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From: Faure, Marin (no email)
Date: Thu Dec 01 2005 - 13:51:38 EST
>That does it for me. I used to want to cruise up there but...Logs!?
Bears!?
DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT cruise the PNW. In addition to the logs and
bears, we have to contend with.... Rain 24/7/365. Heavy, dense,
impenetrable fog six months a year. Thousands upon thousands of crab
traps set 25 feet apart in most of the major channels year round because
there is no defined fishing season for native tribes. Continuous bands
of debris in the water including huge floating kelp patches, lumber,
rotting lines, abandoned gillnets, busted pallets, stumps-- if it
floats, it's there. Deadheads are everywhere, the waterlogged logs
(usually hemlock) that float vertically in the water with their tops
barely breaking the surface. They are almost impossible to see, and if
you hit one even at slow trawler speeds, that it-- you're finished.
Many of them weigh more than your boat.
We also have do deal with almost continuous boardings by the Coast
Guard, Customs and Immigration, and the Fisheries folks looking for
terrorists, drugs, illegal aliens, illegal cigarettes, and out-of-season
fish. There are errant torpedoes from the various torpedo test ranges
in Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia. These torpedoes home in on
sound and the ones that "get away" are responsible for sinking or
damaging hundreds of recreational boats a year, particularly trawlers
which are too slow to get out of their way. There are millions of
seagulls which thanks to Darwinian evolution now defecate ONLY on boats.
Staggering fuel prices that get even more staggering in Canada. To say
nothing of the thousands upon thousands of uncharted rocks and reefs
which annually damage or sink hundreds of boats.
All of this is assuming you make it to your boat to begin with. On land
you have to deal with the first or third worst traffic in the country
depending on which survey you read. Drivers who would rather run you
off the road than let you merge. Freeways with on-ramps that feed cars
into the fast lanes instead of the slow lanes. As to convenient mass
transportation, forget it. Seattle has been trying for decades to get
everything from light rail to trolleys to monorails built, all with no
success. So the chances are good you will never make it from the
airport to your boat anyway.
Moorage fees are astronomical--- $500 to $1000 a foot is typical. Also,
due to the hideous weather, marina fires are an almost weekly occurrence
as the result of malfunctioning boat heaters and dehumidifiers. The
most recent fire, in Gig Harbor, destroyed about 50 boats.
Boat insurance is almost impossible to get, partly because of the
constant marina fires but also because of the emerging threat from
whales. The grays, humpbacks, and orcas that inhabit or transit these
waters are learning that it is very easy to damage or destroy a
recreational or whale-watching boat. Each year the number of boats
damaged or sunk by whales triples as the whales realize that if they
don't want to be hassled by whale-watch boats, sonar sounds, annoying
recreational boaters zooming around in their dinghies, etc. all they
have to do is destroy the boats. I've seen what a really pissed-off
gray whale can do to a CHB or Grand Banks and it ain't pretty. The
whales can do all this without repercussion since they're protected by
law. And wildlife biologists are saying they are starting to see sperm
whales in the area. The word must be out that this is a great area for
boat-busting. I've been around sperm whales in Hawaii--- they attack
boats just for the sheer joy of doing it.
It is estimated that within five years, boat insurance will no longer be
available in the PNW particularly if it's proven that the sperms are
deliberately coming to the area to mess with the boats. All the
marinas up here require that they be named on a boater's insurance
policy to protect them if (or rather when) a boat catches on fire or
otherwise damages the marina. So you can see where this is headed---
with insurance impossible to get, it will be impossible to moor a boat
in a marina because the marina can't be named on an insurance policy.
So only people like Bill Gates, Paul Allen, etc. who own waterfront
estates will be able to have boats because they can afford really big
ones to stand up to the whale attacks and they can moor their boats at
their own private docks.
The rumor is that it's really beautiful cruising country from Puget
Sound to SE Alaska, the best on the planet. What most people don't know
is that this rumor is fostered by the local boat dealers who are
desperate to get somebody-- anybody-- to buy a boat. In fact no one
really knows how beautiful it is or isn't along the coast because
between the rain and fog it is virtually impossible to see more than
about a quarter mile in any direction. And on the rare occasions when
the visibility increases beyond this, the permanent, unbroken cloud
layer that hovers between 100 and 500 feet up prevents us from seeing
much of anything. The constant rain, fog, and cloud cover is a major
reason why the PNW has the highest suicide rate in the US. Boaters are
a disproportionate percentage of the folks who off themselves up here.
So save your money-- and very possibly your life-- and cruise somewhere
else. If the weather or the deadheads don't get you, the bears,
cougars, or whales probably will. That's assuming you aren't so driven
into depression by the rain that you simply choose to end it all
yourself. Stick to the ICW or the Gulf or the coast of Maine or
southern California, but say a prayer every now and then for those of us
who vainly struggle against insurmountable odds to operate a boat in
this hell hole called the Pacific Northwest. It's a Bad place and our
lives will be short.
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington
_________________________________________
C. Marin Faure
Producer/Director, Boeing Video Services
telephone (206)650-5622
fax: (425)965-4253
e-mail:
[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat]
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