Dave Morin

Flickr’d by davemorin.

As we came down the Oregon Coast on our second day, the sunset was absolutely beautiful. We decided to grab my kite and fly it along the beach with the sun setting in the background.

Perfect.

Flickr’d by davemorin.

Flickr’d by davemorin.

A tribute to my friends at Red Bull. Live from Timberline at Mt. Hood.

Flickr’d by davemorin.

On the way to Oregon, we happened upon a field full of sunflowers with the sun setting in the distance. Seeing the perfect moment for a short detour, we hopped off the road to capture some memorable photos.

Warren Miller has a psuedo blog over at one of his websites. Unfortunately, it does not archive the old “posts.” So, I usually grab them and bring them over here so as to not leave you all with a dead link.

I love Warren Miller, his movies, his writing style, and his stories of life and skiing. He’s also one of my grandfather’s old friends. Back in the “old” days while practicing as a new doctor in Sun Valley, my grandfather delivered his son, Kurt, who’s now in charge of Warren Miller Entertainment.

They make great ski movies.

*A note to those over at Warren Miller: Drop me an email, and I’ll set you up with a fantastic blog so we can all enjoy Warren’s musings, subscribe to them (with RSS), and give him an easier portal for chatting with fans. I’d love to do it.

His post this week hits home. As, my girlfriend and I are going to head up the western seaboard next week to enjoy camping and exploring in the rainy forests of western Oregon and the orca filled sapphire blue waters of the San Juan Islands and British Columbia.

—

SHE WANTED A BOAT WITH A HEAD AND A SHOWER
by Warren Miller - www.warrenmiller.net/thisweek.php

About twenty years ago I drove north from Hermosa Beach, California to Anacortes, Washington. Behind my van was my 20 foot Pursuit that I had used as a camera boat for about six years. With me was my guide and wife to be Laurie and our destination was the San Juan Islands.

Cap Sante Marine took good care of us before our launch with a new battery, some charts to take the place of the road map I was going to use for navigation, a tank full of gas, a Porta potty, a flashlight and Laurie and I were on our way.

That launch led to three summers of cruising almost 300 miles north to Sullivan Bay. By the third summer we were still using the same boat, but had added a Gatorade jug for our water, a better Porta potty, a Coleman stove to cook on, a Coleman lantern for heat, a radio, some books to read and a spare outboard.

Our inflatable was named Old Leaky because it did. We had a two horse power motor with a three ounce gas tank. It was capable of getting us there, but not back. More than once I had to row us back from wherever we went. The inflatable would bend in the middle with each stroke of the oars.

We swam in warm water lakes, and the not so warm waters of Princess Louisa. We sat and read in our canvas cabin when it was raining and some nights we lay on the foredeck while watching satellites racing by in the black sky in front of twenty gazillion stars.

I didn’t know the words “difficult boating” at the time because I was really enjoying every moment afloat. That first summer we had no radio, no radar, no spare motor, no depth sounder, just blind faith that everything would work and it did. I took pictures in the Octopus Islands when the water was so mirror smooth that I can turn the picture upside down and you can�t tell the difference.

On the dock at April Point one Sunday morning Laurie, using our gasoline stove, cooked eggs Benedict with cracked crab, along with fresh squeezed orange juice and peanut butter on toasted English muffins. A friend whose 87 foot boat was just down the dock stopped and had coffee with us. Sitting in our beach chairs on the dock, when the “Whatcha been doing lately?”conversation wound down he said, “You are sure having a lot more fun than we are on our 87 footer with a full time crew of three.” I can’t answer that statement, but I do know that our fun meter was way off the scale for the six weeks we cruised that summer.

Is this kind of cruising expensive? The monthly payments for a 20 foot boat with a small cutty cabin to sleep in and a good outboard motor costs about the same as if you bought four one day ski lift tickets per month. One costs a lot less than that if you buy it used. Once your boat is in the water, the only expense is gasoline and the occasional ice cream cone at Lund or Roche Harbor or maybe even Sullivan Bay.

Many of the fuel docks you can stop at from Seattle to Alaska have hot showers for a buck or so, a grocery store and washing machines too. When Laurie occasionally did the laundry, I did some maintenance on the boat or slept in the cutty cabin. The only risk in cruising north in British Columbia is a highly contagious disease called, Three Foot Fever.

The third season of what I considered real luxurious, 20 foot cruising, we were caught in a bad storm. When we finally made it to our destination, exhausted and sopping wet, Laurie announced, I want a boat with a stand up shower and a sit down toilet. That was almost twenty years ago and this summer we completed our first trip to Glacier Bay. About two thousand miles round trip, but we didn’t do it in the 20 foot camera boat. Instead last year we bought a seven year old 47 foot Bayliner with only 400 hours on the engines. The previous owner had used it as a condo in Roche Harbor for all of those years. His children were getting bigger and he needed a bigger boat and we were getting older and we needed a bigger boat. A used boat such as this can be bought for about one third of the price of a new one.

Would I go to Glacier Bay in my 20 foot Pursuit? At the drop of a hat, but I wouldn’t want to go up there without Laurie. And she’s made it clear that she’s not going back to 20 feet!

The freedom that the Northwest has to offer boaters is simply some of the best cruising in the world. High snow capped mountains come down to the stern of my boat where it is now tied up. When the tide goes out, I’ll stand on the swim step and pry oysters of of the rocks and barbecue them for dinner. I have just spent this sunny afternoon writing about how this part of the world has changed my life.

Think about what I’ve been saying for years. “If you don’t do it this year, you’ll be one year older when you do.”

Happy cruising until ski season.