A Christmas Surprise for Tib –– From "Jello" Island and Lew Dodd

The Tib and Lew Dodd cabin 
Yellow Island, 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Ca. 1948.
Courtesy of their family.

"Tib" Van Order Dodd (1895-1989)
and Lew Dodd (1892-1960)
Yellow Island residents
Photo courtesy of their family.
Click image to enlarge.

A letter written by the former co-owner of Yellow Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

"Jello Island"
(is what one Swede calls it)
Deer Harbor, WA.
December 1957

"Dear –––––––––––,

Well, the Islands are about rolled up in mothballs until Springtime, I guess, and from all appearances anyway–for there are extremely few boats to be seen nowadays; the Channels are deserted except for the mailboat and the ferry.
        It is not really broad light in the morning until 7:30 and the sun (if any -and wherever seen) goes down behind the black San Juan Island hills at 4:15 PM. The whole Archipelago is slumbering and quiet in its usual winter hibernation so far as any comparison with June to October.
        For the first time since last July, accompanying Jack Tusler in his boat, we went to Deer Harbor, most of whose sparse population isn't very much in evidence; for, those who can afford it have folded their summer tents, so to speak, and have migrated to the South––the road from Kirk's to the store, black in the gloomy wet and little traveled, and at Norton's dock a single troller leaning wearily against the float as if utterly tired out from the summer's fishing, the essence of ennui!
        Blue smoke issues straight up from a few chimneys, and the forlorn old red cannery seems to stare vacantly upon the scene, which more than at any other time of year, resembles a small Port that once was and may never be again; deserted, forlorn, useless, abandoned; hopeless! Hard by, across the inlet, at the bridge, a forlorn sawmill no longer sings a tune, drift logs beachcombed, and red rust is King over all its metal machinery. The attitude which the whole hamlet has seemed to have acquired is one of extreme lassitude, and, perpetual waiting in a permeating forlorn hope that--well--"Something might occur someday; maybe." The place somehow manages to convey a very bleak empty and depressing picture as it sits on its sidehill, soggy, sodden, clammy, and damp--with its feet in the cold December sea. --Deer Harbor in winter! "The deserted village!"
        We are always glad to return to our Island from such a brooding atmosphere, for upon clearing the vicinity the forlornness and the lifelessness leave one as if awakening from an unrealistic dream.
        Back on our own Island, we are happy to pull the skiff up into its snug boathouse, shoulder the provisions, and climb the path to the bright, warm cabin where for so long as we have lived here we have been happy and content.
        There is never a dull or uninteresting day at our Island home and no two days are alike: for there is always something, yesterday Tib and I watched two otters hauled out on our East end. It was a sight seldom seen by even those who do live in the country, and we may never see such an interesting performance as they went through with no idea in their heads that two human beings were observing through binoculars every move they made.
        One reason that prompted me to drop you a line is because I wanted to (which is an excellent one, in my opinion!) Another reason is that I need Lloyd's advice:
        Recently I saw an "ad" in December National Geographic of Zenith's new Transistor Transoceanic radio (8 bands) etc. price advertised as $250. Lloyd, what do you think of this radio and do you deal with them?
        We are out here beyond television until they produce some kind of a battery set maybe––and even then if the programs don't get any better we wouldn't be interested. But, radio, a good one, yes, for it would give us worldwide contact everywhere, internationally––everywhere there are broadcasters. Ship to shore, aircraft, etc. How do these transistors stack up with the tube radios in performance? Do you think this new Zenith is a good buy at that price and could you buy one of them at any sort of a discount if you do not handle them?
        I've been toying with this zenith idea to surprise Tib for Christmas. (I'm 65 now and may not last too long.) I can manage to pay for something that should give us whatever is to be had in worldwide radio for some time to come. But before I make any move at all I'd like your candid opinion about this machine. Just what your knowledge and experience can tell me. I will certainly appreciate it.
        Tonight 8:00 PM we're having a hard westerly (about 40 mph) and the sea is noisy but the solid little cabin doesn't have a vibration in it, the kettle sings on the stove, the lamp is bright, and it a sweet, sweet home on an island in the San Juans far from the milling crowds and traffic, the fumes, and burning gasoline and the roar of trucks and trailers.
        Our sojourn in Bellingham this summer, after so many years away from the modern clatter and clutter taught us both to appreciate and love even more our peace and quiet, sweet air, unchlorinated water, clear running tides; and natural surroundings, the seabirds calling and soaring in the clear, clean sky! We are so thankful and grateful for it all. It is a good life.
        Our best wishes to you for a happy holiday season and we hope your year ahead will be a successful and contented one filled with whatever is GOOD and with whatever you most prefer."

Signed, Lew and Tib.

Another SPHS post of Yellow Island Dodd's can be seen HERE

Another SPHS post of Lew's sail on Gracie S around Vancouver Island, B.C.,                         can be seen HERE

And a post under the History section on the home page, for the 8,500 mile 

passage crewing the R.B. Brown schooner Ranger from Milwaukee, WI.  to Orcas Island in 1939, 

click HERE.

"BIG STUFF" coming through the Islands 7 August 2023

 OCEAN GUARDIAN working in the San Juan Islands.

Photographs courtesy of  Lance Douglas from Blakely Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA. The top photo has Rosario Resort, Eastsound, Orcas Island in the background. Click an image to enlarge.

The offshore work vessel can be seen at https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9272060

CRUISING THE ARCHIPELAGO --- Crane Island Coast

 

COASTAL PERCH
Crane Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

Photograph courtesy of Lance A. Douglas
For Saltwater People Historical Society
July 2023.

THE WATERFALL WIPE-OUT AT THATCHER BAY, BLAKELY ISLAND (UPDATED)

Blakely Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Please see below for one recall update
of the Spencer Lake dam by 
Blakely Islander, L.A. Douglas. 

 

BLAKELY ISLAND DAM BREAKS

DESTROYS MANY LANDMARKS

By Baylis Harris, Owner,

Blakely Island Marina, Blakely Island,

San Juan Archipelago, Washington

January 1965

"Sometime before daylight in the morning of January 30, 1965, the dam and spillway on well-known Spencer Lake on Blakely Island, gave way from the force of heavy overflow of melting snow and several days of unusually heavy rain.

        The situation was reported to Blakely Marina, by the mail boat crew on arrival at about 7:20 a.m. The marina also serves as the Post Office for Blakely Island. When subsequently investigated by islanders, the destruction created is beyond description. The break created a ravine estimated at an increase of ca. 75 feet deeper than the former run-off stream bed. Both Thatcher Bay and Eastsound were muddy for miles in all directions. Hundreds of trees and litter covered an area of approximately 30 square miles, consisting of various trees, the old Thatcher Mill site, which was completely demolished, and fruit trees, and their products floated everywhere throughout the Eastsound area, Peavine, and Obstruction Passes.

The broken dam on Spencer Lake,
Blakely Island, San Juan County, WA.
as noted in the photograph,
 courtesy of L.A. Douglas,
an eyewitness to the scene on this day.
Blakely Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Click the image to enlarge.

Overflow and destruction
from Spencer Lake dam break.
1965
courtesy of eyewitness L.A. Douglas,
Blakely Island, San Juan County, WA.

         Spencer Lake covered an area of approximately 60 acres and was quite deep. Therefore, literally millions of gallons of water were lost along with many of the historical landmarks of the Island.
        As late as 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, the force of water down this newly created ravine, cut to bare rock, and the cascading waterfall into Thatcher Bay was an awesome sight. Mr. Maurice Rodenberger who was making the early morning ferry trip to Anacortes reported on his arrival and even later by the crew of the Sidney bound ferry via radio.
        From a recreational standpoint, the loss of Spencer Lake will be quite a substantial loss to the Blakely Island Development. Fortunately, the main water supply for domestic use is taken from Horseshoe Lake."

Above text by Baylis Harris. Published by the Friday Harbor Journal, 1965.

THE SPENCER LAKE DAM

By Lance Douglas

(eye-witness testimony below) 

Blakely Island.

Submitted to the 

Saltwater People Historical Society 

May 2023. 

 

"Back around the turn of the 20th century, the people starting the mill at Thatcher Bay built a dam on Spencer Lake to raise it about 15-20 feet to provide more year-round water to operate the mill. The lake as seen nearby the orchard and dam was not there; the lake started out around the corner by the rock cliff. The dam added millions of gallons of water. A 12-inch steel "penstock" was installed down the steep hill to run a generator to power the mill. A penstock is a pipe that delivers water to a hydroelectric generator. The mill folks were certainly entrepreneurs back in the day and they tapped into the penstock with a 2-inch pipe that ran out the length of the pier. Filtered fresh water was then sold to the steamer boats that served the islands from Seattle, Anacortes, and Bellingham. Remnants of the twisted old penstock were still visible at the base of the gorge into the present century. 

        In the winter of 1965, an overflow culvert plugged up and water flowed over the dam and it washed out in a rush of force that could be heard on other islands. All of the mill buildings that were abandoned in the 1940s were destroyed and washed out to sea. The road to Armitage Bay washed out and left the south end of the island isolated for a year or so. A couple of archived photographs show the washed-out area in the mid-1960s and a small access dock to control a culvert valve under the dam during construction.

        After the new earthen dam was built,  the lake filled in one winter from the huge watershed including Horseshoe Lake which flows into Spencer Lake. During the mill operation days, the lakes were referred to as the "upper" and "lower" lakes.

        Around 1980, a brilliant engineer in the north-end community could not stand to see all of the kinetic energy in the form of water flowing out to sea not being harnessed, so he commissioned a generator system to be built. It was located at the bottom of the gorge where the post office once stood and the dam was beefed up and a new 12" PVC penstock was installed down the road to power it. Up into the 21st century, the penstock delivers about one million gallons of water daily to the 50 kW generator but only runs seasonally. The generator system was gifted to Seattle Pacific University who had been gifted many acres of land where they built a marine biology lab on the island with a full-time caretaker."

Below: 

History of the earliest days of Thatcher Mill Company written by 
Nancy McCoy. Article sponsored by Lopez Island Historical Museum; published by the Islands' Weekly, 2000.

Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society.

 

THE ALMOST UNSINKABLE MARINER OF FRIDAY HARBOR, WA. by Brad Warren

 

CARTOON BY DENNIS DAY
1984
click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society.

When the only bar on Friday Harbor's waterfront changed hands last year [1983,] its detractors watched the name disappear from its weathered sign and confidently predicted that the raucous Mariner Galley & Bar had finally, and fortunately sunk. It had surrendered its prime location, they gloated, to a fancy new restaurant that would show San Juan Island what "class" could be. But neither the Mariner nor Friday Harbor was ready to be gentrified. The new restaurant fizzled out in November, a financial and social disaster. In December the Mariner's old owners, Ron and Sandy Speers, reclaimed it and fighting the building's owners, and the State Liquor Control Board, brought the bar back to its former self. Almost.
        The Mariner was still a salty den of noisy fishermen, surly rebels, 19th-century holdouts, and 20th-century dropouts––still the stubborn soul of a roistering bordertown, fishing port past, and still for Mariner regulars at least, the place that kept Friday Harobr true to its real identity as "the southernmost town in SE Alaska."
        But the Mariner lost its liquor license––on account of past violations for which it has already paid fines, suffered closures, and fired bartenders, according to the Speers. Unless they could win the license back, their lease will expire. "We'll get it back," said Ron Speers. "I'm willing to fight this all the way into court if I have to, but I'm sure we'll prevail."
        "The Mariner was the first place I worked when I came to the island," says self-proclaimed Marinero Tom Hook. "I went in and saw the piano and asked if they need someone to play it. They put me to work that night. The pay was lousy but it was a great place to work. A few weeks later I met Phil Martin there. I was playing 'Take Five' and I looked up, and there was the biggest fisherman I'd ever seen––he filled the doorway. He had a black beard down to his chest, and he looked like Wolf Larsen, straight out of the Sea Wolf. When he saw me, he said, 'Oh! A piano player!'
        "He walked right over and grabbed the handles on the back of the piano, braced the bottom of it against his leg, and lifted the whole thing six inches off the floor while I was playing it. "My name's Phil, he said with a big smile. "I like country and western."
        "I gulped and looked up at him, I said, "Yeah? Well, I like tips."
        "He put down the piano, slammed a five-dollar bill on top of it, and said, "There's more where that came from, partner if you're any good."
        I met him when we were reporting for competing island newspapers, and we became friends when I started playing guitar at the Mariner with the Crawlspace Blues Band. It was a great rowdy place to play. We were never paid much––sometimes not at all–– but we always got a free meal. That made a big difference when cash was scarce, as it usually was on the island. Nobody had money in the winter.
        If the waitress wasn't around in the morning when were went to collect our free meal, we'd go behind the counter, pour our coffee, and tell the cook what we wanted. Phil Martin and a bunch of local fishermen would be there rumbling or joking about the bad fishing or repairs on their boats, sometimes griping about the Boldt decision, something just staring out the window at the harbor. The Mariner was their place; they ate, drank, and brooded there by day––between turns of a wrench on their boats or knots in a net they were mending––and they came back to cut loose at night.
        Some fishermen had no phones at home and gave out the Mariner's number. One was Dennis Day, a seiner and artist who used to sit at the bar all afternoon when he wasn't working, drawing on napkins: he made magnificent, mythical images of boats riding out storms, mermaids rising from the surf, black-bearded fishermen hauling in nets––elemental, powerful visions. The wall behind the bar gradually became Dennis' gallery as the bartender saved and hung his napkins, and on another wall, Tom Hook hung a hand-drawn map of places to get drunk in southern France.
        The Mariner was full of people whose rough looks hid surprising talents. Many had left their old lives in the fast lane to rust back on the mainland. There were fishermen with doctorates and an amateur live-aboard boatbuilder who had dissolved his successful public-interest law practice and came to hide out quietly on the island. Even Ron and Sandy, the owners, were an unlikely mix. They ran a farm on the island and looked like it. But Ron had graduated from Harvard and been a naval officer; Sandy, the Mariner's fearless den mother, had lived for years in Germany. Almost everyone there had made a sort of stand against nine-to-five, bureaucratic, domesticated, and disoriented mainland American culture. The sea was their antidote. My landlady, an Alaskan troller and sometime teacher in Friday Harbor, once told me, "When you're out there on the open water in your own tiny fishing boat and you see a big storm come up over the horizon, it does something for your priorities. It's you and the sea, and you've got to survive."
        The sale of the Mariner meant a lot more than a change of ownership. It was a signal of Friday Harbor's rapid, painful growth into a prosperous resort and retirement community––a prestigious place to have a second home or yacht. The population of San Juan Island had doubled during the 1970s, and few newcomers fit into the islands' rough-handed fishing, farming, and logging tradition, where good old boys held office and smugglers held out in the islands many hidden coves. That era came to a political finish in the late 1970s, when the new electorate recalled a corrupt county commissioner and voted in strict land-use controls and reforms. At the same time, poor management by the Washington Department of Fisheries and a raft of court-imposed restrictions crippled the commercial salmon fishery in Puget Sound.
        The old diehard spirit, which had reached its apogee when locally notorious lawyer Charlie Schmidt drafted a plan for the island to secede from the union and become a free port, was losing its grip. Islanders watched the changes and said cynically that Friday Harob r would soon be "the northernmost town in Southern California." Land prices were skyrocketing and it looked, in Sany Speers' words, as if "the little people were going to be squeezed out."
        The Speers' precarious revival of the Mariner won't change any of that. But it is somehow cheering to think of returning to find the old crowd still scowling and winking at the ferry as it pulls in, the last dive holding out for all that is un-reconstructible and defiant in Friday Harbor, an enduring chip off the ornery, generous heart of the islands.

Words by Brad Warren.
Published by the defunct Puget Sound Enetai
9 February 1984.

From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.

 

FROM THE DEPTHS OF BLIND BAY TO THE KNACKERMAN

Brochure from the 
chartering days of
beautiful MORNING STAR
(1956-2023)
when she was owned 
by her penultimate skipper,
Captain Lee.

THE MORNING STAR

"She was a Chesapeake "Bugeye" designed by Luther Tarbox. Bugeyes date back to 1830 and were used to dredge oysters and crabs, haul freight, and buy catches from their sloop version, the skipjack. 

MORNING STAR was built in Seattle by master shipwright Harvey Graham. Her keel was laid in 1956. Built entirely of Alaska yellow cedar, she is a strong work platform finished as a live aboard and a powerful sailer-cruiser. She was 56 feet overall, 48 feet on deck, 13.5 feet beam, and 38 inches draft with the centerboard raised. She carried 1,034 square feet of sail." Above words by Tony Lee.

This spring she was raised from the mud of Blind Bay, San Juan Archipelago, and escorted to a haulout at Deer Harbor to end her happy sailing days in the San Juan Islands. 

PRESIDENT OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN..... SPIKE AFRICA 1906-1984

President of the Pacific Ocean
SPIKE AFRICA
Dated 1965, Sausalito, CA.
Original gelatin-silver photograph from
the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

 During the 1960s, if a meek, polyester-clad lady tourist had ever ventured into the no-name bar, chances are she would have received a courtly greeting from Spike Africa. President of the Pacific Ocean. He would have drawn her into his circle of friends, artists, writers, boat workers, and other locals and entertained her so memorably that it would have been the high point of her vacation. Spike was like that––kind, gregarious, and very entertaining. The no name was his office and his theatre. The stories he told were drawn from his many lifetimes of personal experiences, stories that for all their seeming spontaneity were never yarns, they were as well-formed and told as those of the best short story writers. He had jokes and spiels, too, told with a versatile voice, sentences punctuated by a stream of tobacco juice. There was no doubting his authenticity as a man of the sea with his handsome, weathered, bearded face, and his strong craftsman's hands. 

Born on an Ohio farm, Spike's lifetime of adventure began as a teenager when he sailed on one of the last of the coastal lumber schooners, the five-masted K.V. KRUSE.

K. V. KRUSE©

One Portland to Peru trip took 108 days when they were becalmed for three weeks. The entire crew was weakened by scurvy before they finally made port. His other careers included salmon fishing in Alaska and working in lumber camps; he was a stevedore, cook, yacht club manager, model, actor, and yacht skipper. During WWII he served as a naval officer in charge of Seabees, later, he took part in atomic bomb testing on Bikini atoll; he was an investigator for the Treasury Department, too. 

In 1959 Spike served as a mate on the schooner WANDERER. During this time Sterling Hayden took his children to Tahiti against court orders, a much-publicized voyage. Spike's wife Red was part of the crew as were their children, Kit, Dana, and Dede–– just tots, then. They settled in Sausalito when the trip was over and Spike earned his living on, alas, a power boat. It was then he began to preside at the no-name bar. 

Spike Africa
with daughters Dana and Dede
Sausalito, CA.
Dated  December 1965
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

The title, President of the Pacific Ocean, was invented by Spike's brother, who used to send him letters festooned with seals, ribbons, and stamps. But then why not be president? "Nobody was taking care of the ocean," Spike explained. "I've been working on banning oil tankers; I'm going to bring back the whales and get this thing right." He put himself in charge of sea serpents, mermaids, tides, and currents. "If you want to make a good trip to sea, you've got to see me to get a permit." His permits were signed with flourishes that incorporated an anchor and a whale. After twelve years of holding court at the no-name it was regretfully time for Spike and Red to move on to the house Red had inherited on Lake Washington, near Seattle. For Sausalito, their move was an irreplaceable loss. 

But before going, there was a send-off that was talked of for years–– a surprise going-away memorial wake at the no name that was such a noisy affair it drowned out the sound of a bomb blast that ripped open the front doors of Bank of America just across the street.

"The move to Washington," Spike wrote, "sometimes I get lonesome around here, then I go to the supermarket and look at all the people. That's my big thrill of the work." He didn't have quite as ready an audience as at the no-name, but he was by no means out of circulation. Spike went to work for the Ancient Mariner/ Rusty Pelican restaurant chain, then in the process of expansion. He was with the advance team, cooking for the work crew, planning p.r., and decorating the restaurants with his nautical know work. At one opening he shocked the "blue-haired ladies," as he like to call them, by cutting the ceremonial first slice of French bread with his chain saw and continuing right on through the table. 

Knots on whiskey bottles
crafted by Spike Africa.
Private collection.

His quiet times at home were occupied with his fancy knot work, macrame––not the kind that plants hang from but the fine sailors' art of making belts and covering bottles. His was quite an art; he and his bottles were recently pictured in a Smithsonian book discussing maritime arts. After a life full of laughter and adventure, Phillip Marion "Spike" Africa died after a brief illness at home with his family near. 

Liz Robinson
Sausalito, 1984.

ONE WAY TO START ON THE WATERFRONT

Seattle waterfront postcard by Ellis.

 "Early in the summer of 1929, this boy of 16 got his first chance to explore Seattle’s fascinating waterfront on his own. My family had moved from Everett in the previous fall.

        My walk usually took me along the route of the Kinnear streetcar line. A pleasant pause was always made at Kinnear Park, from where the activities at Smith Cove could be checked. One of the “President Liners” and/or a Japanese steamship of the N.Y.K. Line was usually in port from the Orient.

          The plank sidewalk of Railroad Avenue was joined at Bay Street to check out any vessels at the Union Oil Dock. Then came the many finger piers with ships working cargo. The most exciting area was around the Colman and Grand Trunk Docks, with the comings and goings of the ferries and the steamers of the “Mosquito Fleet.” The schedules were quickly learned so as to be at the right places for sailings and arrivals of interest.
        One unforgettable hour was spent on Pier 7, Schwabacher Dock, when the old wooden motorship Zapora was to sail for the west coast of Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. The passengers were already aboard, but the departure was delayed because of the non-arrival of the supply of potatoes. By the time the dray showed up, all of the space was filled and the stowage of even a dozen sacks of spuds became a problem. The mate settled the confusion by taking the canvas covers off the two lifeboats and then had six sacks put in each boat. With the problem solved, the little Zapora chugged off to the North, but an hour late.

        On Friday, the fifth of July, when at my aunt’s desk, I heard a booming voice with a cockney accent behind me and was then introduced to Billy Snow. He was a short man with tobacco-stained teeth and had a motorist’s cap on his head. As the waterfront driver for the laundry, he was in the office to pick up his papers for delivery of clean linens to a Matson Lines freighter at the Union Pacific Dock. I quickly accepted the invitation to go along for the ride. His truck was a Dodge Brothers, with wood-spoked wheels and an enlarged body for a big carrying capacity.

        Our load was for Makiki, a standard-type WW I freighter. On arrival, Mr. Snow went aboard to get help loading. The steward and a messman accompanied him back down the gangway. I noted right away that the driver was respectfully addressed as “Captain Snow.” Wanting to get aboard, I helped carry the bundles to the linen room. When the job was done, we were invited into the saloon for cold drinks. Right then and there I knew I wanted to ship out sometime.

        On the way back I learned that Model Electric handled the laundry for the steamships of the Alaska Line, Matson’s freighters, three tankers of the General Petroleum Co., and the ferry steamer City of Victoria, which was running out of Edmonds. Scheduled deliveries were made both to Pier 2, for Alaska Steamship vessels, and to Edmonds, but the Matson freighters and tankers were handled whenever they were in port. I was invited to come along whenever I was downtown and got no objections from home as Captain Snow lived close to us.

        The trips to Pier 2 were fun, as the stewards made a place for me in the “coolie” line that carried the laundry bundles aboard. I could get looks at the outside decks, alleyways, and linen rooms on all of the passenger steamships except Northwestern and Yukon. They had small side ports on the saloon deck and the bundles were just dumped in the doorway.

        My biggest surprise came on boarding the General Petroleum tankers at Harbor Island. I had imagined that the vessels would be dirty as well as smelly, but I found Lebec to be quite the opposite. Her messrooms were attractively painted, a contrast to the starkly plain Matson freighters. All was spotlessly clean aboard.

        It wasn’t long before I was on hand at 4 p.m. to make the trip out to Edmonds to meet the City of Victoria. How grand the stately old ferry steamer looked as she came across from Possession Point to make her starboard landing. I couldn't wait to carry some bundles aboard, through the auto deck side port to the linen room. Then I scurried off and toured the vessel. How beautiful, I thought, were her Victorian decorations and furnishings. The fore and aft lounges with their grand stairways and open upper deck galleries impressed me the most. However, there was a faint musty odor throughout the ferry. By the time the hurried tour was over and I had returned to the truck, the laundry had all been loaded. Captain Snow just winked and had me ride in the back with the dirty linens, as several officers were in the front seat hitching a ride.

        After a trip or two to Edmonds, I asked the Captain if he could get me a berth on the City of Victoria. His answer was yes, but he preferred I wait until the next summer when I would be 17. So I spent the rest of the vacation as an unpaid swamper on the laundry truck. However, it was a wonderful chance to visit various steamships and to learn something about our very interesting waterfront.

Lloyd Statum. The Sea Chest journal. Puget Sound Maritime. Seattle. Sept. 1983,

A SALTY AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY ROBERT F. SCHOEN LATE OF CLAM HARBOR, ORCAS ISLAND, WA.

CHANTEY 
Sailing the honeymooners,
Bob & Mary Schoen,
to Orcas Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
1946.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"My name is Robert F. Schoen, pronounced Shane. I lived in Seattle at 10th and Ravenna Blvd. I went to Univeristy Heights grade school, John Marshall Jr. High, and Roosevelt High School, graduating in 1936, and the U of W in 1943. (The war intervened.)
        When I went to high school we were living in the Kirkland area on the east side of Lake Washington, Homes Pt. Drive. I was boat CRAZY. During high school, I met John Adams and Anchor Jensen, and we all had a love of sailing. Bill Garden was our mentor and teacher.
        Jack Kutz, John Adams, and I all had 28-foot boats. Kutz had a gaff-headed cutter, John had a clinker double-ended teak lifeboat schooner, and I had a V-bottom John Hannah ketch, gaff main, Marconi missen.
        We were out cruising every moment we could get away, winter and summer. We learned to sail our boats well. On the first of August 1941, I joined the Coast Guard. Kutz went into the Navy, and Adams finished his architecture at the U of W, then entered the Navy as an officer.
        My boating experience served me well. I went into the Coast Guard because I wanted to work in small boats. I was stationed in West Seattle after 7 Dec 1941. I was made Chief Boatswain Mate before being transferred to California from Seattle in 1942. From Government Island, Oakland, CA, we were sent to Borneo. Several weeks later we arrived at Hollandia for our assignment vessel, a 155-foot Uniflow steam tug, L T 218.

Bob's first ship in the South Pacific.

As he inscribed verso.
From his estate papers for the 
archives of the Saltwater People
Historical Society. 

     

         We were in the invasion of the Philippines, towing three barges of aviation gas to White Beach, near Tacloban.
         I had never seen so many ships of every kind, over 10,000 boats, rather exciting. Our tug broke down when we returned to Hollandia. It looked like it would be a long wait. I opted to take a transfer and went to Samar and duty on a US Army F. boat at a P.T. base. We followed behind the P.T. boats as they strafed the Japanese-held islands. We supplied fuel and ammunition and at times carried Japanese prisoners back to the base at Samar.
         We stopped at Iloilo where the army was mopping up the Japanese soldiers in the village. We were across a river, away from the fighting. From there we went to Zamboanga and waited for an escort to take us to Balikpapan, Borneo.
         From Hollandia, I went to Manilla where the Philippine sailors took over the boat. In Manilla, we boarded a transport for San Francisco and home by train to Seattle. Nov. 19, 1945, I was discharged from the coast guard. It was a great experience to be in the coast guard and I am proud of it.
        My sailboat, 29' Marconi cutter, W.H. Dole design was at Tony Jensen Boat Yard and I stopped to check in and told Anchor to get her ready for me to take her north for a few days and then continued to mother's house with all my gear and shared that I was going for a short cruise in Chantey. She responded with "Haven't you had enough boating?"
         I got hold of a couple of buddies and we headed for Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. It took us a few days and all of a sudden they decided one had to get back to register for college. The other had a girl he just had to see.
        About this time I remembered that I had just met a lovely young gal from the Juanita Beach area. I headed back and looked again. In July of 1946, we were married. It's been 53 years and we are still here.
        We sailed up to the San Juans in Chantey on our honeymoon and decided this looked like home.
        One of the things I did in the interval before we got married, I bought and learned to fly an airplane. When we were on the island I had the only plane on the island and I was working at various odd jobs such as sliming fish in the Deer Harbor salmon cannery and helping build a garage for the school bus near the Orcas ferry landing.
         I was frequently asked by loggers and people wanting things from Bellingham, such as medicine and auto parts. Bellingham had a large airfield built during the war, eighteen minutes by air from Orcas. This made me decide to purchase a four-place plane and enter pilot training in the U.S. Veterans Flying School on Bellingham Airfield.
        That was a great experience, lots of fun. In two and a half years I operated and founded the Orcas Island Air Service on Orcas. Just before I sold the service we had a major fire at the Orcas ferry dock which burned up the store section of the dock and part of the oil dock.
        Things worked out that I could purchase the dock which included the Union Oil Co distributorship and agent for the Black Ball Ferry system. This kept me very busy.
        In 1950, we took Chantey to Port Ludlow for a New Year's party of cruising sailboats, about twenty or so. This was the first party since WW II.
        We departed Orcas the day before New Year's Day and after passing Point Wilson we headed for the channel between India Island and Hadlock. HOLY COW, there was now a bridge and the old NORDLAND lying on the beach on the Hadlock side.

NORDLAND

Official No. 228932

Class: Ferry

34 G.T., / 30 Net tons.

L, 58.1 x 22.4 b.

Home Port: Port Townsend, WA.

Built in 1929 at  

Hadlock, Jefferson County, WA., 1929.

Construction: wood

Power: WA. Estep 2 cyc. 26 HPR diesel

With the author of this essay at his 

dock, next to the Orcas ferry landing.

Click to enlarge.

From the archives of the 

Saltwater People Historical Society©

       On returning north from the Port Ludlow New Year's party and passing the Nordland on the beach I had inspiration hit me between my eyes. This is just what I need at Orcas to supplement the oil business. I stopped at Port Townsend and looked up Blair Hetrick and Zelma, old-timers here. Blair was a hard hat diver in the area. I told him my thoughts about the vessel, and he told me it was for sale on a sealed bid. He took me up to the county courthouse and I went into the commissioner's office and they referred me to the county attorney. I went into his office and he said, "Kid, that thing is a pile of junk, forget it and save your money." I went back and told Blair about this and he said I'll get a bid form from one of my commission friends, I told him to get me two bid forms. I'll mail one in and I'll mail one to you to give to your commissioner friend and have him open it at the end of the opening. I got the bid by fifty bucks.
It took me six months to get those papers and only after I went back to the commissioners in person.
        It was a learning experience handling the old girl. She would slide sideways as fast as she went forward, with her 26 HPR  engine, not very powerful, and her reverse not too hot. BUT she could carry a hell of a load. And with her ramp, you could load and offload easily. It was something like learning the operation of an air-starting heavy-duty engine.
        You learn to love those wonderful machines. If you keep oiling them and keep the diesel coming they run forever, the engineer that ran the Nordland said 'They never shut the engine down the full length of WW II.'
        

Home port for NORDLAND

ORCAS LANDING
DATED 1954.
Click the image to enlarge. 
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©.

Our first jobs were delivering fuel to loggers on islands without ferry service which involved filling steel 55-gal drums along with tractors, and logging equipment, not all at the same time. We had a loading area just west of the Orcas ferry landing, one at Obstruction Pass, and several others. We landed on various beaches all over the county. We always tried to land them on the highest part of the tide and immediately reverse and get off the beach. If we missed and couldn't get off, we could be stuck till the next tide, 6 or 8 hours later.

        Working the tides was very crucial to the job. When delivering fuel, the logger had to be there with a tractor or some men to roll the drums up above high tide or a full drum of fuel would drift away.
        I have hauled, over my 12 years of operating the Nordland; cattle and sheep to a Lopez slaughterhouse, broken aircraft, 1,000 sacks of cement, mobile homes, everything.
        The development of Blakely Island was started with Nordland. Four years later they built their own barge.
        The Orcas Power and Light Co used Nordland in several inter-island cable laying and repair jobs. I did most of the early years running of the boat usually alone or with my wife and kids. I had help from Miles McCoy and he later ran it as stand-by.
        In 1963, I sold Nordland to Wayne "Corkey" North of Deer Harbor. He moved the wheelhouse to the stern and raised it so he could look over the vehicles and cargo on board.

      In 1968, Nordland was sold to Bob Greenway of Friday Harbor. He remodeled the wheelhouse again, installed a marine toilet, and replaced the WA Estep diesel with a 671 G.M. engine. The old WA-Estep was dumped out on a sandspit near Jensen Shipyard in Friday Harbor. A diesel engine school in Bellingham came over and picked up the old engine and rebuilt it as a school project. Somebody in the last few years purchased it and took it to California for another old boat.

      Al Jones, who has homes in San Francisco and San Juan Island, purchased the Nordland in 1976.
      Finally, it was from Alaska Packers haul out at their plant on Semiahmoo in Blaine, WA that I came upon the SEMIDI.

SEMIDI

ON 214876
Built Astoria, OR 1917.
36 N.t./ 45.95 Gross t.
Oil screw, 59.0' x 16.4' x 7.05' 
Atlas Imperial Diesel engine
4 cyl. 135 HPR
Purchased by Robert F. Schoen
5 Oct. 1959
Sold 11 July 1965

      I used this boat for log towing, worked with Orcas Power and Light Co in servicing the cable laying, helped locate and service cable recovery, hauled cased goods, and barreled products. Many times I worked the two boats together on a job.

The author Bob Schoen
off watch with his wife, 
Mary, at the helm.
August 1961
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Hist. Society.©
Photos and essay by Mr. Robert Schoen,
Clam Harbor, Orcas Island, WA.