Spring Storms, Round Two

Not quite a week after the last severe windstorm blew through the Pacific Northwest, causing havoc and creating controversy north of the border, it looks like we are in for round two starting this afternoon. Unlike last week’s storm, the winds today are from the north, giving Mandy and me a front row seat to the carnage. The first casualty: a twenty-something footer washed up on the beach just down from where we have been house-sitting this winter.

Last week, I watched from the same place through binoculars as a small yellow sailboat receded gradually further into the waves blasting up toward Port Townsend. The yellow hull became smaller and smaller until it eventually smashed into the breakwater outside the Port Townsend Boat Haven. A few hours later it was gone, the fate still unknown to me.

It is hitting a little closer to home today. The sailboat down the beach was solidly ashore when we got here and the tide is still going out. I feel a bit churlish sitting here watching the waves pound the hull and rudder into the shore; a couple years ago, but for a rising tide and the intervention of some brave neighbors, we might have lost our own boat in a similar situation. Karma seems to dictate I pay that good fortune forward, but unfortunately there is little to be done at this point. We don’t have another boat available to go out and try to pull or kedge the wreck off, even if it were possible considering how high and dry it is, or were it wise to do so considering the unknown amount of damage the hull has suffered in however long it has been there. The owner probably wouldn’t offer much thanks were we to pull it off only to accidentally sink it in deeper water.

So, keeping an eye on it, as the bald eagle hovering overhead in the blast seems to be doing, is all we can do at the moment. There are what look to be current state registration tabs at the bow but no numbers; some other neighbors are down at the stern now, presumably getting the name off the transom. Hopefully someone in the fairly tight-knit boating community here in Port Townsend knows the owner.