NELSON'S NOTES #30, August-September Travels

September 14, 2003

WHERE MOUNTAINS MEET THE SEA

That's Washington's Olympic Peninsula.  Chimacum, where we're staying for 2 ½ weeks, is in the northeast corner of the peninsula and in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains. It's drier than you'd expect for Washington state--annual rainfall is only 17-20 inches. This summer there's been less rain than usual. Two days after we arrived, the unusual warm, dry weather pattern ended and so did 61 straight days of temperatures above 70º and lots of sunshine. Now we're having more typical weather--cooler temperatures and some sun mixed in with clouds and showers.

Eight miles north of Chimacum is Port Townsend, a busy seaport town with many attractive Victorian buildings. Port Townsend's industrial park is all boatyards, marinas, marine repair and ship chandler shops. The town's only bad feature is its paper mill. The mill's stacks send up columns of steamy smoke, and if the wind is coming from the north we can smell the fumes in Chimacum.

WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

A mass of masts is one sign that the annual Wooden Boat Festival is in progress at Port Townsend's waterfront. Held the second weekend of September, this educational and fun festival features workshops and seminars on intricate aspects of making wooden boats and their peripherals. In fact, anything and everything a boatmaker or sailor needs to know is taught. We watched a woman demonstrate how to seamlessly splice a double braided line. From the pitfall she was cautioning against--ending up with a lumpy line that doesn't pass freely through sheaves (pulleys)--we could tell it wasn't easy to do correctly.

At one tent, we watched families build their dinghies.

At another seminar, an instructor showed how to shape an oar by chiseling it with a hatchet chip by chip. In addition to the technical boat-making workshops, faculty members taught things such as Celestial Navigation, Becoming a Licensed Pilot, and Preparing for Your Voyage.

Also at the festival was the Lady Washington, a dark-hulled brig which was the military ship in Pirates of the Caribbean. The male and female crew members (some of them had been in the movie) are in their teens and twenties. We watched as they fearlessly scrambled up the Lady's high masts and perched on unstable ropes hung beneath the yardarms to furl the sails or repair the rigging.

By the way, do you think this old salt could have been one of the pirates?