(Originally posted as written by Barry, but that was a technical boo-boo. Definitely a Meps original: Barry never uses colons.)

It feels strange, not to be moving every day. Stranger still is the feeling I have when I lay down in bed at night: My bed’s not moving. And I’m not in a tent. Hey, where the heck am I?

And how did we get from our last web entry, at Craig, to Puget Sound in only two weeks? As Indigo’s skipper, Paul, said to us in Campbell River, “This is the delivery portion of the trip.”

Back up with me, all the way to Juneau, on July 5th. When Barry and I returned there from our side trip to Dawson City, we had to find a needle in a haystack. Or, one 42-foot boat out of thousands. We were looking for Indigo, and her crew was looking for us.

We got off the ferry from Skagway at 3 am, after about four hours of sleep. The terminal was miles from town. A couple of other backpackers were standing around, so we asked what their plans were. “They said we can pitch our tents right here until morning. We’re just waiting, um, for the dogs… ” “Right here” was the patch of grass in front of the terminal, where ferry-riding dogs were doing their business. We found a clear spot, pitched our tents, and turned in until 7.

In the morning, we hiked into town and looked for Indigo. There was no sign of her, so we checked our bags at the Alaska State Museum and spent the day there. Actually, our bags didn’t fit in their lockers, so the kindly staff put them behind the front desk, and then spent the rest of the day tripping over the bulky things. That afternoon, I made a lucky call to the right marina. “I just talked to that boat on the radio,” said the harbormaster. “They’ll be on E-dock, out at Douglas.”

When we got off the bus in Douglas, the island opposite Juneau, there was a really weird noise from the other side of the street. “I knew that emergency whistle was good for something,” said Paul. He and the crew were waiting for a bus on the other side of the street.

It was a diverse group. Paul is a professor of economics at Seattle U., with two months off to complete the trip. His wife, Gayle, had a month of vacation from Vashon Youth & Family Services, but it was not a good time to travel: Her father was battling cancer back home and didn’t have long to live. Norm, recently retired from a government job, is a scuba diver, boatbuilder, and artist who signed on as crew for the whole trip. His wife, Linda, retired from over 20 years with the Department of Agriculture just before flying to Prince Rupert and sailing on Indigo for a month. Her first days of retirement reminded me of my own. You just can’t believe this vacation will never end.

At 42 feet and over 30,000 pounds, Indigo sounds like a big boat. But she doesn’t have a lot of interior space, and it was very crowded with all of us aboard. When the sun was shining and the glaciers were calving and the whales were jumping, it was glorious. When it rained for three days in a row and we started running out of fresh produce and there wasn’t enough room to dry 6 sets of foul weather gear, it was miserable.

Aboard Indigo, we went north and west, through Icy Strait to Glacier Bay National Park. Then we went back south, between Chicagof and Baranof Islands, to Sitka, where Gayle flew out just in time to say farewell to her father. We cruised along the Outside, enduring swells and seasickness and stopping at Goddard Hot Springs, the Maurelle Islands, and Craig, where we rented a Suburban to explore Prince of Wales Island. (I know, embarrassing, but it’s the only model of car they rent there.)

In one super-long day (19 hours), we headed back east to Prince Rupert, where Linda flew home, in part to care for their geriatric kitty. With a crew now numbering four, we made it to Friday Harbor in just ten days. That’s where Barry and I said goodbye and caught a Washington State Ferry. We’d been aboard Indigo for exactly one month of the ten-week trip.

This afternoon, we’re heading out for a weekend sailing trip with someone we only met a few days ago, when we were in Friday Harbor. There’s another story there, too long for now, but the good news is this: Tonight, when I go to sleep aboard Sparrow, nee Nereid, I know my bed will move. It will rock gently at anchor, and Barry and I will be off on yet another adventure.

Getting Indigo into the slip assigned to us was a bit hectic this afternoon. Once the boat was secure, the fellow on the dock looked up at the five of us. “Welcome to Planet Craig,” he said with a grin.

Craig, Alaska, is on Prince of Wales Island. The library computer has a waterfront view, looking across at green and blue mountains. There’s a street, with cars and trucks. But I’m sure their odometers don’t read much, since the road doesn’t go anywhere. There are lots of boats, mostly fishing boats and trawlers.

We measure places in Alaska by how far off the beaten path they are. Hoonah received a high score, when we stopped there on our way to Glacier Bay. On our way back out of Glacier Bay, we saw a cruise ship docked there, and Hoonah’s score slipped. Sitka got high points for the marina, where we met fascinating people. One fellow had sailed with Allen Farrell, one of our heroes. We grilled him for details. We chatted with a woman named Jackie, whose family of four had cruised the Pacific for seven years on a shoestring. She and her husband are working in Sitka currently, their two children riding up and down the dock on bicycles. Another fellow invited us to join him and his buddies for beers on his powerboat. Sitka is a friendly place.

But for off-the-beaten-path points, Tenakee Springs was best of all: No cars, only a wide path with bicycles and handcarts. I like the idea of life without cars.

In a few minutes, when the library closes, we’ll explore Craig and its totem poles. We’ll let you know what kinds of people we find here. Hope they’re as friendly as Sitka!

Hi, all! I have 45 seconds to write this, because I’m on a library computer.

We’re in Sitka, sailing on Indigo. We had a great time in Glacier Bay with icebergs, glaciers, whales, puffins, and sea otters. Now we’re heading south along Baranof Island for some hot springs. See ya!

Upon our return from the Skagway library where I last wrote, we found the one picnic table in the tenting area of the campsite was taken by two older German fellows. Luckily for us, they offered to share…not just the table, but their stories. Manfred is from East Berlin, Peter is from West Berlin. Peter’s been visiting the Yukon for 30 years, paddling the river dozens of times. Manfred, who is 69, was unable to fulfill his travel dreams until the fall of the Berlin Wall. I asked him where he could travel before 1989. He wrinkled his nose. “Russia, Poland. Bah! Hungary.”

He’s making up for lost time — he’s seen India, South America, and climbed Mount Kilamanjaro. He has always wanted to paddle the Yukon, so this summer, he and Peter paddled from Whitehorse to Dawson City. “It’s easy,” they told us, and they gave us the brochure from the outfitter…so…

When we left Skagway, we took the train over White Pass, the one that followed the trail through the 1897 Dead Horse Gulch. Awesome ride, not to be missed. A bus took us to Whitehorse, where we stopped at the visitor’s center and watched a 15-minute film about the Yukon. It was full of what we thought was hyperbole. “When you come here, you want to stay,” the film said, over and over. Someone was quoted as saying, “If you drink the water from the Yukon, that’s it. You’ll never leave, or if you do, you’ll have to come back.” Cute movie, we thought. A bit over the top, though. What did we know? We were in downtown Whitehorse, for crying out loud. We hadn’t seen the real Yukon yet.

A couple of blocks from there, we rented a canoe and a couple of “bearproof” food barrels and purchased a strip map of the Yukon River. When we came off the river eight days later, after complete solitude and no trappings of “civilization,” I was starting to understand the movie.

We left the canoe at Carmacks, a little place where the road crosses the river, and boarded a converted schoolbus for the 5-1/2 hour trip to Dawson City, scene of the Klondike Stampede. Aboard, we met Jim and Heide, Corrie, and Dawn and Vern. I never cracked the cover of my book. We talked with them all the way there.

In his film, “City of Gold,” Pierre Berton says of the 1898 gold rush stampeders, “When they arrived (at Dawson City), many never dug for gold at all. They had already found what they were seeking.” Not hyperbole. By the time I’d spent five days in Dawson City, I understood what he meant.

There are tourists, and there are passers-through. There are lots of RVs. But there are also people who came 20 or 30 years ago, and haven’t left. We met a Vietnam-era draft dodger with roots in California. He bought a portion of the old school, moved it to a lot on the north edge of town, and now calls this place home. Across the river is Dieter, with his German accent. He’s been in Dawson City for 25 years, running the hostel for over 10. Our bus driver has been here since 1988. He’s not going anywhere, either.

This is no has-been ghost town, nor is it only a place for tourists. Dawson City is still a gold mining town, a special place that many people call home. We stopped to chat with a man perched on a boulder on Front Street. His name was Ian, his accent Scottish. Looking like a leprechaun (“I grew up only 12 miles from Ireland,” he admitted), he was trying to figure out the best way to make Dawson City a home for himself and his dog, Yukon. Another man, who leads Boy Scout trips up here from “down South,” is looking for retirement property. “It’s a special place,” he said. “It gets to you.” I doubted he’d seen the Yukon film, but he was quoting it directly.

When we paddled the river, we tried to drink from the tributaries instead of the river itself. But we must have gotten a sip or two by accident. Because I understand the movie now, and it’s not hyperbole. You can really get “the bug” up here, and then you have to come back.

I have this idea for a way to make some money, up in Dawson City. Once I work it out, I just might be back. See ya’ next year, Yukon!

We’re in Skagway, Alaska right now, checking in via a public library computer. After three fantastic weeks aboard Complexity, sailing the Inside Passage with Barbara and Jim (and Scuppers the Bear), we bade them farewell and headed up the dock, wearing the frame packs we’d borrowed from them.

We were only a half mile down the road when a fellow with a van stopped and offered us a ride to the ferry dock. So we haven’t actually hiked more than a half mile with the packs! Still, it is a weird feeling to have gone so quickly from “cruiser” or “yachtie” to “backpacker.”

We’ve ridden ferries in places like Seattle, Brazil, and Newfoundland, but the one from Juneau to Skagway surpasses them all for beauty. My camera failed to capture it: The wide angle lens wasn’t wide enough to take in the width of the sky filled with towering rocky snow-capped peaks. We had over seven hours of breathtaking beauty, and that’s after three weeks of the Inside Passage!

Skagway has a lot of gold rush history, and they make a big deal about the historical buildings. But the cruise ship ports all look the same, selling the same plastic tourist junk from shops with cute wooden sidewalks. I’m getting more of a feel for it from Tappan Adney’s book, published in 1901, than from the town itself.

The saddest thing we’ve heard, and we’ve heard it in Ketchikan, Juneau, and now Skagway, is that the cruise ship lines are not putting money into the communities. Instead of supporting local businesses, they run their own jewelry stores and souvenir shops, driving the locals out. It’s a crying shame. “We’ve sold our soul,” said the folks from Juneau. “You can’t even walk down the sidewalk,” was the comment from a Ketchikan native.

We’re making our way into the interior, heading up to Whitehorse and Dawson City soon. Out of the range of the cruise ships, the beauty of the country will come through, and there will be more local folks to talk with. Right now, I think I’ll end this, because we need to hit the grocery store, and there’s an interesting local guy right here to chat with!

On our way into the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club basin, we passed the sailboat who’d just vacated our intended spot on the dock. “Lots of bumpers!” they called across the water, shaking their heads. It was a tricky spot, not much room and way too many waves for comfort. On the dock, the cluster of people who had helped them get away from the dock waited to catch our lines — the harbormaster and three yachties from nearby boats. I heard murmurs of admiration for Jim’s expert boat handling.

Looking up at the massive — and fortunately vacant — cruise ship dock, I felt a little smug about arriving on such a small boat. I picked up the camera and headed into town with Barry. We had traveled for days and seen nothing larger than a small village, so this “big” city seemed both huge and remote.

Prince Rupert, population 12,000, feels like the end of the earth, but it’s really just the end of the road — for Canada.

We were walking by a grocery store when we saw a curious sight. A Unimog was parked in front, sporting a pair of exotic horns and an unrecognizable license plate. We walked over for a closer look. This was no streamlined RV, but a huge, high-clearance monster truck camper looking like something out of the movie “Road Warrior.”

The owners were loading groceries into a rear door, too busy to talk. I caught a glimpse of an interior decorated with African art, but the owner told us, crossly, not to take a photo of that side while he had the door open. We went around to the front, noting some of the countries painted on the side — I saw Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, while Barry noted European countries.

I was dying to know about the trip. What did the slogan “African Power” on the front mean? Had they come from Europe via Africa and South America? Where were they headed? What kind of horns were they?

We continued through town and ran across another busy couple at the gas station across from the next grocery. Their mode of transportation was motorcycles, two dusty bikes with extra high suspensions and lots of gear. A closer look showed Quebec license plates. They, too, were too busy provisioning to talk.

By the time we saw the bicyclist, I was feeling considerably less smug about our mode of transportation. After all, we’d had a comfortable bed, hot showers, and gourmet meals aboard Complexity. This fellow’s bicycle held loaded panniers, and the young blonde rider was studying a map in front of the visitors’ center.

“Hello!” I said. “Where did you ride from?”

He answered with a German accent, “Do you mean today?”

“No, I mean the beginning of your trip.”

“From Los Angeles,” he answered. “I plan to ride to Prudhoe Bay.” I was impressed: Prudhoe Bay is on the Arctic Circle.

He was busy with his map and not inclined to talk further, so we walked on.

I guess you have to be pretty driven to accomplish these remarkable travel feats: Thousands and thousands of miles without much in the way of creature comforts. I lost a little of my smugness that day, but not all of it. Sure, we’ll never be in the Guiness Book of Records. But on the other hand, we are hardly ever too busy to stop and talk.

My one photo of the African-themed Unimog:

A candid shot of the motorcyclists:

The bicyclist, studying his map:

By 1999, Barry and I had logged hundreds of hours on OPB’s (Other People’s Boats) in Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. From 28 to 44 feet, catamarans and multihulls, raceboats and cruisers, stayed and unstayed rigs, cutters and sloops and yawls, they all had one thing in common: Triangular Marconi sails. But we had fallen in love with the junk rig, with Chinese sails like butterflies. We dreamed of building a boat with a junk rig, and we mailed our membership check to the only group that catered to junk afficionadoes, the British-based Junk Rig Association, or JRA.

The JRA published a directory of members back then, and we were the only ones with a Puget Sound address. I pored over the list, hoping to find someone who would take us for a sail in a junk-rigged boat.

I e-mailed Canadian Jeff Ardron, who listed an address in British Columbia. After he wrote back, saying “Come on up!” I looked at the map. His home in Sointula was hundreds of miles away, on a tiny island off the north coast of Vancouver Island. It took us two days and several ferries to reach him on Malcolm Island, where he lived with his girlfriend, Anna.

Jeff had spent a number of years rebuilding an old wooden dory, scrounging materials and using a couple of periods of unemployment to complete the work. The Nootka Rose was super-stout, a little overbuilt, but at 28 feet, capable of handling anything Neptune could throw her way.

We stayed on the island for several days, pitching our tent at the Bere Point campground. Jeff took us out sailing each day, and I took copious notes on the rig, construction, handling, and all his boatbuilding tips. I was so intent on gathering information and photographs for reference, I hardly noticed the beautiful waters where we sailed.

Jeff confirmed that our dream of building our own junk-rigged boat was realistic, and we returned home with strengthened resolve. Over the years, friends have tried to sway us, unsuccessfully. “If junks are so great, how come nobody has one?” they’d say. “Why don’t you buy a used boat and fix it up?” We returned to Jeff’s words: “It would have been easier to start from scratch, with a pile of plywood, than to rebuild an old boat.”

We’ve lost touch with him over the years, eagerly asking our Alaska-bound friends if they saw Nootka Rose at the marina when they passed through Sointula.

Last week, we stopped there ourselves, on Complexity. We scanned the docks for Nootka Rose, but she was gone. Jeff and Anna’s little beach house is now a tiny health clinic.

“He left a couple of years ago,” said the harbormaster. “I think he went to live on one of the islands.” This made me smile, considering that we were standing on an island. It was no surprise that Jeff and Anna had split up, since she seemed to have little patience for sailing, and no love for the Nootka Rose. Her passion at the time was tennis.

We walked all over Sointula with Jim and Barbara, remembering the distinctive fences, the tennis courts, the rotting boatsheds, the two sailboats wrecked on the beach. The museum was still there, expanded, with a voluble volunteer who’d emigrated from Los Angeles.

At one boatshed, we stopped to admire a forest of wooden Easter Island-type sculptures. Ryan Pakkalen, a young sculptor, was at work in his studio, a drafty and ramshackle shed lined with poly tarps. In his great-grandfather’s boat shed next door, light filtered through the roof, a patchwork of missing shingles, onto dramatic carvings of fish and birds and sea urchins. His “house” was parked outside, an ancient white van with a pet parrot sitting on the steering wheel. Ryan’s recently put a life-sized sculpture of a crocodile up for sale on E-Bay, and I’ve no doubt it will find a buyer.

We all have our dreams. Ryan’s is his art, and the volunteer at the museum’s is community and clean living away from the city. Jeff’s dream was to build a sturdy little sailing boat, and that’s our dream, too. Wherever he is, I wish him happy sailing, and I want to thank him for encouraging our dream. The next time we stop in Sointula, it may be aboard our own boat, built with our own hands. It would be fitting, and perhaps it will encourage someone else to dream as well.

Today is June 5th. Last year this time, I was sweating in the deep south in shorts and a tank top, glopped up with sunscreen. Now I’m wearing longjohns, wool pants, fleece, and gloves. It’s 49 degrees.

We’re halfway to Alaska, cruising aboard Complexity in some of the most stunning waters on earth. Mountains rise straight up from the water, towering thousands of feet above us. Their lower green flanks are covered in trees, their blue tops capped with snow and ice. I haven’t seen a house for days, but I’ve seen dozens of eagles. We are in paradise.
~ ~ ~
In February, Paul and Gayle of Indigo asked if we’d like to join them for part or all of their summer Alaska trip. “Yes!” we said, adding the caveat that we had to sell our house first. We decided to take the ferry up, a 3-day trip, and sail back with them for a month.

Then Jim and Barbara told us they were heading north, too, on their 36-foot Halberg Rassy, Complexity. When our house sold in 11 days, all the pieces fell into place.

One day after closing, Barry’s parents dropped us off at Kenmore, the north end of Lake Washington. A friendly pilot named John stowed us and our baggage aboard a 10-passenger Beaver seaplane.

Taking off in a seaplane is like riding in a powerboat. You throttle up and go faster and faster. The nose points up and you begin to plane. But in a seaplane, it just keeps pointing up until you are planing on air, and the next thing you know, there’s no wake and the water is far, far below.

With our noses pressed to the windows, we ticked off familiar landmarks. “Look! There’s Pete’s boat!” Our friend Pete has a boat that’s too deep for his slip, so he moors it distinctively outside the slip, with a spiderweb of lines to shore. We saw Camano Island State Park, Port Townsend, and the San Juans. Then into Canada, less familiar but no less interesting.

Canadian Customs in Nanaimo was easy — how much contraband could you carry with a 24-pound baggage limit? Our route now resembled a whistle-stop airline, dropping passengers at tiny coves like Eggmont and Minke Island. Finally, after one leg each in the copilot’s seat, Barry and I were dropped at Campbell River with a frame backpack each and The Box.

Two days before leaving Seattle, we’d gotten a terse satellite e-mail from Jim and Barbara. “Autopilot is acting up and making noises. Please bring a Raymarine drive unit with you.” He provided a part number, so we called around and found one in stock at the Offshore Store. The $1500 cost was no issue, but the added 20 pounds of baggage was a concern. We took turns carrying it from the floatplane dock to the boat, just over a mile, with Barry carrying it on his head some of the time.
~ ~ ~
We’ve been cruising on Complexity for 10 days now, and it is the most pleasant boat I’ve ever sailed on. There’s no yelling, no harsh words, no swearing, even in the stickiest situations. Jim and Barbara treat each other with respect and patience. They are excellent sailing — and relationship — role models. This is how cruising should be: Fun and happy, but careful and responsible.

In a couple of weeks, we’ll leave Complexity in Juneau. They’ll travel on to Glacier Bay to meet up with their next crew, 6 year old Abby, 12 year old Alex, and Barbara’s aunt, Carol. Barry and I will take the backpacks and head north in a multi-modal trek: Ferry, train, bus, and foot. Our goal is to follow the route of the Yukon gold rush and make it to Dawson City, the boom town of 1897.

Then it will be our turn to head to Glacier Bay, where we’ll meet up with Gayle and Paul on Indigo. For folks sailing up from Seattle, Glacier Bay is supposed to be the highlight of the trip. But for us, there will be many highlights, and only ten days into this ten-week adventure, I can hardly imagine what’s in store.