Schooner at the Wooden Boat Festival
My friends Suzanne and Bob Eggleston recently moved up to Port Townsend and I went up to visit. When you’re living in Portland, Oregon, it’s often easy to forget that a wonderful salt water recreational paradise lies a couple of hours north! Not only that, but many towns in the northern Puget Sound are in a rain shadow – they receive less than half the rain Portland or Seattle gets. This meteorological fact has attracted quite a few folks relocating or retiring.
Port Townsend has quite a view. You can typically see not only the beautiful vessels in the harbor and the historic buildings, but Mt. Baker dominates the view east. Mt Baker is 10,781 ft and is very glaciated. But on this trip, smoke from wildfires in British Columbia obscured the view.
Working every weekend in the outdoor recreation business, I looked forward to this mid-week visit. Just after Labor Day and before the Wooden Boat Festival. The early 20th-Century downtown was not thronged with tourists. To get there, I drove up the Hood Canal, and arrived in town about mid afternoon on Tuesday. The drive up Hood Canal was very pretty. Quite the transition to a saltwater culture. Lots of towns right on the water. Some seem to be harvesting oysters for income, and others making ends meet from the tourist industry.
Suzanne and Bob settled in a community named Kala Point. It’s very much peaceful once you pass the gate. Problems of the outside world are left behind. It even has its own pickle-ball courts and a beach where kayaks and rowing boats are stored.
In town, we walked the waterfront, glimpsing the wooden craft coming into port for the Wooden Boat Festival. Power Yachts big and small, schooners, ketches, yawls, sloops and dinghies all coming in.
Suzanne and Bob on the docks.
After walking the docks, we went to dinner at Sirens Pub, which has a to-die-for view of the docks. Not only that, but my Portobello Mushroom salad was really scrumptious.
One of our highlight activities was to be a paddle on the bay!
I brought up my kayak and Suzanne borrowed a Hobie pedal drive kayak from a kind (and trusting) neighbor.
Dinner with a view at The Sirens Pub
Kala Point has its own beach so we headed down there. Perfect day for a paddle! Wind out of the North Northeast about 10-12 mph. Launching my Current Designs Sisu is a simple affair, even with the seaweed along the shoreline. Suzanne’s Hobie Mirage Drive kayak is a bit more problematic. It has these “fins” which move back and forth underneath the kayak and are driven by pedals up on deck. It’s got bicycle chains connecting, and anything that the fins/chains come into contact with can throw off the whole system. So launching Suzanne involved keeping “fins up” and moving out beyond the clogging seaweed. Either way we got ourselves launched and out into the bay.
Suzanne about to go to sea!
We spent several hours out there. Super nice to get out on the water!
Cabin Fever Chronicles - Getting Outdoors with Rod 