Surely among the list of reasons anyone might care to provide as to why they sail, and certainly as to why they might live aboard a sailboat, would be the view. Certainly it is the scenery that is among our most treasured memories of experiences on the boat, and if I may say so, this part of the world is particularly endowed with sublime vistas, from raw, dark, stony headlands standing implacably before vast ocean swells, to tall, jewel-like cascading waterfalls plunging down the green-shrouded flanks of snow-capped peaks. We’ve seen them all from the cockpit of Insegrevious, and they account for much of our motivation to continue cruising the often chilly and fog-obscured waters of the Pacific Northwest.
But it has occured to me repeatedly since taking up our cat-sitting duties on the shore in Port Hadlock that in fact we sailors do ourselves a dis-service when voyaging amongst such splended scenery. As the broad panorama of the world goes by outside our hull, we are frequently half-submerged in a poorly lit dungeon from which the view is no better than that of the average suburban basement.
This hits home for me now because I see and enjoy more of what is going on out on the water here from on the shore at Port Hadlock than I do out on the boat in the same location. And even that is vastly more than what one sees in the marina, wedged in between other boats with a narrow view across the dock and, if one is lucky, the imposing stone blocks of the seawall out toward the Sound.
Out the windows here, I don’t just see three boats (one to port, one to starboard, one astern, as is the case in our slip at the marina) but a score of them, moored, riding at anchor, or sailing serenely by on their way north or south from the Port Townsend Canal. Trees cover the shoreline all along Port Townsend and at night, the town lights twinkle cheerily across the water. I see more water, and more boat traffic, in a day than I otherwise would in a week at the marina.
I don’t say this as an argument against living aboard, but rather in favor of cruising. When you are out sailing, you have to be up the cockpit. And thinking back, when we are happiest on the boat is when we are going somewhere. As accomodations, it serves as rather pedestrian fare. For sightseeing, it is an incomporable tour boat, leisurely, comfortable, quiet. Though no one would envy us the pace, one of our most beautiful moments was in the early season in Desolation Sound, ghosting along at barely a knot, twenty feet from shore, watching the sealife and shoreline carry on in utter silence, as if we were suspended in mid-air, invisible.
Once anchored, though, unless the weather is favorable, the same problem arises. Newer boats with their salons raised higher from the waterline are beginning to deal with this deficiency, but for those of us with older models, I am afraid the installation of a periscope may be the only option. That, or going cruising, of course.