Before I write these From the Editor pieces, I obviously have to come up with something to write about. If nothing comes to mind quickly, I’ll look around my shop, the garage and outdoor places where I keep my boats, my digital photo albums, and the attic where I have all of my slides of boat-related projects and travels. If I come up empty handed in my searches at home, taking a boat out often helps. Visiting a new body of water can provide me with some fresh perspectives, so I may scan the satellite imagery on Google Earth. As I was doing that last week, I noticed Swamp Creek, a small tributary to the Sammamish River. I had rowed, paddled, and motored the river countless times and had never noticed the creek. Its entrance, just a dimple on the right bank, had been all too easy to overlook from the river. I decided to take my Whitehall there to see if I could find and row the creek. Lake Washington is just 1/3 mile around this last bend in the Sammamish Slough. On this Friday afternoon, I had the launch ramp and the slough to myself.
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Great story, Chris. Hope something will come to mind for you eventually. It always amazes me that taking small waterways in an urban area can be so untraveled and with opportunities to see wildlife. Beaver in Seattle! Cool! On an afternoon’s canoe trip to a neighboring lake, I pushed on a loose log on beaver lodge with my paddle. Two beavers shot out under the canoe, freaking out my wife, who thought they might jump into the canoe. What a gorgeous Whitehall! Is that one you built?
Thanks
John
Urban exploring by water is the best. I have been slowly kayaking the waters behind Atlantic City this past year. Beyond the obvious intracoastal, the creeks through the marshes seem to go on forever.
Thank you for pointing this out for everyone, even the ugliest places have the prettiest spots if you are willing to look for them.
Thanks, John. I built the Whitehall to the plans for the New York Whitehall in Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. I sold it a few years after I launched it and the boat came back to me when a second owner thought the boat should be back in my family. The hull is Port Orford cedar with a mahogany sheer strake and the knees and breasthook are all cut from crooks.
That is a gorgeous boat. Named?
The Whitehall started out as a commission, but the prospective owner had to bail out of the arrangement. Neither of the two owners that followed christened the boat, so it remains without a name. I suppose I should remedy that.
Thanks, this is my kind of adventure. In urban places waterways often provide access to areas that are private property by land, and the banks of streams and sloughs can be busy with wildlife. Near me on Suisun Slough there is a launch ramp, and the first side channel (named Hill Slough) requires passing under a narrow, low bridge opening into the shallow tidal slough. Not many people go there, so the local wildlife is mostly undisturbed. Last Fall during a high tide I took my solar electric skiff down to near the end, passing hawks, egrets, kites, otters and various shorebirds along the way.
Here’s a chart of Hill Slough.
A couple short videos, mostly to test out the new phone camera:
Hill Slough, Clouds
Hill Slough, Birds
Those beavers can be destructive little beggars! I had one munching on some trees at my beach last year.
I have a funny story about a dead beaver (not that it was funny that it was dead) my friend and I found at his property along the Yakima River, I will tell you sometime.
In my 50-year career in journalism I’ve been in this same fix quite a few times: deadline looming, nothing happening, no ideas germinating. It’s pointless to sit at your desk and stare at the blank screen until beads of blood appear on your forehead—nobody wants to read about your desperation. So you hit the road—or trail, or stream. Usually nothing dramatic happens, but if you’re a good observer, you can fashion a thoughtful essay out of the very ordinariness of what you encounter. There’s an infinite variety of insights into any ordinary place or thing; all we have to do is be receptive enough to find them.
A good reminder of the importance to make time to just get out there. Planning epic trips in glorious places is all well and good, but the essence of adventure is in the joy and challenge of the unexpected. If we don’t find time in our lives to simply follow the whims of curiosity, we miss out on little adventures.
It seems to me that adventure is best taken like food: Regular, moderate amounts leave us pleasantly satisfied, and ready to deal with the rest of life. Periods of starvation followed by binging leaves us alternately feeling hollow, then exhausted when we have too much to appreciate.
Adventure is best taken like food! Well said.