Shilshole Marina — The Voyage Home

Kicking back in the cockpit of Indiscretion on this fine May evening, I’ve been thinking about how life has a way of circling back on itself in strange, unexpected ways.

We’ve been settled in our new slip at Shilshole Marina in Seattle for a month now as we finalize the sale of our Vashon Island home. After all the frenetic activity involved in readying a house to sell, it feels good just to be still and observe the hustle and bustle that surrounds us here, in what surely must be the very center of the trawler universe.

Shilshole Marina is home to nearly 1,500 slips and one of the world’s largest communities of liveaboard boaters. Every marine service imaginable can be found within a five-minute drive to nearby Ballard. What once was a five-hour trip to have the boat hauled out at Seaview Boatyard can now be accomplished without even leaving the breakwater.

And then there’s the community. We find ourselves surrounded by kindred spirits who have gravitated to a seafaring lifestyle that most can’t begin to understand. I have this feeling that we’ve slipped through a portal to an alternate universe where it’s perfectly normal to sell your house and move on a boat, to laugh maybe a little too much, to enjoy a dockside bagpipe concert while you’re sipping your morning coffee on the flybridge, and to fall into new friendships with people you just met but feel like you’ve known your whole life. We have found our tribe.

This spirit of community has even infected the marina staff, who, by decree, are charged with throwing up obstacles and rules and prohibitions.

Last week, I changed the oil on all three engines on Indiscretion as part of our preparation for summer cruising. The marina offers on-site oil recycling, but a large red sign near the tank proclaims a limit of five gallons of oil. I had close to nine gallons. Here we go, I thought.

The oil tank was padlocked, so I went to ask for the key at the office. They would have someone meet me at the tank shortly. I pushed my dock cart with its two waste oil containers the 200 yards to the north-end of the marina. By the time I arrived, the tank was already unlocked, and the marina staff person was getting back into her Port of Seattle truck. I thanked her and told her I would lock up when I finished. She smiled, welcomed me to the marina, and drove off.

As I carried the first five gallon container to the tank, I watched the truck slowly reverse course out of the corner of my eye. The truck stopped next to me and the window rolled down. Here it comes.

“I forgot to mention,” she said. “There’s a separate area on the south end of the marina that you can safely dispose of coolant, bilge water, old fuel, and batteries in case you ever need that.” She smiled, waved and drove off.

We’ve definitely entered the multiverse.

Selling the house, moving aboard the boat, and arriving here at Shilshole marks an exciting new chapter for us, but it’s also a return to our beginning.

Lisa and I met playing pool in a dive bar not five miles from here. Seattle has has changed a lot in thirty years, but that bar on Stone Way — The Pacific Inn Pub — still looks the same.

Looking south through the forest of masts, I can make out the very apartment that Lisa and I shared when we were first married 25 years ago. Neither of us were boaters then, but an extra allotment of saltwater in our veins must have drawn us here to the shore.

I recall watching boat traffic on the ship canal over beers at the long gone Bait Shop Cafe. A glorious wooden trawler glided by, and though we didn’t know stem from stern, the possibilities of far flung adventure did not escape our rapt attention.

Across the fairway from us lies a small fleet of Seattle Sailing Club sailboats. I enjoy watching the crews of new sailors take to sea each evening. I’ll admit my heart races a little when a novice skipper backs a J-105 into the fairway, coming out hot, sometimes uncomfortably close to a collision without casting a single backwards glance.

I went sailing for the first time at that very club in 1997. I learned the parts of the rig and how to tie a bowline in the cockpit of a 26-foot Capri sloop tied up less than 100 feet away from where I now sit. It took just one afternoon on Shilshole Bay to ignite a lifelong passion for sailing. I can still remember the exhilaration I felt as the sound of the engine faded away and the boat heeled and shot forward, my grip fastened to the tiller as if by electric shock, my whole being immersed in the connection between wind, sail and rudder.

That afternoon sail, which soon resulted in the purchase of our own Ericson 35 sailboat, also marked the end of our time at Shilshole. We moved to Vashon Island to start a family and a new life in the country.

The Ericson made way for a succession of boats over two decades that taught me the rules of the road, the ways of the sea, the art of sail trim to gain an extra half knot through the water, the fickleness of marine engines, the dangers of singlehanded sailing.

Truth be told, my life should have ended twenty years ago. Alone in a remote anchorage, I fell overboard into a fast running current in 42 degree water. No life jacket. No one else on board to assist. Through sheer luck, a keen-eyed boater plucked me out of the water as I drifted out to sea and certain death. A guardian angel took pity on me that fateful morning, and I got a second chance at life.

Over the many years of sailing out of Vashon, we made a few stops here at Shilshole, but never longer than a day or two. It feels decadent to call this our home, like we’ve taken a permanent suite at a luxury hotel.

The fact is, we don’t truly live here. With the closing of the sale of our house a few days away, we are anxious to put some nautical miles under our keel without worrying about how high the grass is or what home repair project might be waiting.

Keeping this slip at Shilshole gives us the perfect home base for expeditions through these beautiful Pacific Northwest waters, and yet still have a place to rest up, lick our wounds, and draw upon the finest trawler marine services in the world as the need arises.

But first, let me take in this quiet moment of reflection to simply enjoy the warmth of the setting sun and give thanks for all the many tacks and gybes that carried us to this special place, here and now.