Greetings!
Matt went fishing today and now we have about 35 Silvers to sell. This might be the last of the Silvers for the year. He left last night because he wanted to get a good set for the 7:00 a.m. opening. I happened to be up rather late so I gave him a good night call around 2:30 a.m. Right at that moment the Coast Guard was sneaking around in the dark on their routine patrol in Rosario Strait in the middle of the night. They spotted Matthew streaking across the water and intercepted him. It was a 25 foot rigid inflatable super speedboat with 450 horse power of outboard engine. You might have seen one of these boats come up fast on your peaceful ferry ride before? You know, the one with the machine gun attached to the deck? This time the machine gun was not attached to the mount but there was a serious-faced fellow holding an automatic weapon clearly visible across his chest, not pointing but ready, in case there was trouble. The other four squids were all doing something important as well. One had a hand-held spotlight constantly shining on the back deck of the Lady Ruth and he would ask the questions. Another one was inside writing down the answers. One guy had his arm sticking out of the cabin window holding on to the Lady Ruth. The last squid was the guy in charge. He was just driving the boat.
 Now we may not always be on time and there might be dishes in the sink, but Matthew had a flawless interview. We are proud to tell our customers that he passed the boarding and was on his way after about 30 minutes. Matt had his flairs on the ready. His paperwork was right there. He handed them his fishing permit but they could care less. They didn't even want it. He had his pfd's and they did care very much about that. He had a survival suit, which he wouldn't leave the dock without but they couldn't care less about that. They really cared about the pfd's (hint hint all you boaters). He had a personal locater beacon aboard the boat but he didn't tell them about it because it is registered to another boat (his boat in AK--Sunlight III) and they would have given him a ticket for that (They cost $600 so Matt takes it back and forth to AK to save money). The last item they asked to see was his fire extinguisher, which was brand new and Coast Guard approved. They asked if he had any credentials so Matt was able to tell them he had his Coast Guard license (100 ton Master License), which he has had for 20 years but never used. At least he gets to impress the Coast Guard with it.
Somebody asked what body of water they were in so it could be recorded for the boarding report. After a fair bit of discussion among themselves, they decided to put down "San Juan Islands" as the body of water. Matt heard this discussion and said, "We are in Rosario Strait." He had to say it twice before they believed him. One guy had to spell it out. Matt thinks it was the guy in charge who did the spelling. Maybe that is why he gets to drive the boat. |
Running the Lady Ruth back and forth to Bellingham is nothing less than insanity. I leave Friday Harbor after midnight and travel in the dark-pitch dark-with no moon. Then, after I fish all day long until dark, I run through the darkness back home to San Juan once again. That crazy boat goes 25-knots, but I back it down to 20-knots in the pitch-dark night. I have a remote control spotlight mounted up on the bow, so I can watch for sticks and logs as they whiz past the boat. The craziest eye-opener was when I ran over a shallow spot and zipped over a patch of bull kelp; the spotlight lit them up at the last second and I just about had a heart attack when the boat passed harmlessly over the submerged kelp at a million miles an hour. Pure insanity.
