around with trying to get checked in, I told him to dive straight for the gate. I then a got myself checked in and went back out to Scarlet. We went off to pick out eye glasses for her. We went through several pairs, with me favoring glasses that looked like her old pair, and her trying out various different pairs. Men and women are different about glasses. I go for maximum coverage, to prevent stuff from getting into my eyes while cycling, and she goes for fashion. But I guess the results aren't all that different. She doesn't get that much dirt into her eyes, and my glasses don't look that bad on me.

The time came, and she took me back to the airport. We hug quickly and I dash for the gate to get my film hand-checked. On my way to my gate Larry calls out to me. "Oops. I'm sorry you missed your plane…" He looked glum. "You better get on yours," he said, pointing at my gate, where the last few persons were boarding.

It was hard getting back to work. The mad scramble, the deadlines, the bustle. It makes one understand why people would buy a boat, get on it, and sail off for years and not come back. But that's ok. I'm already planning the next trip, day dreaming between compiles.