May, 2021
Today was super. This morning we drove just 30 minutes north from the Fort Ebey campground on Whidbey Island. We drove across the Deception Pass Bridges at the north end of Whidbey, then drove onto Fidalgo Island. We were simply out exploring and decided to check out Rosario Beach just north of Deception Pass, just on the west side of Fidalgo Island. What a gorgeous sunny day for exploring!
Here is the map (below) of where we went … Whidbey is to the south (where all of us were camped at Fort Ebey State Park) … Fidalgo Island is to the north … in between the two islands are the two Deception Pass bridges that connect Whidbey to Fidalgo … and then Rosario Beach is on the western shore of Fidalgo Island.
Rosario Beach is very popular with visitors and with locals, for good reason. It’s beautiful. The island in the distance in the photo below is Northwest Island. You can kayak out to that island but the island is surrounded by a steep cliff and huge rocks, so it has no beach access, no place to land a kayak without risk of crashing. But birds love that island, and I’d bet they love that island exactly because humans rarely get on the island.
After exploring the picnic and wooded parts (above) of Rosario Beach park, we then ventured down to the beach itself. There’s an isthmus between the bay called Rosario Beach and the bay called Bowman Bay. There’s this cool, little, protected cove right there, with a pier and a small floating dock where people can moor a boat for short periods of time.
I walked out the trail, then walked over the edge of the grass towards that dock, and I was stopped in my tracks. What stopped me was the boat (above and below) that was tied to the dock. I think my friend Mitch may have owned this very same exact boat! and I had the privilege of going cruising with him a few times on this boat.
The boat is a 38-foot 1969 Tollycraft. It’s a wood hulled boat, but it wasn’t built with solid wood planks … it was built with plywood. There weren’t very many of these built. Tolly didn’t build any of his other version/design boats using plywood, just this one style of boat, and not many of these! Tollycraft is a well-known boat manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest, although it has long since gone out of business. It was started and owned by Robert Tollefson (everyone called him Tolly). There are a great many of his boats still plying the waters of Puget Sound … almost all of them built with sturdy wooden planks, not plywood … handsome and seaworthy boats!
One of the reasons that I think THIS very same exact boat was owned by my friend Mitch is that the gear shift levers and the throttle levers were originally installed “incorrectly” on these plywood boats. They had the two gear shift levers on one side of the steering wheel … and the two throttle levers (that controlled the speed) on the other side of the steering wheel. On one of our trips, Mitch and I both dove under the “dash board” with flashlights in hand and we both agreed what needed to come apart and which lines and housings needed to be swapped from right to left, and from left to right, forward/back, etc, in order to put those levers in the proper positions … one gear and one throttle on the left side (for the left side engine) … and one gear and one throttle on the right side (for the right side engine). We spent a couple of hours figuring all that out and we were so proud of ourselves after we got everything reattached, back in place, good to go! We checked everything (or so we thought) and then we quickly prepared to leave the dock at the marina where we were moored (Mitch, were we at the Langley city dock on Whidbey?) because we were overdue to leave … the marina manager was standing there wanting more money if we stayed a second longer! So Mitch started up those two engines … left throttle worked the left engine A-OK … right throttle worked the right engine A-OK. Mitch just nudged the gear shift levers to make sure they too were connected to the correct engine. I jumped off the boat onto the dock, untied all the lines, brought in the fenders, and shoved the boat away from the dock as I jumped back on board. Let’s go!
Mitch put both engines in “forward” by pushing the black knob levers forward … WHOA! the boat went backwards! in reverse! Mitch shook his head, then shook his head again, and then put the engines in neutral and almost without hesitation, pulled both levers backwards which actually made the boat go forwards. Gads, had we screwed up on hooking up that linkage. We did everything else right except that one thing. He and I looked at each other with wide eyes, and then we simply laughed. We knew we would reverse just that one set of linkage when we got to the next marina on our cruise.
Mitch said he had to rewire his brain before we arrived at the next marina, because the gears were backwards. Parking the boat was “interesting” given that forward meant reverse, and that reverse meant forward. Mitch made just one or two little errors while maneuvering the boat, but he corrected them immediately, and he parked that boat like a pro, which he is. As soon as that boat got tied to the dock, we both dove under the “dash board” again and by then we knew exactly what we’d done wrong and so corrected it in about 5 minutes. Lesson learned. SO! That’s why I think THIS boat might be Mitch’s boat … here’s a photo of the helm of this very boat that was at Rosario Beach … with the levers in the proper positions … red-black-steering-black-red.
Some of you readers are boaters. Please feel free to comment. I love all comments, no matter how irreverent. 🙂 This ended up being a really fun memory for me … and I’d bet Mitch remembers it too.
And now let’s get back to real time, to Rosario Beach and the sunshine and that dock because I have something else to show you that you will adore.
I was looking at that Tollycraft (on the left above), trying to see if anyone was onboard. I walked half-way down the ramp, still hoping to see someone, but it seemed there wasn’t anyone on that boat at the moment. But mid-stride down the ramp I stopped short … do you see the dark smudge in the middle of the dock in the photo below?
I zoomed the camera in quickly. A river otter! Just lolly-gagging there in the middle of the dock, cleaning and preening, just looking around, peaceful as can be. How cool. 🙂
She was handsome, and perfectly at home.
I didn’t go any further down the ramp, just stood there and watched her for quite a while. Eventually I realized she had no intention of leaving her comfortable, cozy, sunny-warm, napping place. I walked back up the ramp away from her. This was her home after all.
This visit to Rosario Beach was so special. I hope you enjoyed it too. 🙂
One of the most beautiful photos of the beach at Rosario Beach is on this website. It’s a photo of the ocean-side of that isthmus … the “other” side from where that dock is with the Tollycraft boat. No wonder this park is so popular.