Blog
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Safe Boating Month – “Fully Vested” Safety Vest
Last evening at the San Juan Island Yacht Club, David Dubbell, of the Friday Harbor USPS, demonstrated the new safety vest developed for Friday Harbor based WHAT company. The vest contains all of 2011 USCG, COLREGS, and Department of Homeland Security required equipment for a recreational boater. A partial list of equipment includes, automatic inflating life vest, air horn, signal mirror, 3 handheld flares, smoke flare, dye capsules, throw rope, doggy doo bag, seasick pills, salt pills, 3 Cliff bars, waterproof floating handheld VHF radio with DSC, radar reflecting hat, sunscreen, hand fishing line and dehydrated nightcrawlers, mini Kindle (with [...]
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Carb to EFI conversion on the Cruise A Home 31
The big news in town was the raccoon in the tree by Kings Market. Also, the Circling Flies are back. Now, I do embellish a bit, but the Circling Flies are real, look it up. Today finally felt like summer. After a nice Rotary breakfast meeting at the Downriggers, I spent the better part of the day finishing up the installation of the Holley TBI fuel injection system installation on the Cruise A Home 31. When we bought the CAH, it had a Holley 4 bbl that was missing some parts. Lots of ether was needed to get it started. The [...]
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May 2011 What’s Up, Dock?
I’ll tell you what’s up. Local boat parade participation….record setting levels. Last week’s Opening Day boat parade and festivities put on by the San Juan Island Yacht Club went smoothly, with the boat parade, docktail party, boat christenings, an engine room exorcism, and all the usual partatious exuberance related to the upcoming cruising season. The beautiful new No Knot Yacht 44 (built right here in Friday Harbor) led the parade, looking smart under tow by the shiny Towline marine assist boat. The No Knot 44 has been a big hit, with 2 under construction, and 3 more on order. The [...]
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April 2011 What’s Up, Dock?
I’ll tell you what’s up. Ol’ Sol, The Bane of Prozac Pushers. Seems just a few weeks ago, the sputtering and useless orb would timidly peek over the horizon far to the south of Turn Island, skulk across a small arc of the southernmost sky, and slip sullenly behind the ridge of American Camp. But this morning – the blazing fireball came shooting up from behind the crest of Turn Island, rocketed skyward, floated majestically for hours and hours across the heavens, and then slowly dropped into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Yippee and @#$%^&* That means Boating Season [...]
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March 2011 What’s Up, Dock?
I’ll tell you what’s up. The local saltwater bullfrog population. Back in the 1950s, the University of Washington created the UW Marine Labs in Friday Harbor, with a mandate to use marine science to further local economies. One of the earliest projects involved an effort to raise bullfrogs for the frogleg market. Several barrels of bullfrogs were brought from Texas and introduced into a small lake on San Juan Island, which lake is now part of Lakedale Resort. One scientist also attempted to crossbreed Dungeness crabs and frogs, hoping to get eight frog legs per frog, but the effort was [...]
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Feb 2011 What’s Up, Dock??
I’ll tell you what’s up. Actually, I’ll tell you what’s down. The Flat Earth Society finally took down their Christmas tree in their meeting room at Shipyard Cove Marina. They hadn’t planned on taking it down until March or so, but the Fire Marshall happened to pass by, so it came down a little early. It was time anyway, because the pile of discarded Christmas trees down by the shoreline had grown to include at least 20 trees, left there by local islanders for the Annual Christmas Tree Float. It is not known exactly when the first Christmas Tree Float [...]
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Jan 2011 What’s Up, Dock?
Friday Harbor Waterfront Views By Cap’n Crabby I’ll tell you what’s up. The meniscus in our rain gauge. The Harbormaster reports that the water level inside the harbor breakwater has raised 6” from all the rain. Also up…the Beaufort scale. Friday Harbor Northeaster, 11 degrees, 60+ mph winds. Some boats were tied a little tight to the docks, and were yanking the dock floats up and down, tearing out bull rails, yanking cleats, chafing lines, popping fenders. It went on for a few days. The Lighted Boat Parade and Santa Boat drew a huge crowd of raindrops. Xmas came and went, [...]
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Dec 2010 What’s Up, Dock?
Friday Harbor Waterfront Views By Capt Crabby I’ll tell you what’s up. Tempers. And, believe it or not, the SOBs are agitated over little bunny rabbits. American Camp, one of two historic National Parks on San Juan Island, has been home to a very, very large and growing herd of bunnies. Understand, these bunnies were not in American Camp when Colonel Pickett was eating poached pork, but were introduced later by mainland tourists bringing their unwanted furry pets to the island, and dropping them off here to keep us company. And the bunnies thrived to the point where they became, at [...]
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Nov 2010 What’s Up, Dock?
Friday Harbor Waterfront Views By Capt Crabby I’ll tell you what’s up….the Salmon Mortality count. According to our local fisherpersons, this past season has landed the best commercial salmon haul in history. And the fishboats aren’t the only things riding low in the water. Tourists coming to Friday Harbor and going out on whale watch boats have been disappointed lately, also due to the salmon run. Our well trained local Orcas usually put on a good show for the boats, spy hopping, leaping from the water, rolling around, maybe even doing a little humpty hump. But this year, the whales have [...]
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Oct 2010 What’s Up, Dock?
Friday Harbor Waterfront Views By Capt Crabby I’ll tell you what’s up. October. From the Latin “Octo”, meaning the eighth month, and the Latin “ber”, which means cooler. In Friday Harbor, it finally quiets down enough that we can actually count up all of the money that we made during the 6 weeks of our summer season. Not as daunting a task this year as maybe in some previous years, but time consuming, nonetheless. In the harbor, the Bakery Boat has ceased Bakery Boating. Whitey, our pet crow, has come back to begging for Doritos at our back door. G [...]