There once was a cruise ship in Hoonah
Whose passengers hated canned tuna
“If we wanted such fare,
“We’d go over there
“And sail with the folks on that schoona’!”

When I read this out loud to the folks on Indigo, it went over like a lead balloon. What, don’t schooner and tuna rhyme?

The truth is, we only ate tuna on Indigo once. And that time, I disguised it so well that Barry later asked me if my tuna salad actually had tuna in it!

He’s staring at me down his beak
Looking massive, ferocious and sleek
This huge awesome eagle
Is so goddamned regal
I feel like a featherless freak

We were paddling down the Yukon River when I wrote this. There weren’t too many eagles, about one a day. Lots more arctic terns and gulls, and a few kingfishers.

Barry and I actually call eagles “iggles” and seagulls “siggles.” It runs in the family: We recently heard that Barry’s 2-year-old nephew calls seagulls “e-gulls!”

A few feet away from our campsite
Some people are having a fistfight
It’s pretty surreal
This kind of ordeal
Is not s’posed to happen at twilight

We were in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, the day before the summer solstice. There were a couple of hours of twilight in the woods where we were camping, but it was light all night long. The lack of darkness made people stay up late, drinking and playing frisbee and then having weird middle-of-the-night fights.

The folks from a dozen cruise ships
Paid cabbies and bus drivers tips,
To go to the glacier
And commune with nature –
And be in each others’ film clips.

After so much solitude, sailing up the Inside Passage, we found the tourists in Juneau more interesting than the scenery.

To fix all a boat’s broken gear
Requires more than one engineer
But for ID-ing schist
A geologist
Like Barbara, is great to have here

An older limerick, as yet unpublished, from our cruise up the Inside Passage. We had two engineers (Jim and Barry), one geologist and air quality expert (Barbara), and one writer of lame limericks (me).

The icebergs that clog Tracy Arm
Could do poor Complexity harm
On Sunday: No dice
Although we try twice
But Monday: The third time’s the charm!

Aboard Complexity in Juneau, Alaska:

The crew here is very well fed
We’re feasting on Barb’s homemade bread
And the bear known as Scuppers
Who joins us for suppers
Says this chow surpasses Club Med

We’ve been happy to sail on Complexity
A boat that has no animosity
No yelling or swearing
Just kindness and caring
We give thanks for the Cole’s generosity

A fellow named Scuppers, a Bear
Decided to take Barbara’s dare
So with nothing to grab
He leapt onto a crab
And rode off, looking quite debonair

Here’s a photo of Scuppers, before he disappeared over the horizon:

The crew’s fearing crab deprivation
And suffering mounting frustration
Using cat food for bait
Which the crabs seem to hate
Our skipper can’t catch a crustacean

So I came up with a different plan
Some broccoli and rice in a pan
But then Jim came back in
And was sporting a grin
With a Dungeness crab in each hand