LOPEZ ISLAND
There are hundreds of small, low dark green islands in the Puget Sound off the coast of northern Washington and yesterday I saw a number of them. They were carved out when glaciers, eons ago, sometimes three miles thick, pushed down from the north and gouged out channels that later became a shallow sea bottom, sometimes 20 feet deep, sometimes 60, sometimes 300. The Hested family just bought a new motorboat with an enclosed cabin that can be heated and with room for four people to sleep in tight quarters. Their previous boat was open to the elements. But yesterday it rained and we were comfortable. This boat had a LCD screen just like the latest automobiles which both showed exactly where the boat is on a map and where it is headed as well as the depth of the water wherever the boat is, a GPS map of the ocean.
So off we went at about 11 a.m., first preparing the boat for the trip and putting it into the water and then we were out in Bellingham bay skimming along, or doing what motorboats do when I have seen them skimming along, actually smacking down with a jarring thump after every bigger wave. Slap, slap, SLAP, SLAP, slap. It took a little getting used to. It was very hard to aim a camera on a drizzly day as we bounced.
But once we got to a near island and were out of the wind and had slowed down the ride was beautiful. Kalifa got out the fishing rods and fished while Jim maneuvered the boat very close to the steep rocky island, avoiding brilliant kelp and rocks. Kalifa caught one foot and a half long fish which they unhooked and dropped back in the ocean. After fishing for half an hour we went on between island after island to Lopex Island where we docked and spent the night with Jim’s parents, Mary Lou and George, who have been living on Lopez Island for 20 years in a beautiful house right on the water. We first looked at Jim’s dad’s new crimson 1970’s MG and I napped. We then talked, sat around a long table for a very good supper of hamburgers, potato salad, garden salad with apple crisp with ice cream for dessert, and then talked some more. It was a very good day.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 