First, we headed for "British Camp" to visit one of the Washington State Parks. It's the scene of the famous Pig War of 1859. Apparently, there was a dispute back then as to who owned the San Juan Islands--USA or Great Britain. The situation came to a head when a man(Lyman Cutlar) shot(or murdered depending on who you talked to)a pig that was in his potato patch. The pig belonged to the Hudson Bay Company. They got upset that one of their pigs had been killed and wanted Cutlar to pay for it. He refused. The Hudson Bay Company appealed to the British authorities for help. The American settlers sent a letter to the Department of Oregon(Washington was part of Oregon at the time)headed up by General William Harney. General Harney sent General George Pickett(yes, the Pickett of Civil War Gettysburg) and a Company of soldiers to San Juan Island. The Governor of British Columbia, James Douglas sent three war ships with 61 guns under the command of Captain Geoffrey Phipps Hornby. He was told to remove Pickett and his men by force if he refused to leave peacefully. As Hornby arrived, the Governor changed his mind about using force. General Pickett wrote to General Harney for more men. Harney sent 500 more men. The two sided faced off for more than three months until Lt. General Winfield Scott arrived. An agreement was made that each side would have their own camp in the island and the dispute would be put to an arbitrator(Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany). It took him till 1872 to make up his mind as to who officially owned the San Juan Islands(USA).
Once we had seen British Camp, we went back to Zephyr for a quick lunch, loaded up Puff with the trash we had accumulated over the past few weeks and headed off for Roche Harbor through Mosquito Pass. We visited the local grocery store(the same one we had been in last November) and bought some fresh veggies and a dozen eggs and came across a fresh fish stand on the docks where we bought some fresh prawns to have for dinner. Back into Puff and back to Zephyr.
I tried to fire up the Honda generator we carry on the stern to charge the batteries but she refused to start. I checked the fuel(fine), the spark plug(fine), air filter(fine) and the spark from the plug(fine). It seemed like it wanted to start. It had run in the morning, but not in the afternoon. I have tried it several times since with no success. I guess it's into the shop later this week.
I called Port Townsend to arrange for our haul out at the end of the week. "Sorry, there is no space or time for you till July 27" and that is a "maybe". That's two weeks out!! We will be in town by Thursday and can't afford loosing that amount of time. At the Seattle Boat Show, Tracy had won a half off haul out at Port Angeles so we called them. They can take us this Thursday with no problem. We're not happy about having to do the work in Port Angles but we have to do what will work within our schedule. Zephyr will be out of the water by late Thursday afternoon and we will be taking the bus to Port Townsend to pick up the car and our new Hydrovane from Port Townsend Rigging. They've stored it since back in April. I know they were figuring on helping us install it($). Now they are out of the loop to work on Zephyr. Once work is done in Port Angeles, we will be taking Zephyr to Port Townsend to have the problems with our rigging taken care of by Brion Toss. We left too soon for him to fix it back in April. We may have Port Townsend Rigging install a "quick" disconnect fitting on the forestaysail stay. This way we can use the sail when we want to and stow the fittings when we don't need it leaving room for the Genoa sail on deck.
So as of now, we will be "living" in Port Angeles for a while till we get done what we need to have done. Once I get the Hydrovane installed, I'll be driving back to Denver to stow the car and have our house roof re-shingled while Tracy works on the bottom paint.
The fun just keeps on coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment