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Cognitive DissonanceI do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work.
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August 26 NOW who's a Suffering BastardTrader Vic's in Bellevue closed this weekend. Fuckers. At least I have two of the Bellevue tiki glasses. These are specifically for the suffering Bastard, my favorite drink. That will have to do for the near future.
August 25 First commercial trip of CTMV - Wine by SailI've heard about this for a while, this company is shipping wines by sail, first to the UK, then to Canada next. There are a few things about this I like, it's clean, it should be better temp controlled and less expensive than container, and it's just really cool. Hopefully it is a commercial success.
First commercial trip of CTMV FairWindWine onboard Kathleen&May - Wine by Sail August 18 Poulsbo and back againWell, I had a delightful little case of food poisoning last Wednesday, and 24 hours and 5 pounds later, we were scheduled for our trip out to Poulsbo via the boat. I was nervous that I wasn’t going to be well in time, but got lucky. That and a half-bottle of Imodium AD kept us to plan. The plan meant leaving at 3 on Friday, and going through the Locks , staying at Shilshole overnight. This was our first family overnight cruise, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. We left closer to 3:30, but that was fine. I had estimated a two-hour drive out to the locks, and an hour to go through. Shilshole is just outside the locks, so that last leg was not a worry. Lake Washington was a bit windy and choppy going out, not real bad, but annoying. Once we got into Montlake cut, we were sheltered from the wind and things calmed down. We had a nice slow cruise from there to the Lake Union Gas dock across from the Police Station.
From there we went to the waiting pier for the Large Locks (the small ones are under maintenance) and tied up. We were pretty lucky, and only had to wait about 15 minutes before the light went green and it was time for our group to head in. The number of fish that jump in that area are really amazing, both in size and frequency. But with the fish ladder there, it isn’t surprising. The locks were no real trouble, we got placed next to a larger boat, so we didn’t have to manage our ropes against the wall, (which is pretty green and slimy). The boat next to us was a 50 foot, 1968 Chris Craft, beautifully restored. The captain and his wife were experienced, and were very helpful to Yulia and Adam as they worked the lines to tie us up. We chatted with them a bit and with the tide high, it was a short ride down.
I used to have a really nice collapsible bucket. I say “used to” because the crew saw little fishes swimming near the dock and tried to catch some with the bucket. It had a short little rope attached so you could haul it back in, but apparently it needed a float attached to the end, just in case someone threw it too far and the rope slipped from their hand. Lesson Learned. In the morning, we had a quick breakfast, and left under no wind with clear skies. The water was like glass heading out, and we were going straight across Puget Sound to Agate Pass. We timed the tides to hit as close to slack as possible, since Agate Pass can be really fast when at full tide. We were still against the tide a bit, but aside from a few bumps as we entered, it was no real problem. From there we slowly meandered our way into Liberty Bay, and on to Poulsbo. Coming into the public marina, we saw that the wooden breakwater was covered in Harbor Seals, and the water was filled with little jellyfish. The Harbormaster gave us two slips on F dock, and we went around the back side to tie up. The wind was starting to pick up, and was blowing us to the side, making mooring difficult. Naturally, there was a huge crowd of people on the dock, drinking and watching us. Advice was freely given. It took me three approaches to get the timing and direction of the wind correct, but I managed to get the boat to slip into the fairly narrow slip without smacking anything, earning me a round of applause from the group watching. They helped us tie down, and we were in.
We took the dinghy out and drove past the seals to get a few pictures. They were bored with us for the most part, since we were not offering any food. The girls got to hold a non-stinging jellyfish, which I thought was a bit gross, but they liked it. It was hot enough in the afternoon that I put the top up just to give us more shade, which helped a bit.
The next day, we headed out after waiting for the quick morning rain to stop. There was a bit more wind, and the water had a few more rolling waves once we were outside Agate Pass. But it was mostly uneventful out to the locks, but this time we had a much longer wait. Over an hour later a huge stream of ships came out of the locks, including a gigantic barge and tugboat, several big sailboats, and to my surprise the Virginia V, the real ship that I saw the model of in the store. That was surprising. In the locks again, we were tied up to some very new, 90 foot megayacht, crewed by a guy in Hawaiian shorts, and his wife, who knew a lot less than us about how to handle lines. This should have been my clue that this was going to be less than optimal. We were all tied down, and once the doors closed and the lock started to fill, I headed to the bow to watch the lines there. It took a while to notice, but apparently the megayacht “captain” fired his engines back up, so he could use his maneuvering thrusters. This kept him from actually having to manage his lines with actual body strength. Of course, this totally filled the lock with Carbon Monoxide fumes, and all the people in smaller boats were choking, but the lockmasters didn’t notice, and once we got to the top it was too late. We all had monstrous CO headaches once we got out of there. From there we slowly worked our way out back into the lake, Stopping for a pumpout again, and watching some fool in too large of a sailboat almost smack into the Montlake Bridge with his mast. He was too close, and it didn’t open when he wanted it to, so he had to reverse quickly, but had traffic backed up behind him. So he turned sharply, and almost smacked the side of the cut. He ended up sideways in the cut, blocking all traffic, until the bridge was open. We finally headed for home, and stopped once again to make a little dinner of sausage and cheese. We were hot, and we were tired, but it was a very successful cruise.
photography by Yulia Hancheroff August 07 We've got guns too...Movie pirates are cool, but the real thing pretty much sucks. This story came out about one captain's pre-planning, and happy ending. Quote:
Sail World - Powerboat-world: Sail and sailing, cruising, boating news August 06 Best Daily Kos posting everKos is the best liberal politics site out there, but it is also filled with a bunch of really cool people in general. Today: Hummingbird photos. Quote:
August 05 Ron Suskind: The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?What else can you say? Quote:
July 24 Boating Social SiteI found a neat site on the net today. It is a social site for boaters, which is cool, but it also has reviews of locations with GPS markers on a map. That way you can find places where others have been, and get their reviews. It is supposed to link into facebook, but that doesn't seem to be active yet. Check it out: TheBoaters July 18 Happy Birthday HunterWell, it's that time of year again. It has been an interesting year for HST fans, with a few books and a film, the TV thing on Starz, and work being done on the film The Rum Diary. We all raise a glass....
July 16 Motivational Daily ScriptureHeh.
July 15 With your remaining eye, do not look *back* into the laser beam...How many fucking times to you need to make jokes about burning eyes with lasers until people get the point, not to look into lasers?
July 13 Aeropuerto Cabo San LucasPossibly it is too much to ask for air conditioning in the Cabo airport, but how about a few frakking fans? Jesus this place is hot and muggy. The Cabo airport appears to be one of those surplus military storage huts. It is all brightly painted, with fresh tile and nice little shops, but the lack of central air conditioning is a dead giveaway that this place was just thrown up overnight. I like airports, actually. It is part of the travel process, that while never pleasant, has its own interesting aspects. Currently, Sasha is watching Spongebob Squarepants on the TV in Spanish. She doesn't need subtitles, since she has already seen every episode so many times that she already knows the words by heart.
Yulia is checking out the shops to see if any of them are air conditioned, or at least have a big ice cream cooler to stand in front of. I probably wouldn't be so interested in the place here, but we arrived three hours early for our plane, since the taxi was much faster from the hotel than planned, and there was no line for bags yet. So this is our home for a bit. ---- Close examination has shown that there is a small downdraft of cool air in front of the duty free shop, and inside the the shop near the Chivas Regal is another, these are too weak to cool you down, but almost stop you from heating up further. The duty free shop offers test shots of the tequila they sell. I am most certain that their tequila is in fact defective, and that this can only be proved through several rounds of thorough testing, however I am not sure the girl pouring shots will buy into this. An hour and a half to go until our plane boards. ---- They started boarding the plane early, so we went racing across the airport to find everyone and get our stuff in time. I usually don't worry about losing our seats, that just isn't going to happen, but if you don't get on in time all the overhead space is gone. And we have been waiting too damn long in this steam room of an airport for someone else to take my fucking overhead bin. I'll shift your contents motherfucker. Planes have air conditioning. Air conditioning is good. The drinks can't start coming soon enough. ----- The three overweight women behind us are too drunk to talk in a normal tone, and too sober to pass out and just shut the fuck up. I really no longer have any interest in hearing about how each of them can sooo relate to the women of Sex and the City, what a terrific deal they got on the timeshare they bought at the presentation at their hotel, or how they want to pick up on the good looking male flight attendant, who is obviously gay. It is probably these moments of true grating annoyance that make me really enjoy flying. I hate people in general, and sometimes I forget why. Times like this recharge my hatred batteries, giving me the cynicism and vitrol enough for the rest of the year. I return from my break ready to face a whole new batch of stupidity, energized and prepared to dive headlong into the problem that someone else created, and not give a crap. One of these drunken bitches got up to let her buddy go to the restroom and poured Sangria down Yulia's back. Class. With a "k". I hope they drank lots of Mexican water. LAX is up next. ----- Oh yeah, I forgot how miserable LAX is. John Wayne is a much better airport to use in LA, but we have our transfer here. LAX is one of those airports where you have to go outside to change from the International Terminal to Domestic. And there are no transfer instructions for visitors either, so I pity those who don't speak English trying to catch a connecting flight. We had plenty of time and were able to get through all the Passport control, baggage claim, Customs, baggage drop off, run down the sidewalk to the next terminal, go through the next security check, and run out to the gate. We were at Gate 31, which is in that old section that has all the good looks (and smell) of your average urban train station. There are only two places to eat, and they are actually not too bad, but pretty filthy. It was certainly better than the Cabo airport, if only because it was less than 300 degrees inside, but when you look at places like Sea-Tac, that have worked to modernize their facilities, it gets real surprising to see such a huge hub like LAX be such a disaster. Looks like we have good weather in Seattle for our return. That would be a real change from most of our trips, and a welcome one at that. It will be nice to sleep in our own beds when we are back, and I'm sure that Oscar and the cats have missed us as well. Sasha missed them, and had adopted a couple of hermit crabs in Cabo to be her pets. We kept them in a Tupperware container with sand in the hotel, and released them on the beach this morning. The were healthy and glad to be back in their beach, but Sasha was sad to see them go. Ever the magnet for animals, Sasha has a cat-carrier bag with two meowing cats below her on the plane. She is very concerned that they are not happy, but I figure they that will sleep on their own at some point. Once we land, I have a towncar reserved to pick us up, it's the same price as a shuttle or a taxi, and much more relaxing. It is also pretty convenient to not have to bother your friends to come and get you. ---- I think we will probably do Cabo again at some point. I think it would be good if we could find a year to do a driving vacation, as Yulia still hates flying and it is no fun putting her through it. But a two hour hop like this is a lot easier than the 7+ to Europe, or the 12 to Moscow. We'll see. Planning begins now.
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This was actually a pretty impressive setup. A huge gas dock, Pumpouts on both ends, water hoses ready at each mooring (enough for 6-8 boats at once) and a nicely stocked mini-mart. We filled up with Gas, used the pumpout, and topped off our water. When we were done, Guenaddi called us from his boat, he was running behind us, but was only a few minutes away at that point. He finally caught us in the Fremont Cut, and we stopped at the Ballard Bridge to swap a few fenders, and get our friend Adam over to our boat. This gave us a balanced crew on each boat, and made going through the locks easier. 
Once out of the locks, I was able to hail the harbormaster at Shilshole, and get our spaces on the guest dock. All of Shilshole has gone through a full remodel, and the place is immaculate. H Dock has the guest spaces and the fuel dock as well. Each slip has a post with full power, water, and Cable TV. Normally, the Cable TV would be superfluous, but with the Olympics on, it was appreciated. We were able to grill chicken on the BBQ, break out some Bordeaux, and have a great dinner, watching the sun set over the breakwater, and watching the Chinese finish cheating their way through women’s gymnastics. 
Poulsbo looks like a kitschy little Norwegian town stuck in a fjord somewhere, and was the home to Norwegian immigrant fisherman (they liked the whole fjord look.) In fact, we were lucky enough to land for the 100 year celebration festival, so there were events, music, lutefisk, the works. Walking around town there was a street fair and dance scheduled for the evening. It was the perfect time to be there. 
Dinner was BBQ veggies and Lamb, more wine, and more wine. We took a nighttime walk around the city to see the dancing and look at the shops open late. There was a great little Nautical gift shop that had Brass lamps, pirate stuff, cigars and model ships. One of them was the old Mosquito Fleet ship, Virginia V. I thought that one was pretty neat, since I have seen that very ship on Lake Union, and it is one of the few remaining original ferries from the old mosquito fleet. After that, we had some wine. For some reason, falling asleep was easy. 
