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Exploring about in a NW rainstorm :-)
You guys who live where it's 100 degrees or more all summer long don't have any
idea what you're missing. I'm polishing this item up a bit, and thought it might be fun to share with folks from "inferior" climates. Friday Harbor I think I've finally found Friday Harbor. No, it was never really missing. It's always been just off San Juan Channel, reasonably well protected by Brown Island. The marina is near 48.32.39 N and 123.00.87 W. I've been going to Friday Harbor for about forty years, and perhaps fifteen times in the last twenty. The Friday Harbor experience has always been two dimensional, like something projected on a screen. There has never seemed to be a warm, human heart behind the planked facades of the tourist shops clustered around the ferry dock. Friday Harbor is one of the most popular marine destinations in the Pacific Northwest, so I have always suspected my failure to develop an affinity for the commercial center of the San Juan Islands was a personal shortcoming. I was right- I have been wrong about Friday Harbor. Jan and I visited Friday Harbor in August of 2004. I motored up single handed from Seattle on a Friday morning. Jan's professional obligations kept her in Seattle for an additional day, and she planned to arrive by seaplane early on Saturday. Just north of Edmonds the VHF crackled, "Environment Canada has issued a gale warning for the Strait of Juan de Fuca." Although the conditions seemed pleasant enough, the barometer was falling off and experience has taught me that the professionals guess the weather better than I do. So much for the outside run, and a potential arrival at Cornet Bay would be two and a half hours prior to slack in Deception Pass. I made Friday Harbor after a ten-hour trek through Saratoga Passage, the Swinomish Channel, Guemes Channel, and across Rosario Strait. The marina at Friday Harbor often fills up during July and August. It is advisable to arrive as early in the day as practicable. When I arrived at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, the only remaining spot was on the outside of the north breakwater. I was too pooped to drop the hook, inflate the Zodiac, and dinghy ashore. "Indulgence" became the breakwater's breakwater, and we bounced around considerably until boat and ferry traffic subsided in the late evening hours. I had heated a can of chili enroute from Seattle, certainly as much of my own cooking as any reasonable antibodies would be able to neutralize in a single day. I went uptown to grab a bite, and must have accidentally discovered the worst Chinese restaurant in North America. While most of the Friday Harbor eateries had diners' queues out the doors and onto the sidewalks, there were perhaps ten people sprinkled around the cavernous dining hall of the Chinese joint. The lack of attendance should have warned me off- either that or the odd smell. The lukewarm food was, frankly, awful and the Chinese "tea" tasted like hot dishwater. The indifferent, distracted waitress forgot to serve my soup course, but she forsook her slothful ways when she flew across the restaurant to snatch up the signed credit card slip. (She was checking to be sure that she had been adequately tipped.) She was tipped appropriately, if not adequately, and no advance math skills were required to calculate the percentage. I remember competent service and much better food at this restaurant in previous years. Perhaps it has changed hands. I spent a restless night aboard. At first light, wake and wave action began slamming "Indulgence" against her fenders at the breakwater. An impenetrable fog had engulfed the harbor, morphing from black to silver and finally white in the invisible sunrise. I peered out the cabin window, concerned that Jan's seaplane might be diverted or delayed. I took the very long walk from the breakwater to the center of town, and on that foggy Saturday morning, I finally discovered Friday Harbor. The majority of the shops were still closed. The first ferry full of whirlwind tourists had not yet landed, and most of the boaters in the marina were still aboard- breakfasting or sleeping. Autumn sends some scouts ahead of her gradual invasion of September and unchallenged occupation of October, and such a stealthy spy was taking the measure of Friday Harbor. The fog wafted down the nearly vacant streets, reducing structures 100- feet away to soft suggestions rather than angular shapes. Swirling white and yellow auras surrounded blurred electric fixtures. A baritone fog horn churned and shook the shimmering cloud, so far off course and come to ground in Friday harbor. The street grid and much of the downtown energy flows down slope to Front Street. An old man with an aromatic pipe and an impatient little dog sat on a bench at Memorial Park. We did not speak, but we listened to the same mournful horns warning one and all of stealthy poltergeists and ethereal ghost ships enveloped and camouflaged by rudderless vapors. I had breakfast at the Front Street Café, near the ferry landing. The woman and daughter immediately ahead of me in line were out of sync with the morning rhythm. Rude, demanding, and impatient, they must have arrived by automobile. They gathered an order to go and seemed to flee the premises. Most of the crowd appeared to be locals gathered for a few moments of coffee gossip before dispersing to jobs and businesses of their own. A woman hammered out messages on a laptop computer, while two men discussed the impending retirement of a popular barber. (Breakfast was the "basic scramble" with toasted beer bread. The eggs were extremely good, and the toasted beer bread nothing less than fantastic!) The fog began to clear, rather quickly. It appeared that Jan's plane would be on time, and all would be well within the world. As I strolled on through the relatively empty streets and considered the old man on the bench and the breakfast crowd at the café, it occurred to me exactly how I had failed to appreciate Friday Harbor. I had always tried to make some sense of the physical infrastructure of the place, forgetting that here, as everywhere, the streets, the buildings, and the geographical characteristics are like rocks in a river. The rocks define, deflect, direct, and may even contain the course of the river, but the fluid, dynamic energy of the river is the water. In a sense, the people of a town are the water in the river. I had always experienced the human dynamic through the perspective of tourists frantic to "do the San Juans" between ferry departures, or the stressed merchants often overwhelmed by the same. In the early morning hours, without the surging crowds, (and when people were fed, rested, and going about the ordinary business of the day), the bricks and sticks, the rocks and the river, and the pulse of Friday Harbor made obvious sense. A formation of five seaplanes splashed down in quick succession. Jan disembarked in a crisp moment of blazing blue daylight, an atmosphere soon to be in short supply. I was glad to see her. No Hollywood starlet ever made a more beautiful entrance. We relocated "Indulgence" to a freshly vacated slip inside the marina. I'd had my fill of rock 'n roll for a while. The rain began. A few stray drops at first, as gentle and exploratory as a lover's hopeful foreplay. The spritz became a sprinkle, the sprinkle a drizzle, the drizzle a shower, and soon Friday Harbor was engulfed in a soaking storm- frenzied with passion. We got a pair of rain jackets from the hanging locker and proceeded to do what any pair of rational humans would do when the streets of Friday Harbor became literal rivers- we hiked half a mile to the San Juan County Fairgrounds. The fair runs five days every August and it is a traditional, agriculturally oriented event. The Grange and 4-H are prominent here, while the aluminum siding, storm window, and hot tub salespeople are nowhere in sight. In this election year, various candidates and parties had erected tents and display booths, all extolling the specific virtues of widely contrasting political philosophies. The 2004 fair was clobbered by the Saturday deluge. Small groups of dripping, sloshing, and squishy-shoed people lingered in the indoor commercial areas and covered animal barns. Vendors with tent space attempted to smile philosophically as the sparse crowds literally splashed past, bolting between one indoor venue and another. We scooted under an awning to speak briefly with a volunteer from the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Center rescues approximately 800 injured and orphaned birds and animals each year, restoring as many as possible to health and returning them to the wild environment. Rain swept the fairgrounds like a push broom clears a shop. Disappointed carnies chain-smoked under faded red and orange-striped canopies: the ball and bottle games, the ring toss, and the dart throw rackets all but abandoned by the crowd. At regular intervals, a carny would raise a push broom to dump the collected water from the awning of his booth. The strain on the canvas would be relieved, but the mud bog in the midway was correspondingly recharged. The Tilt-A-Whirl neither tilted, nor whirled, but the empty passenger pods collected water like scuffed fiberglass bowls. Raindrops sizzled, steamed, and splashed against ten thousand circus-colored carnival bulbs. We found the heart of Friday Harbor, once again, at the fair. Despite the weather, the 4-H market auction was packed. 4-H rules allow every young member to sell one animal or unit of produce per year. The proceeds are awarded to the aspiring farmer to help offset the costs of participating in 4-H. Many of the winning bidders immediately "resell" the animal or produce in the same auction, with the funds from the second sale going to the4-H organization for programs and facilities. The auction had been scheduled for an outdoor venue, but relocated to a standing room only tent. We watched in citified amazement as the crowd eagerly bid the first offering, (a dozen eggs), up to $90.00. The next dozen must have been superior, somehow, at least to the educated eye. It brought $130. Three laying hens sold for an astonishing $150, but perhaps that's a shrewd investment in an economy where eggs bring over ten bucks apiece. In many cases, the auctioneer would conclude a sale by thanking King's Market, Friday Harbor Hardware, or some other local business. It isn't every community where prominent businessmen support the local kids by setting aside a Saturday afternoon to jam into a damp tent and pay 100 times "too much" for eggs or several multiples of the going rates for pork and steers. The young farmers must surely feel more appreciated when the community turns out for an event like the market auction. It has to be more meaningful than a businessperson simply telling the bookkeeper to write a check. Slogging back to town from the fairgrounds, I enjoyed my fresh perspective of Friday Harbor. Yes, it's still that frantic tourist town with an awkward transition between the municipal marina and the shameless hustle bucks around the ferry dock. When one comes to appreciate Friday Harbor as a mixture of very real people in a slightly unreal place, the focus is suddenly clarified. I had found Friday Harbor, and appreciated that it had been there all along. The fault was entirely mine- confusing a handful of oddball rocks with the fluid, renewing, energy of a river. (no portion of this item may be reproduced without permission) |
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#2
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Thanks for the read as written as only you can.enjoyed ****
chad "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... : You guys who live where it's 100 degrees or more all summer long don't have any : idea what you're missing. I'm polishing this item up a bit, and thought it : might be fun to share with folks from "inferior" climates. : : Friday Harbor : : I think I've finally found Friday Harbor. No, it was never really missing. It's : always been just off San Juan Channel, reasonably well protected by Brown : Island. The marina is near 48.32.39 N and 123.00.87 W. I've been going to : Friday Harbor for about forty years, and perhaps fifteen times in the last : twenty. The Friday Harbor experience has always been two dimensional, like : something projected on a screen. There has never seemed to be a warm, human : heart behind the planked facades of the tourist shops clustered around the : ferry dock. Friday Harbor is one of the most popular marine destinations in the : Pacific Northwest, so I have always suspected my failure to develop an affinity : for the commercial center of the San Juan Islands was a personal shortcoming. I : was right- I have been wrong about Friday Harbor. : : Jan and I visited Friday Harbor in August of 2004. I motored up single handed : from Seattle on a Friday morning. Jan's professional obligations kept her in : Seattle for an additional day, and she planned to arrive by seaplane early on : Saturday. Just north of Edmonds the VHF crackled, "Environment Canada has : issued a gale warning for the Strait of Juan de Fuca." Although the conditions : seemed pleasant enough, the barometer was falling off and experience has taught : me that the professionals guess the weather better than I do. So much for the : outside run, and a potential arrival at Cornet Bay would be two and a half : hours prior to slack in Deception Pass. I made Friday Harbor after a ten-hour : trek through Saratoga Passage, the Swinomish Channel, Guemes Channel, and : across Rosario Strait. : : The marina at Friday Harbor often fills up during July and August. It is : advisable to arrive as early in the day as practicable. When I arrived at 4:30 : on a Friday afternoon, the only remaining spot was on the outside of the north : breakwater. I was too pooped to drop the hook, inflate the Zodiac, and dinghy : ashore. "Indulgence" became the breakwater's breakwater, and we bounced around : considerably until boat and ferry traffic subsided in the late evening hours. : : I had heated a can of chili enroute from Seattle, certainly as much of my own : cooking as any reasonable antibodies would be able to neutralize in a single : day. I went uptown to grab a bite, and must have accidentally discovered the : worst Chinese restaurant in North America. While most of the Friday Harbor : eateries had diners' queues out the doors and onto the sidewalks, there were : perhaps ten people sprinkled around the cavernous dining hall of the Chinese : joint. The lack of attendance should have warned me off- either that or the odd : smell. The lukewarm food was, frankly, awful and the Chinese "tea" tasted like : hot dishwater. The indifferent, distracted waitress forgot to serve my soup : course, but she forsook her slothful ways when she flew across the restaurant : to snatch up the signed credit card slip. (She was checking to be sure that she : had been adequately tipped.) She was tipped appropriately, if not adequately, : and no advance math skills were required to calculate the percentage. I : remember competent service and much better food at this restaurant in previous : years. Perhaps it has changed hands. : : I spent a restless night aboard. At first light, wake and wave action began : slamming "Indulgence" against her fenders at the breakwater. An impenetrable : fog had engulfed the harbor, morphing from black to silver and finally white in : the invisible sunrise. I peered out the cabin window, concerned that Jan's : seaplane might be diverted or delayed. I took the very long walk from the : breakwater to the center of town, and on that foggy Saturday morning, I finally : discovered Friday Harbor. : : The majority of the shops were still closed. The first ferry full of whirlwind : tourists had not yet landed, and most of the boaters in the marina were still : aboard- breakfasting or sleeping. Autumn sends some scouts ahead of her gradual : invasion of September and unchallenged occupation of October, and such a : stealthy spy was taking the measure of Friday Harbor. The fog wafted down the : nearly vacant streets, reducing structures 100- feet away to soft suggestions : rather than angular shapes. Swirling white and yellow auras surrounded blurred : electric fixtures. A baritone fog horn churned and shook the shimmering cloud, : so far off course and come to ground in Friday harbor. : : The street grid and much of the downtown energy flows down slope to Front : Street. An old man with an aromatic pipe and an impatient little dog sat on a : bench at Memorial Park. We did not speak, but we listened to the same mournful : horns warning one and all of stealthy poltergeists and ethereal ghost ships : enveloped and camouflaged by rudderless vapors. : : I had breakfast at the Front Street Café, near the ferry landing. The woman and : daughter immediately ahead of me in line were out of sync with the morning : rhythm. Rude, demanding, and impatient, they must have arrived by automobile. : They gathered an order to go and seemed to flee the premises. Most of the crowd : appeared to be locals gathered for a few moments of coffee gossip before : dispersing to jobs and businesses of their own. A woman hammered out messages : on a laptop computer, while two men discussed the impending retirement of a : popular barber. (Breakfast was the "basic scramble" with toasted beer bread. : The eggs were extremely good, and the toasted beer bread nothing less than : fantastic!) : : The fog began to clear, rather quickly. It appeared that Jan's plane would be : on time, and all would be well within the world. As I strolled on through the : relatively empty streets and considered the old man on the bench and the : breakfast crowd at the café, it occurred to me exactly how I had failed to : appreciate Friday Harbor. I had always tried to make some sense of the physical : infrastructure of the place, forgetting that here, as everywhere, the streets, : the buildings, and the geographical characteristics are like rocks in a river. : The rocks define, deflect, direct, and may even contain the course of the : river, but the fluid, dynamic energy of the river is the water. In a sense, the : people of a town are the water in the river. I had always experienced the human : dynamic through the perspective of tourists frantic to "do the San Juans" : between ferry departures, or the stressed merchants often overwhelmed by the : same. In the early morning hours, without the surging crowds, (and when people : were fed, rested, and going about the ordinary business of the day), the bricks : and sticks, the rocks and the river, and the pulse of Friday Harbor made : obvious sense. : : A formation of five seaplanes splashed down in quick succession. Jan : disembarked in a crisp moment of blazing blue daylight, an atmosphere soon to : be in short supply. I was glad to see her. No Hollywood starlet ever made a : more beautiful entrance. : : We relocated "Indulgence" to a freshly vacated slip inside the marina. I'd had : my fill of rock 'n roll for a while. : : The rain began. A few stray drops at first, as gentle and exploratory as a : lover's hopeful foreplay. The spritz became a sprinkle, the sprinkle a drizzle, : the drizzle a shower, and soon Friday Harbor was engulfed in a soaking storm- : frenzied with passion. We got a pair of rain jackets from the hanging locker : and proceeded to do what any pair of rational humans would do when the streets : of Friday Harbor became literal rivers- we hiked half a mile to the San Juan : County Fairgrounds. : : The fair runs five days every August and it is a traditional, agriculturally : oriented event. The Grange and 4-H are prominent here, while the aluminum : siding, storm window, and hot tub salespeople are nowhere in sight. In this : election year, various candidates and parties had erected tents and display : booths, all extolling the specific virtues of widely contrasting political : philosophies. : : The 2004 fair was clobbered by the Saturday deluge. Small groups of dripping, : sloshing, and squishy-shoed people lingered in the indoor commercial areas and : covered animal barns. Vendors with tent space attempted to smile : philosophically as the sparse crowds literally splashed past, bolting between : one indoor venue and another. We scooted under an awning to speak briefly with : a volunteer from the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Center : rescues approximately 800 injured and orphaned birds and animals each year, : restoring as many as possible to health and returning them to the wild : environment. : : Rain swept the fairgrounds like a push broom clears a shop. Disappointed : carnies chain-smoked under faded red and orange-striped canopies: the ball and : bottle games, the ring toss, and the dart throw rackets all but abandoned by : the crowd. : : At regular intervals, a carny would raise a push broom to dump the collected : water from the awning of his booth. The strain on the canvas would be relieved, : but the mud bog in the midway was correspondingly recharged. The Tilt-A-Whirl : neither tilted, nor whirled, but the empty passenger pods collected water like : scuffed fiberglass bowls. Raindrops sizzled, steamed, and splashed against ten : thousand circus-colored carnival bulbs. : : We found the heart of Friday Harbor, once again, at the fair. Despite the : weather, the 4-H market auction was packed. 4-H rules allow every young member : to sell one animal or unit of produce per year. The proceeds are awarded to the : aspiring farmer to help offset the costs of participating in 4-H. Many of the : winning bidders immediately "resell" the animal or produce in the same auction, : with the funds from the second sale going to the4-H organization for programs : and facilities. The auction had been scheduled for an outdoor venue, but : relocated to a standing room only tent. : : We watched in citified amazement as the crowd eagerly bid the first offering, : (a dozen eggs), up to $90.00. The next dozen must have been superior, somehow, : at least to the educated eye. It brought $130. Three laying hens sold for an : astonishing $150, but perhaps that's a shrewd investment in an economy where : eggs bring over ten bucks apiece. In many cases, the auctioneer would conclude : a sale by thanking King's Market, Friday Harbor Hardware, or some other local : business. It isn't every community where prominent businessmen support the : local kids by setting aside a Saturday afternoon to jam into a damp tent and : pay 100 times "too much" for eggs or several multiples of the going rates for : pork and steers. The young farmers must surely feel more appreciated when the : community turns out for an event like the market auction. It has to be more : meaningful than a businessperson simply telling the bookkeeper to write a : check. : : Slogging back to town from the fairgrounds, I enjoyed my fresh perspective of : Friday Harbor. Yes, it's still that frantic tourist town with an awkward : transition between the municipal marina and the shameless hustle bucks around : the ferry dock. When one comes to appreciate Friday Harbor as a mixture of very : real people in a slightly unreal place, the focus is suddenly clarified. I had : found Friday Harbor, and appreciated that it had been there all along. The : fault was entirely mine- confusing a handful of oddball rocks with the fluid, : renewing, energy of a river. : : (no portion of this item may be reproduced without permission) : : : |
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#3
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"Gould 0738" wrote in message ... You guys who live where it's 100 degrees or more all summer long don't have any idea what you're missing. I'm polishing this item up a bit, and thought it might be fun to share with folks from "inferior" climates. Friday Harbor Odd that this article has none of the OT bull**** you foist on this newsgroup.... |
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#4
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Odd that this article has none of the OT bull**** you foist on this newsgroup.... Or any of the personal insults that seem to be your stock in trade. Ever post anything boating related yourself, or just the random bitchy potshot? |
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#6
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I second Chad...a very nice read indeed!
Thank you. --Mike "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... You guys who live where it's 100 degrees or more all summer long don't have any idea what you're missing. I'm polishing this item up a bit, and thought it might be fun to share with folks from "inferior" climates. Friday Harbor I think I've finally found Friday Harbor. No, it was never really missing. It's always been just off San Juan Channel, reasonably well protected by Brown Island. The marina is near 48.32.39 N and 123.00.87 W. I've been going to Friday Harbor for about forty years, and perhaps fifteen times in the last twenty. The Friday Harbor experience has always been two dimensional, like something projected on a screen. There has never seemed to be a warm, human heart behind the planked facades of the tourist shops clustered around the ferry dock. Friday Harbor is one of the most popular marine destinations in the Pacific Northwest, so I have always suspected my failure to develop an affinity for the commercial center of the San Juan Islands was a personal shortcoming. I was right- I have been wrong about Friday Harbor. Jan and I visited Friday Harbor in August of 2004. I motored up single handed from Seattle on a Friday morning. Jan's professional obligations kept her in Seattle for an additional day, and she planned to arrive by seaplane early on Saturday. Just north of Edmonds the VHF crackled, "Environment Canada has issued a gale warning for the Strait of Juan de Fuca." Although the conditions seemed pleasant enough, the barometer was falling off and experience has taught me that the professionals guess the weather better than I do. So much for the outside run, and a potential arrival at Cornet Bay would be two and a half hours prior to slack in Deception Pass. I made Friday Harbor after a ten-hour trek through Saratoga Passage, the Swinomish Channel, Guemes Channel, and across Rosario Strait. The marina at Friday Harbor often fills up during July and August. It is advisable to arrive as early in the day as practicable. When I arrived at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, the only remaining spot was on the outside of the north breakwater. I was too pooped to drop the hook, inflate the Zodiac, and dinghy ashore. "Indulgence" became the breakwater's breakwater, and we bounced around considerably until boat and ferry traffic subsided in the late evening hours. I had heated a can of chili enroute from Seattle, certainly as much of my own cooking as any reasonable antibodies would be able to neutralize in a single day. I went uptown to grab a bite, and must have accidentally discovered the worst Chinese restaurant in North America. While most of the Friday Harbor eateries had diners' queues out the doors and onto the sidewalks, there were perhaps ten people sprinkled around the cavernous dining hall of the Chinese joint. The lack of attendance should have warned me off- either that or the odd smell. The lukewarm food was, frankly, awful and the Chinese "tea" tasted like hot dishwater. The indifferent, distracted waitress forgot to serve my soup course, but she forsook her slothful ways when she flew across the restaurant to snatch up the signed credit card slip. (She was checking to be sure that she had been adequately tipped.) She was tipped appropriately, if not adequately, and no advance math skills were required to calculate the percentage. I remember competent service and much better food at this restaurant in previous years. Perhaps it has changed hands. I spent a restless night aboard. At first light, wake and wave action began slamming "Indulgence" against her fenders at the breakwater. An impenetrable fog had engulfed the harbor, morphing from black to silver and finally white in the invisible sunrise. I peered out the cabin window, concerned that Jan's seaplane might be diverted or delayed. I took the very long walk from the breakwater to the center of town, and on that foggy Saturday morning, I finally discovered Friday Harbor. The majority of the shops were still closed. The first ferry full of whirlwind tourists had not yet landed, and most of the boaters in the marina were still aboard- breakfasting or sleeping. Autumn sends some scouts ahead of her gradual invasion of September and unchallenged occupation of October, and such a stealthy spy was taking the measure of Friday Harbor. The fog wafted down the nearly vacant streets, reducing structures 100- feet away to soft suggestions rather than angular shapes. Swirling white and yellow auras surrounded blurred electric fixtures. A baritone fog horn churned and shook the shimmering cloud, so far off course and come to ground in Friday harbor. The street grid and much of the downtown energy flows down slope to Front Street. An old man with an aromatic pipe and an impatient little dog sat on a bench at Memorial Park. We did not speak, but we listened to the same mournful horns warning one and all of stealthy poltergeists and ethereal ghost ships enveloped and camouflaged by rudderless vapors. I had breakfast at the Front Street Café, near the ferry landing. The woman and daughter immediately ahead of me in line were out of sync with the morning rhythm. Rude, demanding, and impatient, they must have arrived by automobile. They gathered an order to go and seemed to flee the premises. Most of the crowd appeared to be locals gathered for a few moments of coffee gossip before dispersing to jobs and businesses of their own. A woman hammered out messages on a laptop computer, while two men discussed the impending retirement of a popular barber. (Breakfast was the "basic scramble" with toasted beer bread. The eggs were extremely good, and the toasted beer bread nothing less than fantastic!) The fog began to clear, rather quickly. It appeared that Jan's plane would be on time, and all would be well within the world. As I strolled on through the relatively empty streets and considered the old man on the bench and the breakfast crowd at the café, it occurred to me exactly how I had failed to appreciate Friday Harbor. I had always tried to make some sense of the physical infrastructure of the place, forgetting that here, as everywhere, the streets, the buildings, and the geographical characteristics are like rocks in a river. The rocks define, deflect, direct, and may even contain the course of the river, but the fluid, dynamic energy of the river is the water. In a sense, the people of a town are the water in the river. I had always experienced the human dynamic through the perspective of tourists frantic to "do the San Juans" between ferry departures, or the stressed merchants often overwhelmed by the same. In the early morning hours, without the surging crowds, (and when people were fed, rested, and going about the ordinary business of the day), the bricks and sticks, the rocks and the river, and the pulse of Friday Harbor made obvious sense. A formation of five seaplanes splashed down in quick succession. Jan disembarked in a crisp moment of blazing blue daylight, an atmosphere soon to be in short supply. I was glad to see her. No Hollywood starlet ever made a more beautiful entrance. We relocated "Indulgence" to a freshly vacated slip inside the marina. I'd had my fill of rock 'n roll for a while. The rain began. A few stray drops at first, as gentle and exploratory as a lover's hopeful foreplay. The spritz became a sprinkle, the sprinkle a drizzle, the drizzle a shower, and soon Friday Harbor was engulfed in a soaking storm- frenzied with passion. We got a pair of rain jackets from the hanging locker and proceeded to do what any pair of rational humans would do when the streets of Friday Harbor became literal rivers- we hiked half a mile to the San Juan County Fairgrounds. The fair runs five days every August and it is a traditional, agriculturally oriented event. The Grange and 4-H are prominent here, while the aluminum siding, storm window, and hot tub salespeople are nowhere in sight. In this election year, various candidates and parties had erected tents and display booths, all extolling the specific virtues of widely contrasting political philosophies. The 2004 fair was clobbered by the Saturday deluge. Small groups of dripping, sloshing, and squishy-shoed people lingered in the indoor commercial areas and covered animal barns. Vendors with tent space attempted to smile philosophically as the sparse crowds literally splashed past, bolting between one indoor venue and another. We scooted under an awning to speak briefly with a volunteer from the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Center rescues approximately 800 injured and orphaned birds and animals each year, restoring as many as possible to health and returning them to the wild environment. Rain swept the fairgrounds like a push broom clears a shop. Disappointed carnies chain-smoked under faded red and orange-striped canopies: the ball and bottle games, the ring toss, and the dart throw rackets all but abandoned by the crowd. At regular intervals, a carny would raise a push broom to dump the collected water from the awning of his booth. The strain on the canvas would be relieved, but the mud bog in the midway was correspondingly recharged. The Tilt-A-Whirl neither tilted, nor whirled, but the empty passenger pods collected water like scuffed fiberglass bowls. Raindrops sizzled, steamed, and splashed against ten thousand circus-colored carnival bulbs. We found the heart of Friday Harbor, once again, at the fair. Despite the weather, the 4-H market auction was packed. 4-H rules allow every young member to sell one animal or unit of produce per year. The proceeds are awarded to the aspiring farmer to help offset the costs of participating in 4-H. Many of the winning bidders immediately "resell" the animal or produce in the same auction, with the funds from the second sale going to the4-H organization for programs and facilities. The auction had been scheduled for an outdoor venue, but relocated to a standing room only tent. We watched in citified amazement as the crowd eagerly bid the first offering, (a dozen eggs), up to $90.00. The next dozen must have been superior, somehow, at least to the educated eye. It brought $130. Three laying hens sold for an astonishing $150, but perhaps that's a shrewd investment in an economy where eggs bring over ten bucks apiece. In many cases, the auctioneer would conclude a sale by thanking King's Market, Friday Harbor Hardware, or some other local business. It isn't every community where prominent businessmen support the local kids by setting aside a Saturday afternoon to jam into a damp tent and pay 100 times "too much" for eggs or several multiples of the going rates for pork and steers. The young farmers must surely feel more appreciated when the community turns out for an event like the market auction. It has to be more meaningful than a businessperson simply telling the bookkeeper to write a check. Slogging back to town from the fairgrounds, I enjoyed my fresh perspective of Friday Harbor. Yes, it's still that frantic tourist town with an awkward transition between the municipal marina and the shameless hustle bucks around the ferry dock. When one comes to appreciate Friday Harbor as a mixture of very real people in a slightly unreal place, the focus is suddenly clarified. I had found Friday Harbor, and appreciated that it had been there all along. The fault was entirely mine- confusing a handful of oddball rocks with the fluid, renewing, energy of a river. (no portion of this item may be reproduced without permission) |
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#7
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I second Chad...a very nice read indeed!
Thanks to both. Glad you enjoyed it. |
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#8
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Around 10/14/2004 11:59 AM, Gould 0738 wrote:
You guys who live where it's 100 degrees or more all summer long don't have any idea what you're missing. I'm polishing this item up a bit, and thought it might be fun to share with folks from "inferior" climates. Heh. Shhh! You don't want them all moving here, now do you? snip So much for the outside run, and a potential arrival at Cornet Bay would be two and a half hours prior to slack in Deception Pass. I made Friday Harbor after a ten-hour trek through Saratoga Passage, the Swinomish Channel, Guemes Channel, and across Rosario Strait. Going through La Conner always takes so much ^%$&ing time, but the scenery and the town itself are really great. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time my family went "outside," primarily because 6-8 knot currents aren't terribly compatible with a 9-10 knot Chris.  The marina at Friday Harbor often fills up during July and August. It is advisable to arrive as early in the day as practicable. When I arrived at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, the only remaining spot was on the outside of the north breakwater. I was too pooped to drop the hook, inflate the Zodiac, and dinghy ashore. My family and I have been stuck (literally) there before. If you were pooped then, I can imagine how you felt after "the walk". Getting to shore from there is almost more work than anchoring and dinghying. "Indulgence" became the breakwater's breakwater, and we bounced around considerably until boat and ferry traffic subsided in the late evening hours. I had heated a can of chili enroute from Seattle, certainly as much of my own cooking as any reasonable antibodies would be able to neutralize in a single day. I went uptown to grab a bite, and must have accidentally discovered the worst Chinese restaurant in North America. While most of the Friday Harbor eateries had diners' queues out the doors and onto the sidewalks, there were perhaps ten people sprinkled around the cavernous dining hall of the Chinese joint. The lack of attendance should have warned me off- either that or the odd smell. The lukewarm food was, frankly, awful and the Chinese "tea" tasted like hot dishwater. The indifferent, distracted waitress forgot to serve my soup course, but she forsook her slothful ways when she flew across the restaurant to snatch up the signed credit card slip. (She was checking to be sure that she had been adequately tipped.) She was tipped appropriately, if not adequately, and no advance math skills were required to calculate the percentage. I remember competent service and much better food at this restaurant in previous years. Perhaps it has changed hands. Though it was probably one of the restaurants with a line around the block, you should have gone to the San Juan Brewing Company's Front Street Ale House. Good food, and *great* beer. (more at the bottom, rest unsnipped) I spent a restless night aboard. At first light, wake and wave action began slamming "Indulgence" against her fenders at the breakwater. An impenetrable fog had engulfed the harbor, morphing from black to silver and finally white in the invisible sunrise. I peered out the cabin window, concerned that Jan's seaplane might be diverted or delayed. I took the very long walk from the breakwater to the center of town, and on that foggy Saturday morning, I finally discovered Friday Harbor. The majority of the shops were still closed. The first ferry full of whirlwind tourists had not yet landed, and most of the boaters in the marina were still aboard- breakfasting or sleeping. Autumn sends some scouts ahead of her gradual invasion of September and unchallenged occupation of October, and such a stealthy spy was taking the measure of Friday Harbor. The fog wafted down the nearly vacant streets, reducing structures 100- feet away to soft suggestions rather than angular shapes. Swirling white and yellow auras surrounded blurred electric fixtures. A baritone fog horn churned and shook the shimmering cloud, so far off course and come to ground in Friday harbor. The street grid and much of the downtown energy flows down slope to Front Street. An old man with an aromatic pipe and an impatient little dog sat on a bench at Memorial Park. We did not speak, but we listened to the same mournful horns warning one and all of stealthy poltergeists and ethereal ghost ships enveloped and camouflaged by rudderless vapors. I had breakfast at the Front Street Café, near the ferry landing. The woman and daughter immediately ahead of me in line were out of sync with the morning rhythm. Rude, demanding, and impatient, they must have arrived by automobile. They gathered an order to go and seemed to flee the premises. Most of the crowd appeared to be locals gathered for a few moments of coffee gossip before dispersing to jobs and businesses of their own. A woman hammered out messages on a laptop computer, while two men discussed the impending retirement of a popular barber. (Breakfast was the "basic scramble" with toasted beer bread. The eggs were extremely good, and the toasted beer bread nothing less than fantastic!) The fog began to clear, rather quickly. It appeared that Jan's plane would be on time, and all would be well within the world. As I strolled on through the relatively empty streets and considered the old man on the bench and the breakfast crowd at the café, it occurred to me exactly how I had failed to appreciate Friday Harbor. I had always tried to make some sense of the physical infrastructure of the place, forgetting that here, as everywhere, the streets, the buildings, and the geographical characteristics are like rocks in a river. The rocks define, deflect, direct, and may even contain the course of the river, but the fluid, dynamic energy of the river is the water. In a sense, the people of a town are the water in the river. I had always experienced the human dynamic through the perspective of tourists frantic to "do the San Juans" between ferry departures, or the stressed merchants often overwhelmed by the same. In the early morning hours, without the surging crowds, (and when people were fed, rested, and going about the ordinary business of the day), the bricks and sticks, the rocks and the river, and the pulse of Friday Harbor made obvious sense. A formation of five seaplanes splashed down in quick succession. Jan disembarked in a crisp moment of blazing blue daylight, an atmosphere soon to be in short supply. I was glad to see her. No Hollywood starlet ever made a more beautiful entrance. We relocated "Indulgence" to a freshly vacated slip inside the marina. I'd had my fill of rock 'n roll for a while. The rain began. A few stray drops at first, as gentle and exploratory as a lover's hopeful foreplay. The spritz became a sprinkle, the sprinkle a drizzle, the drizzle a shower, and soon Friday Harbor was engulfed in a soaking storm- frenzied with passion. We got a pair of rain jackets from the hanging locker and proceeded to do what any pair of rational humans would do when the streets of Friday Harbor became literal rivers- we hiked half a mile to the San Juan County Fairgrounds. The fair runs five days every August and it is a traditional, agriculturally oriented event. The Grange and 4-H are prominent here, while the aluminum siding, storm window, and hot tub salespeople are nowhere in sight. In this election year, various candidates and parties had erected tents and display booths, all extolling the specific virtues of widely contrasting political philosophies. The 2004 fair was clobbered by the Saturday deluge. Small groups of dripping, sloshing, and squishy-shoed people lingered in the indoor commercial areas and covered animal barns. Vendors with tent space attempted to smile philosophically as the sparse crowds literally splashed past, bolting between one indoor venue and another. We scooted under an awning to speak briefly with a volunteer from the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Center rescues approximately 800 injured and orphaned birds and animals each year, restoring as many as possible to health and returning them to the wild environment. Rain swept the fairgrounds like a push broom clears a shop. Disappointed carnies chain-smoked under faded red and orange-striped canopies: the ball and bottle games, the ring toss, and the dart throw rackets all but abandoned by the crowd. At regular intervals, a carny would raise a push broom to dump the collected water from the awning of his booth. The strain on the canvas would be relieved, but the mud bog in the midway was correspondingly recharged. The Tilt-A-Whirl neither tilted, nor whirled, but the empty passenger pods collected water like scuffed fiberglass bowls. Raindrops sizzled, steamed, and splashed against ten thousand circus-colored carnival bulbs. We found the heart of Friday Harbor, once again, at the fair. Despite the weather, the 4-H market auction was packed. 4-H rules allow every young member to sell one animal or unit of produce per year. The proceeds are awarded to the aspiring farmer to help offset the costs of participating in 4-H. Many of the winning bidders immediately "resell" the animal or produce in the same auction, with the funds from the second sale going to the4-H organization for programs and facilities. The auction had been scheduled for an outdoor venue, but relocated to a standing room only tent. We watched in citified amazement as the crowd eagerly bid the first offering, (a dozen eggs), up to $90.00. The next dozen must have been superior, somehow, at least to the educated eye. It brought $130. Three laying hens sold for an astonishing $150, but perhaps that's a shrewd investment in an economy where eggs bring over ten bucks apiece. In many cases, the auctioneer would conclude a sale by thanking King's Market, Friday Harbor Hardware, or some other local business. It isn't every community where prominent businessmen support the local kids by setting aside a Saturday afternoon to jam into a damp tent and pay 100 times "too much" for eggs or several multiples of the going rates for pork and steers. The young farmers must surely feel more appreciated when the community turns out for an event like the market auction. It has to be more meaningful than a businessperson simply telling the bookkeeper to write a check. Slogging back to town from the fairgrounds, I enjoyed my fresh perspective of Friday Harbor. Yes, it's still that frantic tourist town with an awkward transition between the municipal marina and the shameless hustle bucks around the ferry dock. When one comes to appreciate Friday Harbor as a mixture of very real people in a slightly unreal place, the focus is suddenly clarified. I had found Friday Harbor, and appreciated that it had been there all along. The fault was entirely mine- confusing a handful of oddball rocks with the fluid, renewing, energy of a river. Bravo. Very well written. (no portion of this item may be reproduced without permission) Oops. Too late; should have put this warning at the top. -- ~/Garth - 1966 Glastron V-142 Skiflite: "Blue-Boat" "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." -Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows |
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"Gould 0738" wrote in message ... Odd that this article has none of the OT bull**** you foist on this newsgroup.... Or any of the personal insults that seem to be your stock in trade. Ever post anything boating related yourself, or just the random bitchy potshot? If you would put your head out of Harry's ass and read some of the ON TOPIC posts you would see that I do. |
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f you would put your head out of Harry's ass and read some of the ON TOPIC
posts you would see that I do. You waded in with an unprovoked bitchy personal comment, trying to start the fight we're having now. Was that on topic? When I responded to your unprovoked bitchy comment, you followed up with another. My gawd, what an asset you are to the group. You may have a very short memory. Run an advanced search in Google, using Bomar and your previous screen names, and see whether you should be lecturing others about topic. I'm embarrassed for you, frankly. I'll see if I can recall the last time you posted something on topic and I came charging in with snide personal remarks to try and hijack or divert the thread. Sounds to me that somebody who behaves *that* way has a head up another's ass, not I. |
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