Catching Up, Lessons Learned, Things Done, Plans, Ideas, and Whatever Else Gets Into This Story
- Ann Cognito
- Aug 14, 2021
- 12 min read
Edmonds Lock was ages ago and a minute ago – it’s been a very full chunk of time.
I’ve got a new motor, the boat is so much more organized that she feels twice as big inside, and things are making sense. I’ve done some cleaning, in Skoro and in my head. I’ve made decisions (and mistakes). I’ve lost a few things, and I’ve learned a lot of things.
We were at Edmonds a week. I did think I’d found an outboard a few times but it kept falling through for one reason or another. One kept not falling through, but it was too far away and I couldn’t find any way to get it to the boat, so I gave up on that one.
Then Sirens Boatworks put their genie-in-a-bottle hats on and rescued us. Now Skoro has a 1987 Mercury 9.9 with controls by the sailboat tiller, because now steering is done with the sailboat rudder and tiller. This outboard now believes it was manufactured last week, and it sounds better than some that really were.
I’ve heard of Sirens before, from years of coveting old boats. They build and restore beautiful wooden boats. They do what they do exceptionally well, and are well known for that and for being good human beings. I can attest to both.
I passed their sign on the highway while walking out of Merrickville during my Walk to Waken the Nation in 2019. Because of the time crunch then, I didn’t turn down the road to oogle their boatyard. I took a picture of the sign instead. Now I’m docked here on my sailboat. The world is really a completely surreal place.
Sarah drove here from Edmonds, because she’s much better at maintaining her cool and restarting a funky outboard than I am, and the channel is narrow (at one point we squiggled through a little piece where, alright, I understand that two boats can technically pass — but there’s only two feet of water beside the channel!!!).
I needn’t have worried. Nothing happened. The motor was fine.
We messaged Sirens that afternoon from the bottom of the Merrickville locks after we’d gone through. Andrew invited us over to their dock, and guided us in, and made us comfortable, and said Leo would check out the motor in the morning.
After Leo quietly did all sorts of things, that motor is now completely convinced that it was manufactured last week. It really does sound better than some new ones I’ve heard lately. We have good gas, instead of a rich mix and a contaminated can. It’s been tried it out twice, the second time to move Skoro when the giant houseboat came in.
That houseboat is a whole ‘nother story, but first, you should have seen Andrew’s father slide Skoro into the slip, bending my boxy boat around the vintage vessels I was terrified of scratching. I’m pretty sure he could dock a barge in a boatshow with his eyes shut.
Then the guys brought a huge houseboat down from the top of the locks. Ths is one of those fifty-or-something foot floating houses. It’s huge, and old, and beautiful.
The man who bought it decided it was the perfect summer cabin for his family. The day after taking possession, they set out – and wound up spinning around in the canal or something, from what I’ve heard.
It’s huge, and not remotely boat shaped – it’s one of those old rectangular floating flat-topped houses with a deck at each end and a really big inboard engine. Those things are incredibly spacious and comfortable. They’re also about as navigable as a non-floating house, and would require learning and crew even if the starboard thruster was working like it should.
He called Sirens, said he was over his head and needed help. The Sirens men brought her here and docked her, and and the boat is here for a week while the family wait for the skeleton crew they’ve now hired… and while Sirens gets that big houseboat running right — probably better than it did when it was brand new.
I haven’t met the houseboat people except for a brief hello at the top of the locks while they got over their fiasco and watched me having my own while navigating the lock (I hope seeing someone else floundering, too, made them feel better).
I really respect the houseboat man, though. First, he had the nerve to just get up and do this huge thing that really mattered to him. He went and bought a beautiful vintage houseboat for his family to have idyllic summers together. He had a dream and he claimed it. He did it.
Then, almost immediately, he had the nerve to realize just how over his head he really was, and then had the wherewithal to admit it and ask for help. I respect that as much as I respect claiming his dream.
If he can do that, with his big beautiful behemoth and his big family and a big river full of people all watching, then I can admit the same to my small audience and myself.
So, instead of puttering on by myself from here, telling myself I can learn and manage, I am staying at Sirens for a bit while I find help, too. I certainly don’t want to damage my own dear beautiful sailboat, but also, these channels are too narrow for a 26 foot boat to be floundering and potentially causing someone else to hit bottom, or damage their boat, or whatever else might happen.
I have no idea what happened to this poor boat, but it’s never happening to Skoro
Sarah’s ten day visit turned into almost a month aboard. She wanted to stay, so she got an 82 foot outdoor extension cord and has been working remotely from the boat and from lock stations. But she did have to go home finally, and went ashore yesterday. We didn’t say goodbye, because she’ll be back somehow and somewhen. I’ve been so blessed to have had such good company, and Sarah – who’s never boated before! — is better with a motor than I am and already misses sleeping on the water.
There’s two people thinking about whether they might be able to come help for this next little bit to Ottawa. One is a facebook friend whom I haven’t met in person yet, but who has become a good friend, and whose bottomless positive support was a very important piece of how I was able to keep walking on my trek to Ottawa in 2019. I’d dearly love to spend this kind of time getting to know her more. It would be lovely if health and everyday practicalities let her come, and I hope she’d love an unusual boatcation.
The other is a man with an unsurprising medical technology management career involving offices and machines and paperwork and whatnot… but he’d rather be on boats, especially sailboats, and has been crewing and captaining for years. He’s full of stories. This trip, he’s been helping his nephew (I think his nephew) manage his new powerboat for a Rideau trip. They had another friend with them as well, and were docked beside us on our first night here, and several of us all got visity on the docks that evening for a while.
It was my first ever night at a marina, and it was an eventful night. Very. With deep lessons.
It started just like every marina horror story I’ve ever read, with boatfolks being sociable. Then, sometime after midnight, it happened. Boats and water both move; someone misstepped, just a little – just enough to fall. He went down between the dock and the boat. It was pitch dark, no lights, no ladder, only two of us to help and our combined weight was less than the weight of that tall, strong, large, healthy, very solid man. The dock has a large undercut below the surface – nowhere to step or put your weight. Everything below the waterline is covered with razor sharp mussels, and he was in bare feet. He couldn’t get out, and we couldn’t get him out. It was terrifying. We grabbed Skoro’s reboarding ladder, but there was nothing to hook it over . We laid on the dock, leaning our entire weight back and trying to counterbalance his weight with our own, and he was able to pull himself up and onto the dock. I’m sure his feet aren’t very happy, but holy canoli, he didn’t become another horrible marina story.
I almost didn’t buy that ladder. I didn’t really have enough money for it, and Skoro’s hull isn’t hugely deep so I figured I’d manage, and I crossed it off my order list. The folks at Marine Outfitters Kingston, who had previously talked me OUT of several hundred dollars worth of purchases I didn’t need as much as I thought I did, put their foot down. “No. Get that. Get the ladder.” So I did. Thank goodness and everything else there is to thank. Their good sense and responsibility saved a life. Marine Outfitters aren’t just another business making money by selling boat stuff – they are good honest people who care and who know what matters.
That person, and some of the other sociable boatfolks, are back home in Ottawa now, but meanwhile, my new crewing-and-captaining boat friend is checking his schedule and percolating about coming to help me reach Ottawa responsibly, and we’ll talk more.
I’ll also pick his brain to help find somewhere(s) to dock or moor or even anchor near Ottawa, and for advice about the trip south.
That’s another update… the trip south.
I’ve changed the itinerary.
It matters a great deal to me to do this right. I don’t want to skip a huge chunk of the country just because of cumulative glitches and time. However, because of the troubles due to the first boatmover, and because of the Saga of the Unfortunate Nissan, there’s not enough time for doing all I need to do in Ottawa and still heading south by way of the Maritimes in time to beat the weather.
I’m going south from Montreal, through Lake Champlain and the Intracoastal Waterway. The ICW is basically a safe, navigable route for snowbirds. Inland waterways connect through bays and sounds to reach Florida without offshore navigating. It’s shorter, quicker, and safer. I’ll spend three months going south, then turn around and spend three months returning to Ottawa so I can visit again – and then I’ll head east through the St Lawrence and the Maritimes, and south down the coast.
Icw 4 – It\’s A Map Party | John H Hanzl (Author) – Intracoastal Waterway Florida Map – Printable Maps
I made this decision through the lenses of the houseboat man and the dock incident. Keeping myself safe matters, and keeping my boat safe matters, and keeping others safe while I’m on the water matters. This is the responsible decision.
It’s also like having my cake and eating it too, though. I don’t have to give up one option for the other, just rearrange time so I can do both. Stay safe, learn the boat, be healthier without winter wreaking havoc on my pain and disabilities – and ALSO get another Ottawa visit, plus the proper trip through the St Lawrence and the Maritimes so I can go through the rest of the country, see people who matter and help them with their activist work in their own areas, and meet even more people to talk with… and cause even more ripple effects spreading through the water and the world. I can do both routes. I’m so happy to have this decision!
I will, of course, not do this completely alone. Maybe one of people considering coming to get to Ottawa now will decide to come for at least part of the ICW trip. Maybe someone else will get inspired. Maybe someone will come to Montreal, someone else as far as somewhere else, and who knows what after that. It will work out, and I will keep believing that, because that’s what the universe shows me – believe in something, put everything into it, and do it… it may not follow the original itinerary, and may turn into something very different along the way, but that’s how things work, and you adapt.
Changing the wold may not follow any estimated itinerary, but the point is to begin. Set the destination – a different world. Learn how to reach that… manage the tangents, learn the detours and rerouting signs, feel the current and the wind, find the next channel marker… keep sailing. Maybe we can’t see the dock, but maybe there’s more than one out there. Maybe we’re not even looking for a dock, but something more like Boyan Slat’s incredible Ocean Cleanup floating collection units, or a beautiful new river to navigate. Maybe we can even learn to stop and change direction and plans, stop trying ineffective solutions alone… maybe we can revise the climate crisis itinerary, like the houseboat man has done with his itinerary. Even small independent realizations and changes make the river, and the planet, completely different, because there’s no really such thing as a small change. Every single thing we do, and every single thought we think, and every single emotion we feel, has effects beyond anything we can imagine.
That person at Marine Outfitters thought they were saving me a couple bruises, but they saved an entire life.
The lock staff who gave us a boathook gave me safety and security, and gave that to all the others near us in all the locks we’ve done since that day.
The lady who gave me a chance to find a way to get this outboard actually gave me hope and safety, and led to me meeting the Sirens people, and everyone else we’ve met here, including a possible crew person who’d be a good friend even if he doesn’t come.
The Sirens people gave me some time and a piece of their dock, but really, they’ve given me, and everyone else on the water near my boat, future safety as well. They’ve also added a very large piece of confidence in believing in what I’m setting out to do. Support from such seriously well-respected folks in the boating trade and community means the world to me.
April, whom I met at Edmonds Lock, gave me grapes and trail mix and a blessing I will always value beyond words, but really, she gave me heart and conviction, and I have no doubt whatsoever that her determination to believe in this is what led to finding a good outboard and finding Sirens.
The organic farmer near Edmonds gave us carrots and faith in the kindness of strangers.
The lock staff and other boaters have given us advice and assistance, and given a truth about human beings I firmly believe – we thrive, in healthy ways, when living in community with each other. We don’t cut each other off or untie bowlines in the night or play chicken in the channels. We care, we support each other, we help each other stay afloat.
Everything has ripple effects, whether we see those or not.
One person believed in this idea at first. It’s the same one person who started the believing last time, when I walked, and that means a very great deal to me. That person has made all the difference, twice.
Maybe the spork I lost in the river there will be found by a child who will then believe that water is full of treasures and will become a marine technologist who figures out a valuable ocean deacidification process.
It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter if we see the effects. What matters is to do the things that feel right, because those are the ones that spread the right way, and they always will. What matters is to notice the feeling of a ripple, and learn to recognize that in our percolations every day and follow it, to do the things that will have the ripples… to believe in the ripples.
I don’t mean that changing the world falls on the shoulders of the individuals of the world rather than those who pull the strings. I mean it’s all part of the same thing. There is no point forcing government and industry to legislate or market regenerative ways of living if we don’t learn to reprioritize our needs and live accordingly. There is no point making laws requiring all boaters to wear PFDs, and selling sixty kinds in every store, if people on boats don’t believe that putting one on is a good thing to do.
It all matters, the big parts and the small, because they fit together and add up to a whole.
So… I’ve been losing time, and I’ve lost other things, but I’m gaining so much more.
I’ve lost two seriously awesome and sentimental sporks in the river. I’ve lost two pairs of sunglasses, irreparably broken while managing the boat. I’ve lost a great scrubby thing, lots of information, a few good deals on stuff I needed, a lot of weight due to worrying, several names and phone numbers, one powerpack, and I’m not even sure what else.
I’ve found a motor. I’ve found sorrel and grape leaves and clover and plantain and violets and raspberries and blackberries. I’ve found help. I’ve found friends. I’ve found activists hiding in regular people and angels in hiding plain sight.
One person believed in this idea at first. It’s the same one person who started the believing last time, when I walked, and that means a very great deal to me. That person has made all the difference, twice. But so has every single other person along the way… nothing would be the same, even without the tiny moments.
Nothing can be resolved any other way than holistically, as a whole and by a whole. That’s what ripple effects create. They make puddles part of rivers, they make rivers part of seas, they make seas part of the planet.
With hope and determination,
Ann
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Thank you for already following this story… please stick around on the blog and on facebook, and please share the stories and posts… create more ripples
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If you can help financially, you’ll be part of helping something epic happen, and part of creating even more ripples by enabling all sorts of things, from groceries and flashlight batteries to solar upgrading for presentations and art and communication and the ability to host friends and activists and crew (and hot tea in the mornings!)… there’s a Patreon account for ongoing support, and a Chuffed fundraiser for sporadic and single-time support. Both are set up to enable any amount, because even little bits make a world of difference.
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And now, in no particular order because I haven’t figured that out yet, here’s a pile of photos from the past while!
Thank you for being part of this…
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