Once upon a long time ago, at least it felt so, felt so for me, I spent a full day sailing upon the Salish Sea, tipped a sailboat over so much the outermost lip of the starboard-side gunwale dipped underwater, and I ended up rocking a porta potty across the deep inner sea. It was a perfect summer day blessed with happy yellow sunshine and cool breezes. Sublime views of mountains, islands, and sparkling seas reaffirmed our decision to move out here to Cascadia. Gwen Hughes, my wife at the time and one of my exes today and still a dear friend, had moved together with me to Seattle from our native Virginia. We had previously been out here for parts of 1986-1987 and wanted to get back West. After living in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and briefly even Vermont, we said farewell to the East Coast with our 1991 thruhike of the Appalachian Trail. In January of 1992 we returned to our beloved Pacific Northwest.
Gwen had worked for a small, model toy sailboat company during her earlier time in Cascadia. Tippecanoe Boats was founded in 1983 by a lovely, wackyfun couple from places back East. These were anti-electric motor toys back in those days, too, real sailing model sailboats, not merely whirring, radio-operated, mechanical robots. Years later, however, the company evolved into making exquisitely crafted, stunningly gorgeous, radio-controlled model sailboats. Back in the 80s, tho, Gwen helped cut and sew the sails from real nylon spinnaker cloth, pack and load up inventory, help sell the boats at art fairs, craft shows and outdoor festivals, and lots of grunty-grunt work.
Even I did some work for a few short weeks, soldering rudders plus a few other things. I was a lousy solderer, however, as too much made the rudder too heavy. Such distortions left the toy model sailboat off-balanced, and while my clumsy efforts became more refined as I progressed, even earning an occasional kudos, Will, the primary owner, and I realized I wasn’t playing to my strengths. The cool thing was Chris, one of our other T-boat workers, also worked at the magnificent Honey Bear Bakery. Occasional treats came our way, and even more as the primary owner of Tippecanoe disliked ingesting yummy bearilicious refined white sugar products. Aye, those were halcyon days for us early migrants to the then-Emerald City. The worldwide Cold War had ended, the forever Global War on Terror was a ways off, smartfone and socmed addiction was yet to be, and there were mountains to climb, trails to hike, and seas to sail!
After we returned to Washington State, Gwen and I went to visit our friends the model sailboat makers. They lived back in the foothills of mountains up a latticework of dirt roads. Invited us sailing a few times. We accepted. Most of these trips were during the summers of 1992 and 1993. Maybe 1994 with our baby daughter Morgan, too. We would roll down the slopes and river valleys in our travel-worn minivan to arrive at a small marina on the edge of the Salish Sea where a small, engine-free sailboat awaited us.
Together we sailed out of Drayton Harbor and out into the surrounding waters of Semiahmoo, Boundary, and Birch Bays. Our tiny little sailboat tacked back and forth across those splendid international waters back in those pre-9/11 days and headed out into the lower Georgia Strait, or Strait of Georgia, take your pick, toward Patos and Sucia Islands. Those were at the tiptop of the American San Juan Islands, which were part of the same cluster of archipelagos along with the Canadian Gulf Islands.
Hard to believe the British Empire and the United States got into a ridiculous border war across the Summer of 1859 over the misguided shooting death of a rambunctious pig. Fortunately, at least for humans anyway, the wayward British hog and the American potato tubers it rooted up and devoured were the only casualties. Astonishing to learn warships, soldiers, and cannon full of primarily crazy white folks were all pointing at each other over messy lines drawn on a paper map. The boundary between Canada and the States makes no sense at all out there in Salish Country. The border cuts thru Point Roberts Peninsula then zigzags thru a crazy quilt of small islands curling around huge Vancouver Island south towards big Whidbey Island.
It’s become a mess since 9/11, too, as even people paddling kayaks merrily, merrily across those magickal waters get pulled over by other humans with badges, guns, dogs, motorboats, and bullhorns. Been made worse by the current U.S. president, who usurped the 2016 election, and his current border animosities with our neighbors. Argh, the madness of polyticks!
Back at the end of the 20th Century, however, we zipped around these water in a little sailboat under the guidance of masters. Gwen and I gasped in awe at the magnificent maritime coastal scenery and learned how to poop off the gunwales while zooming across choppy seas. Jagged, snow cloaked peaks jutted up from nearly sea level and the giant volcanos loomed above all, especially Mt. Baker, hunched over like some mad Titan with a giant cone bursting from its spine. We were surrounded by so many natural, state, and provincial parks as to feel surreal amidst such concentrated diversity of scenery.
Once I took over the rudder while under our sailor friend’s expert direction. After all, he’d built his own sailboat, sailed across the Atlantic, lived aboard sailboats in the Mediterranean, no engines, and would sail between reefs in the dark to sounds of crashing surf as storms raged all around. I bounced us thru crisscrossing riptides and took note of the way those currents surged like slender rivers thru otherwise still seas.
Winds gusted around islands, and once or twice the little sailboat tipped over and shot forward with the starboard gunwales slicing thru the water. I didn’t know what to do. So I threw myself about to force the rudder the other way to right the boat. Just made it worse as the edge of the boat dipped deeper beneath splashing seas. My guts gripped my spine in a flash of terror, Gwen yelled out, “Dudley!” and whipped her blonde ponytail about, but, hey, ol’ Mr. Tippecanoe Man just laughed.
“You have nothing at all to worry about,” he said and chuckled. “The keel provides more than enough ballast to keep the boat from tipping over in the wind.”
Ohhh Kaaaaaaayyy…
I felt the urge of the wild to sail out beyond these islands into the Ocean, but it would have been dangerous and most likely lethal in our wee little boatie boat.
Zounds! We came so close to Patos and Sucia, too, but not enough time left as we had to tack out way back and forth across the sea back into the harbor on the edge of Blaine, Washington, U.S.A. Often we arrived upon the edge of darkness. Gwen and I felt surprise at how ravenous we felt from being out on the water. We were even more surprised at how sore and tired we felt, too. Spending nearly a full day on a sailboat with one’s body in constant motion rocking back and forth and this way and that way proved more demanding and exhausting than we had imagined. No, not a big deal. There wasn’t any significant pain. We didn’t think of sailing as much of an athletic workout at first, and both of us soon learned otherwise. The quiet owners would grin at us.
One evening after a long, long day out on the water, we all disembarked from the little sailboat. Gwen and I prepared to say our goodbyes and head south back to Seattle. She reminisced about a long-ago friend of hers from back in her teenage years back in the Southeast who had moved all the way to the Northwest to take a job at the Semiahmoo Resort, a vacation complex sprawling across the sandy spit across the harbor entrance from the Blaine marina. Meanwhile, I had to go potty mighty damn bad as I didn’t have to go earlier until well within view of a marina chock full of curious people. Aye, I felt too shy to plop out sploofer loggies with so many folks lugging around binoculars and video cameras, at least in my torrid imagination anyway.
Staggered uphill to the row of blue Honey Bucket porta potties lining Blaine Marine Park. Found one unoccupied, thank goodness. Whew! Popped up inside, turned around after cleaning the seat off a bit, and, good Lord ’n’ Lady it sure was torrid inside these blue plastic pooper ovens! These lurid, plastic loos had sat out in the hot summer sun all day long, just baking and burbling away. And the day before, too. And the one or two or three or more before yesterday.
So I cut loose and blasted blasted forth what felt like mountains of pent-up shit and piss. Gaw’ dayum!!! I know, I know, too much TMI for those with sensitive gastrointestinal systems. Just imagine, however, you’re sitting around the campfire in a postmodern, reimagined reboot of Blazing Saddles after a heavy meal of cheap, GMO beans, peas, onions, garlic, peppers, yogurt, NSA FISA nanites, and more damn beans. None of which I eat any more as now I know about FODMAPs!
The Honey Bucket began to sway and shake as I blasted away. “What the hell?” I muttered as I reached out to steady myself. Ka-POW!!! and we took off with my stinky ass porta potty undulating up and down and swooning back and forth and twirling like a swirly-red, London telephone booth on the Dr. Whobee show. The more I pooped and peed the faster we sailed. We shot out the harbor and across the bay at the speed of vigorously-propelled flatulence. I hung on tighter and tighter as the world spun around and round and round and around some more.
Planted my feet firmly with my ass cupped within the sea like some kind of Star Trek captain and pushed out both arms to hold up the Honey Bucket like mighty Samson holding up the two central columns of a Biblical temple. I thought the toilet was gonna buck me off and out the door. For a moment the worry of the door popping loose to swing wide open to reveal to all the world a crazy ass pooping fool hanging on for dear life as his porta potty sailed the Seven Seas right there on a grassy knoll in Blaine, Washington, U.S.A. I was rockin’ that Honey Bucket, too!
After what seemed hours the porta potty stopped rocking and became as still as a Zen monk on a cushion. I managed to clean myself up without puking up weird little sailor lunches and tiptoed daintily back out into the world. I felt so gloriously happy to feel the earth firm under my feet I squatted down and placed my hands upon the grass and soil.
“Jeezus, Dudley, what the hell happened to you?” Gwen asked as she peeped at me thru her big ol’ sunglasses.
“I don’t know.” I replied and shrugged my shoulders. “Never had this before. Not even after all those years of river kayaking and raft guiding. Felt like I was back on a sailboat being thrown around in a hurricane or something.”
It wasn’t sea legs, for that’s what happened to landlubbers who can’t handle being aboard a moving sailboat. The T-sailors said it’s the reverse of sea legs and happens sometimes after you’ve been out on moving water all day long then find yourself upon still land.
Decades later I discovered what I experienced back then is called “dock rock,” or “land sickness.” One experiences the rising and falling of ocean swells in a smaller boat. “Dock rock” made perfect sense. In 1994 I took a temporary job as a porter on a transcontinental luxury train. I only worked ten days, but the experience on rolling across an entire continent from coast to coast with little sleep left me in the grip of serious, prolonged vertigo. One doctor diagnosed me with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. It still flares up to this day.
Maybe I have MdMS or mal de debarquement syndrome. Perhaps some other kind of neurological vestibular condition. I do have a cluster of TBI-related learning disorders from birth trauma. Maybe its all hypochondria. Who knows? I flop back and forth in bed like a damn squid sometimes before an episode goes away. And it does go away. All of these episodes do these days.
William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 23 April 2019
Seattle, Washington
Near the Salish Sea
Copyright © 2019 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.