Day 13-15 of the 1st Voyage: In which we unwind in Roche Harbor and get wound up for the Inside Passage.

Of all the places we have visited thus far, this one quickly turned into a favorite. Roche Harbor was once a company town, but is now a resort town. It’s not very big—marina, grocery store, couple of restaurants, and a few shops centered around the historic Hotel de Haro—but it’s heavy on old-timey charm. It could easily be a seaside set in one of those movies that takes place at the turn of the century where the gents wear straw hats and the ladies carry parasols and they stroll a lot—usually singing. The Captain doesn’t like movies where people sing. Except for Sweeny Todd, because at least there’s bloodshed to offset all the singing. He says it works there because the singing “moves the story along”. When I told him that there are other musicals where the singing does advance the plot, he countered, “Well yeah. But they don’t shave as much.” And I guess he has a point. But I digress.

Roche Harbor also has a reputation for being a go-to destination for the Fat Cats, so named (okay, we named them) for their propensity to not only buy the biggest, fastest, most bloated powerboats available, but also purchase the matching 20-30’ dinghy to carry their wallet in—they know how to accessorize! And so there we were, nestled among the champagne and caviar set, happily noshing on our Heineken and Costco cheese. But don’t worry, we’re not going blue blazer on you just yet. This is what is known as the “shoulder season” in that it’s technically summer but not quite July so moorage hasn’t shot up yet. So we can enjoy the perks of the “ahoy” at the “hoi polloi” rates. And nice perks, they are: they send out someone to help you with your lines (which is awesome because it only leaves me the stern and spring to mess up), they give you access to the resort facilities, and—most wonderful of all!—they provide free pump out service. Now, if you have a boat, you already know that this is like winning the lottery and free car washes for life all on the same day. If you don’t have a boat, bear with me because we’re about to get graphic. Instead of a bathroom, boats have a “head” and instead of a sewer system, boats have a “holding tank” and whereas the sewer system will whisk your business off into the great unknown, a boat’s holding tank must be pumped out when it gets full. Or else things get a might funky. Almost all marinas have a “pump out dock” where you can tie up, attach the hoses, and clean out your tanks. Some marinas have portable pumps that you can wheel over to your boat while it’s in the slip. But the really boss marinas have a guy in a little boat with a big tank and a powerful siphon that will tie up next to your boat and take care of your…um…business. And so on our third day at Roche Harbor, the SS Phecal Phreak (motto: “We take crap from anybody”) pulled up alongside and cleaned us out. Oh, glorious day! Editor’s Note: Friday Harbor marina, though not a free service, will hook you up with their own mobile boat, the awesomely-name Pumpty Dumpty.

But I digress again. Our first afternoon there, the Captain lowered the dinghy and took it over to the fuel dock to fill up the tank, and then went out for a joy ride. Not long after he called my cell phone, “Grab your life jacket and meet me on the dock in 10 minutes!” He said he had something amazing to show me. I was really excited because I thought maybe it would be an orca (we’ve been in the San Juan Islands—the whale watching capital of the world—for over a week and the closest we’ve come to seeing an orca is a picture of one on the side of the whale watching boat as it came chugging back into the harbor with all the happy “I’ve-just-seen-an-orca” people on it.) And then I was thinking, holy crap, we’re in a 9’ dinghy, this better be a small orca. In fact, is this such a good idea? Orcas are like 20’ feet long and I’m not sure but maybe our dinghy is only 4’. What is he thinking? Why would he be taking me to see a 30’ killer whale in an inflatable raft?! And then we turned off into a secluded harbor and there—even better than an orca—was a Nauticat 52’. Now if you don’t know us (and count yourself lucky because those that do are already rolling their eyes), WE have a Nauticat 52’! Why is this so special? (Aside from the fact that Nauticats are the best damn boats in the world?) Back in the early eighties, the builder, Sitalia Yachts of Finland, only made a handful of the 52s before deciding that the world could only handle so much awesomeness and therefore they should concentrate on their other Nauticat lines. After 30 years, not many remain so the odds of rounding that corner and seeing another 52 were staggering. We buzzed her in the dinghy a few times, then decided to be total geeks and talk to the owner. Best decision ever! Larry, the owner of The Big Finn, is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and a true adventurer--he’s been everywhere that we want to go, including up the Inside Passage to Alaska. He very graciously accepted our invitation to come aboard Raven and brought detailed maps of his journey north. But for every story of the staggering beauty coupled with the calm water here and the good anchorage there became somewhat overshadowed by choppy seas here, extreme fog there, “this place gets tricky”, and “don’t let it intimidate you”. And I’m not bringing this up because Larry was trying to scare us (he totally wasn’t), I bring it up because we have been working so hard and so long to make this odyssey a reality—it’s taken two years just to reach this point, to make that 180 change in our lives, and it’s taken longer than that to get the courage to do it—that until now, we haven’t had the time to really think about the journey itself. And now that we’re here. We’re doing it. We’re living the dream. And holy sh*t! What were we thinking? Are we ready for this? Why didn’t anyone try to stop us? Alaska is going to kill us! If the sea doesn’t get us, the bears will! But no. We’ve come too far. We won’t quit. We’ll do it. We’ll do it for Larry.

Editor’s Note: The next night we had beers with Winston and Cynthia—an amazing couple that run a large megayacht for a seafood industry Fat Cat. They’ve owned many boats throughout the years, been all over the world, even ran charter boats in the Caribbean. If Alaska doesn’t kill us, we’re going to make it our life’s mission to see at least half the places they did and have twice as much fun. And that’ll be saying something.