Visit to Port Townsend

Yesterday Arnold and I made a great visit to Port Townsend.

A month ago Jak Mang had sent me information on a presentation at the Northwest Maritime Center on the cruise by Mark Roye and Nancy Krill aboard their Swedish built steel hulled ketch Tamara tracing the traditional route of the pioneering sealers and whalers from Newfoundland, across to the Azores and other east Atlantic islands, over to South America, down to Antarctica, up the Patagonian Archipelago, Galapagos, Mexico, Hawaii, the Aleutians and Alaska. (http://nwmaritime.org/uploads/pdfs/Krill-Roye%20PROMOTIONAL%20RELEASE%20%282%29.pdf)  Jean Davies was planning to go too so I asked her if she wanted to be escorted by two book ends named Robert and Arnold.

We picked up Jean at her home in Kala Point then drove to the Maritime Center, which is a superb facility on the waterfront completed only one year ago.  Inside the venue we saw Jak who introduced us to his friend Dennis who has been reading parts of my blog.  Later I met Jak's wife Corinne whom I had not seen since San Francisco.  I'm hoping that we can get together soon for a good chat.

When the speaker Mark was introduced I leaned over to the man next to me and commented that Mark looked very familiar to me.  I figured that I had seen him at the 2009 Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Show where maybe he had been a speaker.

After the presentation I approached Mark to ask him a question and he put out his hand and said that it was good to see me again.  I replied that he looked familiar but I couldn't place him.  We had met at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor in Honolulu in the spring of 2009.  Mark gave me his card and I recognized it because I've got another one on Pachuca.  After I got back to the house I visited Mark and Nancy's blog at http://krillroye.blogspot.com and learned that they had set off way back in June 2005 and our paths crossed in May 2009, in the closing months of their odyssey and just before I set off for Neah Bay. 

But there was more to come.  During the presentation I had been looking around for Simeon Baldwin with no success.  Brenda and I had Simeon during the 2009 Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Festival aboard the tug boat Elmore where he was acting as a volunteer guide.  (Sadly, Elmore took some serious damage to her bow during the recent bad weather, as the photograph shows.)

Fortunately we lingered after the presentation long enough to see him when he appeared. Simeon had been doing things at the Wooden Boat Foundation in the next building and after a short chat we were treated to a private tour of the excellent WBF facility and the building of SCAMP sail boats (http://backyardboatbuilding.org.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-474.htm), (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=52&start=10).  On the floor was a nearly completed SCAMP that has to be one of the cutest little boats that I've ever seen.  It looked like a real fun boat but it was no toy.  They have a reputation of being tough, stable, and sea kindly.  Out of the cockpit popped the head of Dan, who had spent many hours that day sanding and must have enjoyed it because he had that happy and calm demeanor typical of people work with wooden boats.  Soon I saw saw Simeon walking over carrying the mast with one hand and I commented that either he was Superman or the mast was very light. That wooden mast weighed only 15 lb.  The plans of the boat have been digitized and the plywood sections are cut by a numerically controlled machine, driving the price down to amazing affordability.  (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45)  Better yet, one can build his own SCAMP under the tutelage of the Wooden Boat Foundation.  (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17)

The first photo is of Arnold, Jean, and Simeon in deep interest.