Erin made pancakes this morning, with some turkey bacon on the side. “Shall I put the leftover corn in the batter?”, she said. My puzzled look elicited the further explanation “When we were growing up, all sorts of leftovers went into the pancake batter.” I can report that the corn pancakes were excellent.
I had already disconnected our shore power cord in anticipation of making a move over to the Government dock, and shortly thereafter noticed a powerboat leaving from the breakwater dock, where both the Coast Guard and seaplane terminal are housed. We were cast off and away from our slip within minutes, heading over to our new moorage. We were supposed to notify the dockmaster here by 9 am if we were going to be staying another day, otherwise check out no later than 11. I guess we notified them at 9 by our quick departure.
The rules here at the Government dock are totally different than at the marina. Moorage here is free for short stays of a couple hours during the day, and overnight moorage, less than half of what we paid last night, is only due for those staying beyond 4 pm. I made several trips in the afternoon to the marina office at the other harbor, finally catching them open just before 4 o’clock. When I paid, I asked about the hours of the Saturday Market, which runs until three or four in the afternoon. “When’s your checkout time?”, I asked. “One o’clock, but we don’t care if you stay an extra hour or so.” Now that’s the way to run a business and get repeat customers.
We enjoyed our location today, watching people come and go to the seaplane dock, and just watching the hustle and bustle of the harbor. Several small commuter seaplane carriers, including Kenmore Air, make regular stops here. Most of the planes are either Dehaviland Beavers with rotary engines, or Otters with a single turboprop. The piston powered planes come idling up and shut off their engine 40 or 50 feet away from the dock, coasting in while the pilot gets out on the pontoon, picks up a line and grabs a cleat as the plane slowly drifts alongside the dock. The turboprops come in under power right up to the dock, reversing the propeller pitch at the last moment to come to a complete stop before setting the pitch to neutral and letting the prop wind down. They stay pretty busy from around 7 in the morning until just before dusk. They’ve got a fuel tank behind the Coast Guard dock, and sometimes taxi around there to fill up. An attendant usually hoses the plane down with fresh water to rinse away the salt spray if there’s some extra time between arrival and departure.
We went for a walk around town earlier in the afternoon, visiting quite a few art stores and a bakery that was several blocks away from the center of town. It was beyond where the sidewalks end, but they were busy nonetheless with local car traffic. We went in and bought a couple of sausage rolls to take with us in our wanderings.
Dinner tonight was fish & chips at the head of the dock. The cod was really good, but the batter was too thick, and we peeled most of that off. We both noted the wooden forks that came with our order and recalled talking to a young couple a few years ago that were in an old Chris Craft anchored in Fossil Bay on Sucia. They had patented a method for making biodegradable wooden tableware to compete with and replace the plastic in use at most places today, and were in the process of trying to introduce their product and make some sales. We hoped that this was an indication of the successful fruition of their venture.
Trav will be interested to know that we also picked up some sippin’ items from his shopping list.
No comments:
Post a Comment