In Memory of Two Fine Gentlemen

 This month has been a difficult one for the crew of the Schooner Zodiac. We lost our friend Barney Higgins several weeks ago and on Sunday night, our cook Ian Relay passed away. Both men were larger-than-life characters, both warm, friendly "gentle bears" and they will be sorely missed by our fellow shipmates for many years to come.

My youngest daughter never had to deal with loss up until now. She basically grew up with Ian in the galley and has been reminiscing a great deal lately. Stories of Ian changing his menu and cooking chicken soup for her when she was sick during a cruise--using wagon wheel pasta because Wagon Wheel was the song she was learning to play on the guitar. Her favorite Ian memory is when she walked through the galley and heard Dire Straits playing on Ian's playlist. She told him her parents named her after their favorite Dire straits song, Romeo & Juliet. Ian thought that perhaps her parents should have named her after another Dire Strait's song, Industrial Disease...and then proceeded to call her Industrial Disease for the remainder of the cruise.

Occasionally, Ian's son Stuart joined us on cruises. He helped his dad in the galley and volunteered on deck as needed. It was especially entertaining to hear them in the galley working. I'd stand next to the main mast and could hear them below through the butterfly hatch... "Now Son, think about what you're about to do."

Everyone has their favorite Ian stories. Most of them involve one of his hilarious sayings... "Winning an argument with her is like pissing in a dark suit. It feels warm and comfy right off the bat--but nobody ever notices." Or the oft heard (screamed from below randomly), "GLUUUUUUUTEN!"

My favorite memories of Ian however, are more subtle: The tea kettle of hot water he would have ready for me as I walked out of the mate's cabin every morning--no matter how many pots were on the burners or different meals he was in the middle of making, it was always ready for my "high-maintenance" french press... The shortbread cookies and tortoni that he'd hide away for me because he knew I always went to bed before dessert was served... the night we were dismasted and all of our passengers were shuttled over to Kwaietek--Ian sat on the deckbox near the helm as I stationed myself at our rudderless wheel. He had no passengers to cook for and was exhausted (like the rest of us), from the chaotic events of the day. I remember him just sitting...sun was setting, winds were picking up and chunks of mast lay all around, a can of soda was perched on his leg as Ian watched the horizon.

Barney was a Captain and a poet. He played rugby and cribbage and brewed beer. He loved his wife and his Irish whiskey. Although he didn't crew much on the Zodiac toward the end, he was an established icon; a big part of the ship's lore. Stories abound of Barney's antics on and off the ship. His poem  "Bosun's Ghost" was about the old ship's cat--and supposed demise of said cat. It was just one of several of Barney's creations that got published. Barney always had a funny story and a kind word for everyone.

Jeff's favorite Barney story is of when the Kwaietek arrived to aid the dismasted Zodiac. Barney and our friend Rory MacLysaght were onboard Kwaietek as licensed captains. The passengers were transferred aboard to ride back to Bellingham while Zodiac waited for the Terrapin to tow her back. As the seas got rougher and the boat turned beam-to, she began to roll. With sixteen kids and three chaperones on deck, Jeffery worried that someone might go overboard. He asked Barney to make a correction so the seas would follow them. Upon turning the boat for the swells to quarter her, Barney exclaimed loudly, "She sure is ass-friendly!" (The chaperones were not extremely pleased with that comment).

There are so many more stories and countless memories of our friends and fellow shipmates. I encourage anyone who sailed with them or shared in their land-based exploits to comment below and share their tales.

Below is a link to a poem that I wrote the other day.
For Barney, Ian and all lovers of the sea.

 click here:  windline press "A Shipmate's Departure"

Fair winds and following seas, boys.

~ Chris

Longing for (on) a Boat.

Be careful what you wish for.....

     Jeff has always wanted to live on a boat.  Well, he got his wish just a little over a year ago.  And, y'know, it is everything he ever hoped for--except for on eensy weensy detail... he never actually factored in what living right next to his thirteen year old daughter might do to his love life.

Bedtime at the ol' Kwaietek household is very similar to an episodic ending of "The Walton's"
      "G'night Merrie Ellen."
      "G'night Pa."
      "G'night John Boy.".....
Juliet insists on mentioning every single night that there had better be no breaking of "the routine", which translates into: absolutely. positively. no. romantic. action. emanating from the master stateroom.

     So, Jeffery has what he always dreamed of... with a catch.

     This must be somewhat akin I imagine, to the memorable quote from the Genie in Aladdin, "Phenomenal cosmic powers--itty bitty living space."  I gotta hand it to Jeffery though, he manages pretty well all things considered.


     Nevertheless you can imagine his excitement this afternoon when I informed him that his little girl was spending the night at her friend's house tonight.

Lucky, lucky man.

More from "Little House on the big Sea"

Juliet grabs her plate of meatloaf, she gobbles it down quickly so as not to be late for class.
"Did you put your valentine's card on the table for Dad?" I ask.

"Yossooneedtotellhimitzzdere."  She replied with her mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"Excuse me?"

She swallows hard. "I said, yes--you need to tell him it is there--please."

"Ah, okay, I will." I say, "It's almost five o'clock, don't you need to be heading down the dock?"

She takes a big swig of milk and gulps down the remaining meatloaf. "I gotta go! I have to get my valentine's cards for everybody!"  Off she goes, dashing through the engine room before I can tell her to clear her plate.

I follow behind her, handing up the bag of books and snacks for class. I sigh as I watch her head out the door of the charthouse, she throws one leg over the railing and then scrambles down the side of the ship instead of walking down the deck and using the gangway like everybody else does.

It's another evening at the marina. Juliet's captain's class is only a week away from being over. She walks down the dock to the yacht club where they hold class for four hours a night. Jeffery is on his way home from Anacortes where he and Tim are corking a wooden ship from Canada called the Yellow Fin. He'll be hungry tired and dirty when he gets home. I decided to stay home this evening and have Valentine's dinner with him, even though he'll be too exhausted to get much benefit from it.

I better go put the meatloaf back in the oven. Time for me to go back to work on my regular manuscript while I have a little free time.

School on the docks

The life of a home-schooled kid on the water...

My youngest daughter, Juliet is thirteen now.  She has been on boats consistently for the past three years.  We moved onto the schooner Zodiac in 2009, before that she was on for an entire summer sailing season.

Jeff and I pulled her out of school a year prior to our move, knowing that we'd need to transition her into this new life. Also, I was watching her fourth grade classmates become mini- Miley Cyress wanna-be's and I didn't want that to happen to my child. No way, no how.

Her sisters and brothers were products of public schools. Trent, who is now a father and actively involved in school sports as a coach, did alright as a student. His early years were spent in the Corvallis school district- funneling teachers straight out of Oregon State's education department. Dane and the twins grew up in Seattle and didn't fare so well with the public education they received in the big city. In fact, they got the shaft.


Sometimes I wish that Juliet had more social activities, easier access to friends and classmates. Her older siblings tease me for sheltering her from public school....

What they don't see however is her day to day life "in school" on the water.  She finishes her class work around 1 or 2 PM  with the help of (or at times in spite of), her cat Lucky Jack. She then heads outside and interacts with a blue heron she named Theodore, unless we're docked in Fairhaven where her blue heron friend is named Thurston Howell the III. She knows the mama otter and her three kits, the juvenile seagull that has adopted us named Kwaietek Jr. and she is on fairly good terms with a harbor seal that hangs out near our boat.

When on the Zodiac, our passengers come from all walks of life.  My daughter has made fast friends with many of them. I love to watch her spend afternoons sketching with various artists or learning about the orca pods with some of the naturalists. (She now knows enough about our local pods that she can teach passengers about them).

It isn't an ordinary life. She does miss out on some of the cool things that school kids on land get to experience. On the other hand, as she nears completion of auditing the eight-week USCG 100-ton Masters program, (and doing exceptionally well), I believe in the long run, she'll be a cooler person because of this.

Calculating the Breaking Strength of Line...

2.5 X 1.57² X 900 = 5, 546 pounds of breaking strength

"Knots and splices will reduce the breaking strength of a line by as much as 50 to 60 percent. The weakest point in the line is the knot or slice, but a splice is stronger than a knot."

      Walk down the docks at any given time and take a gander at how the various boats are secured... 

     Now you have your yachties- the weekend (if that), warriors whose fiberglass boats are docked 90% of the year. The main issue with these vessels are that they have all sorts of expensive braided synthetic lines to moor the craft with, but usually are all run from the same hawse hole to the same cleat. (Same spots orignating and terminating)...So, if there is going to be a failure, what makes them think that doubling up is going to work? (and that is really not "doubling up")

     Now, the fishing fleet, (big sturdy lines made fast in varying terminating points) -  the common problem is thus: [see photo to left].  Most fishermen are reluctant to drop any money on their boats or gear until they absolutely positively have to do so....resulting in frayed dock lines and bulwarks that are rusting or rotting away.  This puts the tension on the weakest link in the chain, so to speak.

[the best part of this photo is that the line that looks as if it is two lines doubled, is actually the same line wrapped twice... So when it frays through, the entire moorage point is a lost cause!]

     The boat next to us has three of the five dock lines abraded away to almost nothing.  I wish I had a formula for what the breaking strength of a synthetic line is when it gets to THAT point... not good I wager.

Having seen a 3/4" line snap under strain (and been fortunate enough to not witness the cleat come flying overhead-- I put great stock in correctly and safely tying vessels correctly to the dock.

On the other hand, there haven't been any runaways in the marina this year....yet.