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From: Rich Werner (no email)
Date: Thu Dec 01 2005 - 14:14:47 EST
It's about time that the truth about PNW boating is told. Thank you Marin
Rich
GB32-277
Seattle, WA
-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of
Faure, Marin
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:52 AM
To: trawler list
Subject: T&T: Cruising the PNW
>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:
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