Duwamish Alive

DUWAMISH ALIVE!

RESTORATION DAY MARKS 40TH EARTH DAY ANNIVERSARY

Earth Day celebrates its 40th anniversary this April and Seattle celebrates with its 5th annual Duwamish Alive! Earth Day Restoration on Saturday, April 17, at multiple sites along Seattle’s ‘hometown’ river.

Duwamish Alive! brings together  over 30 conservation groups and governmental entities organizing over a thousand volunteers to work at 12 work sites in the river’s lower watershed.

Work sites include a river cleanup by kayak and canoe, shoreline salmon restoration, and forest tree planting. Families, company groups, clubs and fraternities and sororities are encouraged to participate, and no experience is necessary.

These volunteer restoration projects complement government efforts to clean up the contaminated sediments at the bottom of the Duwamish River.  Improvements in the health of the river will benefit people, wildlife, and runs of threatened salmon on the Green/Duwamish River.

“The restoration of the Duwamish depends on community, non-profit, government and corporate partners working together to restore the urbanized environment,” said Dhira Brown, project coordinator for People For Puget Sound.  According to Brown, the Duwamish River Estuary has less than three percent of its original habitat remaining and the project’s goal is to help bring back at least 30 percent of the river shoreline for wildlife habitat.

At the North Wind’s Weir work site, volunteers will be planting thousands of marsh plants and spread mulch around the sapling trees and shrubs at the newest restoration site on the river.  A ribbon cutting ceremony and a ‘run of wild salmon’ will celebrate the official “opening” of the North Wind’s Weir Estuary Restoration Area.

Working at the North Wind's Weir site are People For Puget Sound, King County, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle.

The workday at all the sites begins at 10 AM and concludes at 2 PM.  After the workday, volunteers are invited to attend a free Earth Day Festival at Pathfinder School in the Delridge neighborhood. The Festival will feature food, kids' activities, informational booths, music, and special Earth Day surprises.

More information on sites, volunteer signups, sponsors and participating organizations is found at DuwamishAlive.Org. To volunteer, email da@pugetsound.org or call (206) 382-7007.

Late-March Three-dot Meandering

Remembering way back when Sweet-Sixteen was this young man's dream and not a tournament, but go Huskies!! . . .   celebrating the passage (finally) of a health bill and recalling my posting last August 9th which resulted in one lost blog addressee yet surfaced lots more affirmative comment, including docs, plus new blog followers. . . hearing a senior very conservative pol in England state, "Well, today the States finally joined the rest of the industrial nations . . . when tea was a positive and enriching daily parental activity (five times a day), not a crude bashing-prone party . . . musing that a small piece in the health bill requires restaurants to now post calorie content of menu items (enough space on a Big Mac wrapper?)   . . .


Wondering how mongers like Beck and Limbaugh and their ilk get sponsors, let alone listeners, and if the good ol' mayor of Mt. Vernon is still handing out keys of that fair city to those likes . . . if words like "nigger", "faggot", "baby killer" will continue to trump civil discourse, spittle included. . . if race-baiting and fear-mongering will be the language of tomorrow's body politic . . . if the "loyal" opposition will ever admit their complicity in fermenting all this extreme nastiness . . . trying to figure what renagades Washington's Attorney General to suddenly become oh so-constitutional threatening to block (with some other state AGs) the health care legislation. . .


Remembering yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination, a true champion of human rights and economic equality in a country that tromped on both, and a witness to what real faith is really all about . . .


Musing if there is a more spectacular scene than taking the ferry from Port Townsend to Keystone last Friday . . . not counting the Skagit Valley's lush vibrant yellow carpet of daffodils . . . and the wild rush watching thousands of snow geese swarming the valley's fields like excited teenagers at a rock concert  . . .


Remembering the late San Francisco Chronicle's late Herb "Bagdad by the Bay" Caen's signature three-dot column-style (which daily delighted my mother and thousand others), so admired and blatantly copied here . . .


And finally wondering how this posting can possibly be justified as "nautical", perhaps calling this all jetsam and flotsam?

Kilochan II

I don't always highlight a particular brokerage, but a recent email twigged some warm nostalgia.


It was the Summer of 1986, July 11th to be exact, that I took ownership and command of the 1962 37' ChrisCraft Tri-cabin, the "Angel Witch". I had bought it from a young broker (who rushed his check to the bank, probably to make a first payment on his new house!) The vessel had been moored in Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island as a live- aboard for 1-1/2 years.


The name didn't appeal, and we soon renamed her after my grandparents' British Columbia coastal homestead and my grandfather's work boat, "Kilochan". The original Kilochan (c. 1911-12) puttered from North Vancouver, BC, up the BC coast servicing and repairing the many lumber camps' equipment. No one was ever sure of the exact spelling of Kilochan, derived from a coastal Indian name. Anyway, I recall my Dad's stories of Kilochan heading out from NorthVancouver to head North, having to time the First Narrows current off Stanley Park so that at maximum throttle the stout vessel would go forward, not backward, with the flood current.


The day after gaining her new owner, the newly named Kilochan II made her first new-owner voyage from Lake Union to Jackson Cove on Hood Canal, home of the BSA Camp Parsons, with the intrepid crew son David Jackson and good-friend Mike Evans (avid scouter and Group Health doc). That was the start of many glorious cruises and a whole rediscovered life for me.


One of my favorite yarns was a three-generational cruise with David and my Dad (aged 87). We had spent a delightful, quiet evening at anchor in a deserted bay just off Port Ludlow. No one around, nothing but primitive shoreline, supping good single-malt scotch, not saying a word, gently watching a sea otter, a kingfish and a heron working the shore line. Of course there was the friendly seagull hovering in hopes of another helping of cheese-wiz. He was there, patiently waiting, the next morning. Tide was low so we eked out with Dave at the bow with a lead line. Today that quiet bay is wall-to-wall homes noisily cluttering the whole shoreline.


Sometime later, leaving Shaw's Blind Bay and then Friday Harbor, we made for Cattle Pass and a return home. Weather clear, minimum wind, going with the current, right at the narrow we passed an incoming tug going full bore. Our first "rock 'n roll" experience on the Kilochan and stuff went everywhere. I had the helm, Dave at my side hanging on, Dad with his perpetual lit pipe standing in the companionway to the wheel house exclaiming, "Marvelous! Marvelous!", probably bringing back memories of WWII days on tankers sailing the North Atlantic. The galley sole was covered with Grape-nut-Flakes, Dad's favorite, and which he'd forgotten to stow when we left.


On that same run I made like a seasoned navigator. We were to close on a buoy just off Smith Island. I make it easily, feeling quite smug, only as we closed on it to have it turn, look haughtily at me, and then gently submerge. So, no longer relying on very large sea lions as a way points, we quickly replotted our way home.


Kilochan II was a marvelous vessel. Not only was she my live-aboard home for many years, she also brought back many, many boating memories. I loved her, and she taught me a lot. 


So, back to July '86.


The broker was a Bruce Ramon, now president of Wolfe Marine. Bruce just announced that Wolfe Marine was moving April 1st (no April Fool's joke implied, I assume) a few yards west into the Bob Picot building.  The move doesn't mean Wolfe is closing shop. Far from it. The new look will no longer have on-site brokerage-moorage. Boats for sale will be at the boat's own moorage. A wise, perhaps risky, move in these tight times? But then, boats always look better in their own slips rather than huddled together in a broker's corral. As Bruce puts it, "a greater focus on listing and selling, rather than the catch and release of marina operation."


Take a visit to Wolfe Marine. 

O Canada

Before someone brands me as a male chauvinist,  there were really TWO Team Canada vs Team USA gold medal hockey games. We all saw the spectacular overtime Canadian win Sunday afternoon. But did we forget the women's game three days earlier, when Team Canada shutout Team USA 2-0? I think we did.


So, here's to Canada's gold medal women's hockey team . . . . .

WAY TO GO, CANADA, EH?

Vancouver 2010

A spirited non-nautical musing.


This morning I mentioned to a group of folks that having dual-citizenship, I could root either way at this afternoon's Gold Cup hockey game, but that I did have a bias, which I wouldn't expose to them.


But now? 

OH, CANADA !!!!!!!!!!

YES !!

Oh, yes. Please excuse the shouting.

The Olympics and The Weather

OK, this is not exactly a boating post. That is, unless you decided to cruise up to Vancouver for the Olympics. On the other hand, however, I suspect that even boaters might have driven up to the Olympics. For the rest of us, we watch on the delayed (bad, bad NBC) broadcasts on TV.

But if you're waiting, and hoping, for weather that better fits what's needed and wanted for a Winter Olympics, you're probably going to be disappointed, very disappointed. Well, probably not as disappointed as our Vancouver neighbours and relatives, not to mention the local committee.

In a nut shell, it looks bad. As Cliff Mass, UW weather guru and my favorite weather authority (officially, professor of atmospheric science), describes in his latest blog posting, " the Olympics venue will be better for surfboarding than snowboarding. Heavy rain. Thick fog" for the next few days. Check out Cliff’s posting.

Ugh!

While even that most powerful International Olympic Committee can’t control Mother Nature, and slush happens, I can’t help but feel sorry for Vancouver, the athletes who won’t break world records, and my own Canadian roots - - Vancouver and North Van are probably my ancestral home.

But the Games will go on.

And we will watch and be thrilled and be amazed at the athletic skills of, oh, so many young men and women who have gathered to test their skills and delight their fans.

And thank you all for that!

And the Great Northwest will continue to be the Great Northwest, come rain or high water or slush.

Now They've Gone And Done It!

An AP bulletin today brought the grim news. "The plug is being pulled" was the lead sentence. In three weeks it will come to an end.

For years we heard that that this would happen, only to hear a bit later that there would be a reprieve. Now, no reprieve. They really mean it.

After over 25 years of popular use, the LORAN-C navigation system will end Monday, February 8th when most of the 24 transmission towers will be turned off, the remainder being shut down by October 1.

LORAN, the acronym for long-range-navigation, was developed for military ships and aircraft during World War II, and in 1957 a civilian version, LORAN-C was introduced. The basic system involved radio transmissions from two geographically separated towers, with the receiver measuring the time-of-arrival difference between the towers. It was extremely precise, pinpointed your exact position, your Latitude and Longitude.


I used my Ross LORAN-C for many years on the Lady Mick, eventually adding a GPS. While the GPS was far faster computing changes (LORAN-C always took a few seconds to 'catch up' if the change was severe), I always found my LORAN-C to be more accurate than the GPS when it came to getting me precisely to a waypoint or a particular spot out in the waters. I could rely on arriving sometimes within 10 yards of a target! Not bad.


While many, if not most recreational boaters headed for GPSs - - many didn't even know of LORAN-C, or else dismissed it as a technological relic, commercial fishermen seem to still use it as a trusted system. Well, not after February 8th, they won't.


The Department of Homeland Security, according to the AP, says that the elimination could save $36 million in 2010 and $190 million over five years. The US Coast Guard says it will result in eliminating 256 jobs.

LORAN-C

R.I.P.

Check Lists and All That

For years I've tried to impress on clients taking the CruiseMasters Boating instruction program, as well as other boaters recreational and professional, the use and value of check lists. In my own publication, "The Art of Basic Boathandling: A Training & Reference Manual" (which clients get free!) I must have at least a dozen sample checklists just waiting for the boat-owner to adapt for her or his particular vessel; for fueling, for preparing to dock, for leaving the dock, for anchoring, just to name a few. Not exactly exciting reading, but important, nevertheless.

Now comes some strong authentication: "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right", by Atui Gawande, published by Metropolitan Books. Dr. Gawande, an American-trained surgeon from India, describes his book as being about how to prevent highly trained, specialized workers from making dumb mistakes. In a recent interview by the Seattle Times Dr. Gawande describes the key things about a checklist. It has to be short, limited to critical steps only. Generally the checking is not done by the top person. In the cockpit, the checklist is read by the copilot; in the operating room it is done best by a nurse.


For us boaters, our cruising partner (assuming that we are at the helm) could, and should, be the reader.

In his interview with Time's reporter Bruce Ramsey, Dr. Gawande traces commercial pilot use of checklists back to a flight in 1935, when Boeing's B-17 was being tested by the Army Air Corps. On that first flight it took off, stalled, crashed and burned. The new plane was complicated, and the highly experienced pilot had forgotten a routine step.

Sometimes hierarchy can present a problem. Ever met a skipper who knows it all? The doctor wondered how the this might play out in an operating room after a nurse saw a surgeon touch a non-sterile surface.

Nurse: "You have to change your glove."

Surgeon: "It's fine."

Nurse: "No, it's not. Don't be stupid."

Back to Ramsey's interview, highly intelligent and trained people are, occasionally, stupid. And the more complicated tasks become, the easier it is to crash and burn with even a 1% error rate on each step.

Brings to mind a time we were anchored in Port Townsend Bay while attending the Wooden Boat Festival. As evening came so did the wind, and all that night, while we held fast, other boats were breaking loose and quickly blowing past us, some being chased by rescue boats, one ending up on the rocks near the ferry terminal. It was not a nice night. Our guests, berth in the forepeak, experienced nothing but pounding and bouncing all night long. (They still cruise with us, though.) A friend who knew the area well wisely hauled anchor and made for Mystery Bay; We stayed put, not really knowing the area and trusting a firm anchor.

The next day, though feeling very confident having made a good anchoring, since the wind was still strong we decided to make for the safety and quiet of the Boat Basin harbor. Pretty full, but we got a commercial slip, and a comfortable night following. The next day as we left for Seattle, as we pulled out I heard a whip-snap sound but couldn't relate a cause, so on we went. The wind was now quiet, the sea almost glassy. So we cleaned up lines and fenders, and there it was, the female end of the shore power cord, still fastened to the boat, but no cord! I had forgotten to disconnect the electric cord at the dockside. An embarrassed radio call to the harbor master to say that there was a still live electric cord afloat in his slip (great for electrolysis), and then a mental self-flagilation for not using the checklist, the 'Leaving the Dock' list, that is.

So much for earlier confidence.

So, make use of your checklists, and get things right.

And if you read this in time, catch Dr. Gawande's appearances in Seattle this Sunday 7:30 and 9:30 PM at Town Hall; Monday 8 PM at the Sorrento Hotel; and Tuesday Noon at the Washington Athletic Club. Tickets through brownpapertickets.com.

Christmas 2009

The Huron Carol ('Twas In The Moon of Winter Time)

'Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim and wondering hunters heard the hymn,
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found;
A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round
But as the hunter braves drew nigh the angel song rang loud and high
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

The earliest moon of wintertime is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory on the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

O children of the forest free, O seed of Manitou
The holy Child of earth and heaven is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant boy who brings you beauty peace and joy.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

This, Canada's oldest Christmas carol, was written by Jean de Brebeuf (ca. 1643), a Jesuit missionary to the Hurons. "Gitchi Manitou" is Algonquin for "God".

The carol is sung by Heather Dale, and sung in Wendat (Huron)

A Blessed Christmas to you all!

Mike

Santas & Sailors

Only nineteen days until Christmas!

Of course the merchants have been extolling all of us to start celebrating yesterday! Buy now! (and jump start the final fourth-quarter days). Seems to me that this push starts earlier each year. Soon we'll have Christmas sales starting right after Labor Day (did you just say that they already have?).

But to a deeper level. A singular character invoked at Christmas time has many, many names: Saint Nicholas; Santa Claus; Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas or De Goedheiligman) Dutch; Saint Nicolas, French; Bishop of Myrna,

Right here in Seattle we have a constant reminder. Saint Nicholas Cathedral on Capital Hill, on 13th between East Howell and East Olive, is one of the oldest parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia in the United States, founded in 1932 by Russian immigrants who fled the Communism that invaded their homeland after the 1917 Russian Revolution.

But it is not just the young, and the young at heart, who celebrate St. Nicholas.

Sailors also claim St. Nicholas as their patron, carrying stories of his favor and protection far and wide, and St. Nicholas chapels were built in many seaports in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Nikolaos, is the patron saint of Greece, where his primary role is as the protector of sailors and seamen. At Christmas small fishing boats honor him, especially in the islands, with decorations of blue and white lights. Tradition has it that his clothes are soaked with brine, his beard always dripping with seawater, and his face covered with perspiration because he has been fighting storms to reach sinking ships and save men from drowning.

Greek ships carry an icon of St. Nicholas, as he is regarded as master of wind and tempest. Sailors light a candle before the icon, a small model of a ship, praying for safe passage. When a ship is in danger the captain prays making a solemn promise to bring a tamata, a model of a small ship of silver, gold, or carved of wood, if they make port safely. On return from such a voyage, the captain and sailors take the model (or painting), representing their ship, to church. In thanksgiving for their safety, they place it before a St. Nicholas icon. It is given as testimony to protection received, not as intercession for future aid

Revered as the great protector, St. Nicholas' feast is one of great devotion. The Greek Navy pays tribute to the patron saint of sailors with a special ceremony at the Hellenic Naval Academy.

Devotion to Saint Nicholas is also shown by the many small white chapels that dot the coastline. These chapels, dedicated to Satin Nicholas, have been built in gratitude to God for protection on the seas. As nearly every island family has members working in shipping, the navy, fishing or sponge diving, it is customary for folks passing one of these chapels to enter, light a candle, and pray for their friends' and relatives' protection from turbulent seas. Many families name a son "Nikolaos" in honor of the saint.

St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, is also part of Epiphany celebrations held by the sea. Priests bless ships anchored in harbor, in St. Nicholas' name, asking him to watch over each one, bringing it safely through storms and back to harbor. Ships then blow their whistles and church bells ring as a cross is thrown into the water. Sailors dive to see who can retrieve the cross.

So today, St. Nicholas' Day, December 6th, you sailors and mariners, remember our patron saint as you make plans to cruise the Salish Sea.

And perhaps coincidence, but tonight is also the Seafair & 76 Special People's Holiday Cruise when nearly 400 decorated boats will host approximately 4,000 developmentally disabled guests for a special cruise around Lake Union and Lake Washington, no doubt making St. Nicholas' heart glad.

Cut some slack for the commercial hype that permeates these days.

Let the young anticipate the joy of Santa Claus.

And for those of us who will celebrate nineteen days hence the birth of the Christ Child, let us one and all rejoice!

For a good telling of the legend of St. Nicholas, go to Customs of Advent and Christmas, as told by Victor Hoagland, C.P. (It's almost a 4th century economic recovery plan).

The icon is by Aristidh Milaqi "Saint Nicholas, the Patron Saint of Sailors" (Icon on wood, 2009)