(Editor's Note: Long time member and past club Officer, Ken Anderson, left Houston several years ago to live in splendor of Northwest Washington. He has agreed to send in occasional descriptions of paddling in the waters around the great Northwest.)

LIVING IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST PLUS

 

Several years ago my wife and I decamped from Houston to Port Townsend Washington bringing canoes, 2 kayaks, a teardrop trailer and various camping gear.  We’d earlier invested  summer months getting a feel for it and, perhaps, it getting it a feel for us. On balance I must say things worked out quite well with only a few bumps.  C’mon now…what’s life without a few bumps.

 

Just a few bumps:

 

• there’s a time-zone difference.Your noon is my 10:00 AM. Remember that when phoning those left behind;
• the water is cold…about 45 degrees. No kayaking in bathing suits;
• there are impressive tides and currents which do more than go up and down but can and do go around and around and up and down with you in your kayak;
• Mt Rainier is glorious…just go on Sunday through Wednesday. The volunteers will love you on Sunday afternoon viewing you as an adult as opposed to the marginal adults which left early Sunday;
• this is not the South. Folks seem cool at first but usually warm up into wonderful friends;
• don’t even try to explain Buc-ees;
• don’t say “what heat?” when summer temperature crack 90 degrees.They won’t appreciate it;
• there’s at least one cougar in my neighborhood and an unknown number of black bears all of whom behave themselves and leave us alone;
• deer are cute until they eat what you just planted…so I fenced our property;
• sad to say I smoked cigarettes the consequence of which is a reduced lung capacity limiting my kayaking BUT neither canoeing nor rowing. So I’ve built a wherry from a kit and currently building an open water version just to row faster than the kayakers.

   

  A few things which need clearing up:

   

• folks here ask me about great white sharks in the Gulf, whereas Houston folks ask me about any local sharks. I point out to each there aren’t great white sharks here nor there. I don’t mention bull sharks or jellyfish. We have elephant seals; the male version of which may arise alongside you and your kayak…it’s a warning to stay away from his women;
• stories regarding kayaking accidents here involve gross negligence, if not mind-boggling stupidity. Given the number of almost daily kayak paddles such accidents are rare;
• show me someone with an umbrella and I’ll show you a visitor…it doesn’t rain much here but it mists a lot; restated by Houston standards: what folks here call rain, Houstonians call mist.

 

Port Townsend is a sailing community, a wood working community, a gardening community, a  musical community none of which are amateurs (well, there’s me).  One local school teaches 7th graders how to build their own sailboat and as 8th graders, learn to to sail it.  5th graders watch salmon eggs grow into smolt which they later place in rivers. 

 

The tribes and Washington State work well together in order to restore environmental. They pretty much have to…they’re under a court order to do so. 

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The author, Ken Anderson