12 to 40 Charter Fishing part 2

Trolling along. That little four stroke kicker muttering and bubbling to itself. Wake disappearing into the fog astern. Water burbling under the bow. It's not that bad really......just damp, cold and I can't see a damned thing !

Suddenly, like going through a door, I'm in sunlight. Aft the fog bank lies on the water like a big cotton wool blanket. Dead ahead the Straights of Georgia the sun dancing off the water and the snow on the Olympic Mountains dazzling bright. On the port hand, not too far away, the bright green of the cedars crowding the waters edge. The sea curling against the rocky shore of East Sooke.

Within an hour the fog has completely dispersed and I am surrounded by the most benign of days as I troll by Beachy Head. This what it must be all about. No fish in the boat, except for the frozen anchovies in the cooler, but it's a beautiful day!

This abrupt change, like the switching on of a light, in the coming years, always came as a complete surprise. I knew it was going to happen. Never quite sure exactly when but you knew.....and it was always a surprise. Perhaps not quite the revelation of that first morning but a surprise nevertheless.

As the fog bank dispersed completely I became aware that there were no other boats in my immediate vicinity. They seemed to be more congregated around Secretary Island to the North and over to the Northwest. A clue Watson!!

Up with the gear. Crank up the big engine and head north to what must be the fishing ground.

Get close ! Kill the big engine. Fire up the kicker. Get the gear back in the water. Start fishing in earnest. The fish have to be here ! Everybody else is !!

A hundred yards away a cry of excitement and the flash of the sun on a flasher as it clears the water. I know enough to turn away and watch, with envy, a fish, a beautiful fish being netted, photographed and tossed in a cooler to await it's fate at the hands of the reaper with the filleting knife.

My anticipation rises. Now I'm excited. Thar's fish in them thar waters!! I've seen the proof of it.

Nothing! Fat zero. Zilch. Nada.

Over time I became the talk of the marina. Out most mornings. Some were foggy.....many not. Fill up with gas. Buy more anchovies. I remember it was hot. Occasionally cooled by an onshore breeze out of the northwest or cooler coming off the snow covered mountains of Washington State.

What I did get was a suntan!! Burnt black by the sun and the wind. I looked as though I belonged.

I fished for nine weeks, yes nine weeks, without landing anything of note......certainly not a salmon!!!

To fully understand the enormity of this you need to understand something of a salmon's life cycle.......not that I wish to bore you but......

The different specie of salmon have different life cycles some shorter than others. The shortest of them all is the pink salmon....they "run" every two years and on the west coast of Vancouver Island it's on the odd numbered years.

The waters are thick with them. You barely need a rod. You can whistle them into the boat !

This was an "odd" year! You could catch the limit before the fog burned off. Everybody is catching fish. Everybody except me! I would sit at the marina, later in the day, watching the lineup at the cleaning station. Photographs being taken. Otters and seals in abundance feeding off the leftovers of the cleaning station. (Never leave a fish out on the cutting board. An otter will have it faster than you can blink!!)

My stamina had to be admired as was my suntan. My fishing prowess was non existent. What was I doing wrong?

I had been out one morning not actually fishing. I'd taken a run up to Race Rocks in the direction of Victoria to see where the bachelor sea lions congregate before migrating south for the winter.

Back in the marina, sitting in the cockpit, enjoying the second beer of the day I was paid a visit by Ron. I remember him quite well. He only had one thumb and had been chartering for a number of years. Quite a taciturn sort of fella who tended not to socialize with the other charter fishers. He enjoyed the fishing. Always had a prosperous season........for as long as it lasted....and enjoyed home and family up the West Coast Road.

I offered him a beer and he took the other seat in the cockpit. Although he didn't have to ask he still asked me how I was doing. "I know the boat. I know the area. I'm getting used to the weather and being able to read it but I can't catch fish to save my life." I said.

"Don't worry about it too much" he said. "We've all been there at some time or another." "Some just don't like to admit it." "I have a cancellation tomorrow morning why don't I come out with you and maybe I can help you a bit?" I leaped at the opportunity. Ron was a successful charter operator and I could do nothing but learn from him. "I'll bring breakfast and coffee." I said. "See you in the morning."

For once it wasn't foggy that morning. It was dark but not dark. The stars were waining but the moon was still bright and shining like a spotlight down the water. It was as though the world was holding it's breath waiting for the sun to rise.

We left the dock in the dark and headed out across the basin. Ron tinkered with my radar which I'd added soon after my first encounter with fog. He showed me how to set the collision alarm. "One of the most important tools on this gadget." He said......not critical.

We entered the narrow marked channel running down the side of Sooke harbour, the lights winking in the distance to starboard as folk began another day. Hard to port running down Whiffen Spit. Stay within the marks. It gets awful shallow through here even at the height of the flood. Through the gap, rocks close aboard either side, big engine growling as we cleared the danger and headed out into the bay.

We ran out, chatting about the ups and downs of the business. "Head over there Peter and cut the engine" Ron says. He leant over and punched in a way point on the GPS. "For further reference." he said. "Give it a name later. You'll be able to come back to it now." First lesson !

"Set up the gear." he says. "Get two rods in the water. That's enough for now." I begin to set up the first rod. "That's on backwards" he says. Second lesson !

So began a crash course in salmon fishing. Ron reminded me a bit of an old sailing mentor Jason who taught me how to sail years ago in the south of England. Long dead but not forgotten. Ron didn't smoke when Jason was rarely seen without his pipe jutting out of his mouth like a bowsprit. He was quiet though. Rarely critical. Rarely judgemental and didn't seem overly concerned about protecting "trade secrets" as were many.

It couldn't have been ten minutes when Ron nodded in the direction of one of the down riggers. "Watch that one" he says. Wham....... the rigger gave a lurch, the release clip did it's job and line was running off the reel. We were fishing !!! I was elated. A few minutes later my first fish of the year was lying in the bottom of the boat. A pink! Just a lowly pink. The easiest of all the salmon to catch but it was a fish ! Not just a fish but a salmon!! I'd arrived.

Off and on Ron and I fished together over the course of the next five years. Particularly in the Fall when the customers had gone and kids were back in school. October was great fishing but with few customers. Fishing for the big Cohoe out in the traffic lanes. Learning every day.

I learnt how to fish the tide lines visualizing the convergence of currents below. I learned about Chinook....we call them Springs on the west coast. Americans call them King Salmon. How lazy they are and how territorial. These are the truly big salmon. The trophy fish.

I learned how to fish sockeye four to five miles out between the traffic lanes. One eye on the weather to windward the other on the freighter traffic conscious of the fact that off Sooke they do not carry a pilot.

I learnt how to quickly fillet fish and how to smoke them. I learned some of the local First Nation folklore so as I could entertain customers on quieter days. I learned about the birds, the seals and the whales. People ask questions. I wanted to appear "the old man of the sea." It was fascinating.

After learning the basics from Ron I slowly built up a customer base. Very slowly I should add. Revenue was lousy but the expense was constant. Every day I learnt a bit more. Every day a bit more confident.

In five years of chartering I only had one customer who was obnoxious. He was with his wife who never said boo. He was American and knew everything about everything. For him everything was wrong. "Don't do it that way back home" was his favorite expression. We have a couple of good fish in the cooler. One a Spring over thirty pounds as I recollect. "We're going too fast." he would say. "Are you fishing at the right depth?" He was relentless. What was his objective? Impress his wife? Looked to me as though she just tuned him out.

Hey...at the end of the day he's a customer ! He's paying $300 dollars for a morning's fishing.......but it's endless and getting boring. Tomorrow I have a rare back to back chartering day so to hell with it.

Stop the boat. Haul in the gear. Pour myself a coffee and leisurely head for home about half an hour's running time away. "What you doing" he says to me. "Heading home" I say. "You can't do that" he says sounding a little more belligerent. I haul back on the throttle and let the boat lose it's momentum in the gentle swell. I check 360 degrees. The shore is a couple of miles off.

" My boat" I say. "I'm the skipper. Don't want you on my boat any more so we're heading back to the dock. There's no charge for the morning and the fish are yours although I've no intention of cleaning them for you." Now he's getting angry. "Hey bud" I say. "You can get off here or back at the dock......I'm easy. Water's pretty darn cold though." With that I opened up the throttle and headed home quietly humming to myself.

Edging into the dock there's a couple of charter guys standing there. One helps me with the lines. I help the wife off the boat and put the fish in a green garbage bag. One of the guys on the dock starts to laugh. The other just can't help himself and totally cracks up. My non paying customer stalks off in a huff leaving disparaging remarks in his wake............but the wife does thank me!

I got the original booking through the local charter association to which all the operators belonged. This particular customer was known to the group and they had settled him on me.....the newbie.

I'd been accepted!

12 to 40. Charter Fishing part 1.

All of us have sudden urges. Many of them remain just that; urges just rolling around in the scuppers of our minds as we transit our lives. Sail around the world. Write a book. Most are not that grandiose. Most just become unfulfilled items on personal Bucket lists.

Most of my own Bucket list items have been fulfilled. Sure there are several left but I'm not past it yet. There's still time.

It's fear that prevents us from going there. Fear of the unknown. A lack of security. That unknown future. You also have the people that spend so much time preparing they never do anything. The pleasure is in the preparation, the optics of it and that's OK in itself. Perhaps that was on the list.

In the sailing world they're everywhere. These folk spend major sums of money on their boats. They buy self steering systems, single side band radios and so on but never really go anywhere. They take courses ad infinitum but never go anywhere. They'll make every excuse under the sun but, at the end of the day, it's the fear that stops them.

I had the urge once to be a charter fisherman! How weird is that for a guy that's spent most of his adult years messing about in sailboats? Where did it come from? Easy to answer. I went salmon fishing once on a small charter boat. Big mistake. The problem was the weather was kind and I caught a couple of good fish! Well...the charter guy did and I simply yarded them in.

I was hooked......excuse the pun.

Back then I was living hard by one of the best salmon fishing areas in the world, on the west coast of Canada, constantly being regaled by fishy stories where the fish got bigger, the seas rougher and the fog thicker with the passage of time.

I bought a boat. A major part of the learning curve. An expensive part. In retrospect I probably paid twice what it was worth but it did have a new engine. I borrowed a trailer and hauled her home. With difficulty we blocked her up as we had a considerable amount of work to do in order to turn her into a fishing boat both safe, efficient and attractive to potential customers. She was 22' long and looked tired.

I spent the rest of that Summer and Fall doing her up. Ripped out all her "furniture" both on deck and in the cuddy. Added a small "head," for the customers I didn't have yet, plus some decent seats in the cockpit whilst leaving a good sized fishing platform aft. Installed a new VHF radio, a color depth monitor and GPS. She was ready to go........almost. Looked good anyway. Optics!

During the winter I ventured over to Steveston and bought fishing gear. Rods, reels, down riggers and all the ancillary gear that catches fish. Hmmmmm. The expense just continues to climb......but that's boats!

At last Spring arrives and it's time to go. I launched in a local marina and bought some bait. We used frozen anchovies!! I always thought they belonged on pizzas anyhow I vowed to go out at first light and catch dinner. Me the provider!

That first morning the alarm pushes me out of bed. Coffee has already percolated. In the truck and down to the marina. It's still pitch black, damp and uncomfortably cool. Other skippers are already there some with their customers all primed and ready. Some have already left the dock. Some are in the process of leaving. Yellow oilskins. Fresh coffee and diesel on the air. Excited chatter. It's wet and salty. Someone says good morning. That's a start!

It's very dark and the course across the basin and out the harbor is tricky at the best of times even if you know the area well. Better to wait for some light only having done it once and even then I wasn't taking too much notice.

As the light slowly filters in from the East I see it's foggy. Not a morning mist but a thick blanket of damp and curling fog. It seems to be moving. Swirling around like a live thing. Wet and cold.

I talk to the marina operator. "Like this most mornings at this time of the year" he tells me. "Usually burns off by mid morning. The air is warm and the water cold." Great....now what?

I plot out a course on the GPS screen and head out carefully, worried about hitting someone else rather than getting turned around. Worried about making a fool of myself in front of people who I hoped would become my friends. Three months later I can get out without thinking and I have friends but that's then not now.

Once out in the bay I can hear other boats and voices across the water but no one comes near. Radar's a wonderful thing. I didn't have it but the more prudent of the other skippers did. A necessary expense for later! How about tomorrow !! More money going out! Time to start fishing.

The sea is quiet, before the clearing breeze fills in. Almost oily, with a gentle swell coming from the westward. Eerie in the fog. In your own little world maybe fifty feet across trying to hear the gentle but threatening sounds of the barely perceptible surf on the nearby rocky shore, carefully listening for an approaching kicker.

Fire up the little four stroke and kill the big engine. Quieter now but my world is the same size. When does this stuff start to burn off? Time to sort out the gear and get the bait over the side.

There's a lot of gear to figure out. Down riggers, weights, leaders, flashers, bait rigs, quick release clips. How fast should the boat be moving ? How deep should the bait be in the water? How long is the leader? How do you hook up a frozen anchovy? Should I run with the tide ? Against? Across? Where the hell are we anyway ?

Kill the little Yamaha and listen. Nothing !! No engine noises. No voices over the water. Just the rippling of the boat through the water as the weigh comes off her. My world fifty feet across.

Check the plot on the GPS plotter. Fine out here. Nothing to hit. No traffic that I can hear. Is this where the fish are ? This is supposed to be fun ?

Fire up the little kicker and troll back and forth for a while. Nothing ! Quietly nothing. Foggy nothing!

I look up towards the sky. Hey.....how weird is this. I can see patches of blue and the odd gull. I look around me. Fog ! Still thick but lighter in color.

Is this what they mean by "burning off?"

12 to 40. A Yarn (Part 4 of several.)

Some days are best described as "watery." No pun intended.

The water itself is often a steel grey and the sky a light, light blue dotted with high cirrus...... like stretched out cotton wool.

The sun is filtered but it's not cold. You're aware that summer is waning. Fall is around the corner. Some of the trees, at the waters edge, are starting to turn and the geese are looking to the south but there's plenty of life left in the year.

It was a day such as this that Jason and I shared our last sail in "his brother in law's skiff."

We pushed off with me at the tiller......by now I was, at least, comfortable with the dinghy but still on a steep learning curve. I had acquired foul weather gear recently, having learnt the hard way. The gear cost me more than the darned boat!

Jason, as usual, was in his old dark green gear and black rubber boots that he often wore about the yard on the muddy days. He's brought with him a flask of hot, sweet, milky tea which I detest to this day.....I prefer no milk no sugar......plus a couple of truly thick sandwiches made up for us by his wife. We had the customary gear in the boat including a couple of floater cushions plus life jackets. All this and two intrepid adults left little room!

As we hoisted the sails I commented that we were about two hours into the ebb and noted that the breeze was out of the south west. Wind against tide produced a healthy little chop for a small boat.

It's days like this that you remember. We wore upwind not that the boat pointed very well. Spray flying from the chop. Sun shining. Not having to work hard. Sitting on the weather gunnel tiller extension in one hand......a new and recent addition......main sheet in the other periodically leaning out to weather as the gusts threatened and to keep the boat trim.

Jason sitting up forward totally relaxed, cheerily puffing on his pipe; enjoying the moment but aware of everything. A look of contentment on his face. An ageing man comfortable with himself and his surroundings.

For a couple of hours we worked our way up and down the channel waving at passing boats some going with a destination in mind some, like us, simply enjoying the afternoon.

Not many words passed between us. A few simple instructions from Jason periodically in order to get the best out of the dinghy. Comments on trim and adjustments; the boats heading relative to the constantly shifting breeze. Jason teaching....me learning.

"Not sure you want to be over 'ere this toime of the arternoon" he says suddenly. "Put 'er about and 'ead back across the channel."

Woomph....too late.....we ran aground! "Thought so" he says. "Must be four hours into the ebb. This bank is a shifty one alright."

We tried to pole her off using the oars but she wouldn't budge. We upped the centreboard and leant her over. No luck. We were stuck for a while.

The water sluiced by the dinghy as the little bay emptied like a bathtub. Mud flats started to appear. "Part of the larnin' " says Jason lighting his pipe. "We'll be 'ere at least three hours. Must be an hour or so left in the ebb then about forty five minutes slack then it will take at least an hour of flood to float her orf." "Might as well make ourselves comfortable."

He poured himself a mug of his disgusting tea and shared a sandwich after which he loaded up his pipe and settled back comfortably leaning against one of the cushions at peace with his world waiting for the tide to come in and float us home.

"You've never told me too much about yourself Jason" I said. He looked at me over his pipe and thought for a few moments. I think he knew that, as I grew, we would see less and less of each other. He was right in this.

"My father owned the yard before me and his father before him. I'm seventy one years old and was born in a different time........ but aren't we all." I was born in 1890 in that old house by the yard. My family has lived in that house for over two hundred years that I know of. Queen Victoria was on the throne. Did you know that she died not very far from here? In Osborne House on the Isle of White in 1901. I remember it quite well."

He paused, spat over the side of the boat and began to load up his pipe again out of the old oilskin pouch that I had become so used to seeing. He was thoughtful. "What is it you actually want to know?"

I said "How much does your son know of your history and your family's?" "Not much" he replied. "We don't talk too much."

For me....there's the rub. Quite often little is passed down. Much gets lost in the passage of time. We lose our identity making it that much more difficult to determine who we are and why we are the way we are.

"Oi've seen three wars." he said. "One first hand.....I was in the Navy. The next sort of second hand as I was working in a yard in Portsmouth. I was too old by then to fight but I had to do my bit but they bombed Portsmouth all the time. The third was just in the newspapers. They never larn."

"Oi spent ten years in the navy. Oi joined up in 1914 at the start of the war against the Kaiser. Oi ended up Bosun on a destroyer. I was at the Battle of Jutland under Admiral Jellicoe. Oi dunno if you know but that battle was the largest navel battle in history in terms of the number of warships involved and men killed." "Oi was a lucky one though!"

"After oi was finished with all that I come back to the yard and worked with me dad." "It was about then I met the woife. Couple of years later my boy was born."

"Times was 'ard then." "Not a lot of money around. Folk picking themselves up arter the war. We did OK though. We grew all our own vegetables and had a few chickens. We ate well but the business was poor."

"Then, bugger me, if it didn't all start again. Hitler this time. I was too old to fight and my boy too young. I think he was only twelve when it began. Lucky it didn't go on another year he would've bin called up." "Dad stayed in the yard. Me and the family went down to Portsmouth to do war work until it was all over......do our bit loike." "Later on the Korean war came and went but it seemed a long way orf and we just read about it in the papers."

"Things got better then." More people took to the sailing. Dad and I built a few small boats and repairs kept us busy....roight busy in fact. Dunno wot is going to happen in the future though. Things is changing. There's all this fibreglass and suchlike now."

Our little boat gave a lurch. "Water's coming up." says Jason. "Won't be long. Should be off soon."

He was quiet for a few moments gazing across the rapidly filling bay.

"By the way Peter, I never told you, but it was me dad that built this little skiff for the wife's brother." "Brings back memories."

That was the last time I sailed with Jason. I saw him about the yard through the Autumn months but I already was dreaming about joining a yacht club and moving up to a modern fibreglass, competitive dinghy. As an aside I ended up buying a 505, an Olympic class at the time, and club raced until I moved back up north.

Jason died in 1966. He was seventy six years old. I saw his wife before emigrating to Canada.

She said his last words were "It's toime." She said he was content.

He has a headstone, next to his father's, in the churchyard. It reads:

"Jason... Fair Weather"

The image is a 505 dinghy in full flight. I ended up buying one very similar.!!

12 to 40. A Yarn. (Part 3 of several)

Mudeford Water...just outside Christchurch, Dorset. A haven for small boats and fishermen. The larger boats tend to inhabit Poole to the west and the Isle of White to the east; the centre of British Yachting.

On a fair day, from the air, the small boats on the water look like feeding gulls except they leave a momentary trail in the salt water in their passing.

A special day! With me hanging on to the painter Jason, pipe in mouth of course and one plimsoll sans laces, floated her off the dolly into the water.

She bobbed there. Hull, mast and boom gleaming in the bright sunlight. Mains'l neatly furled. We'd used some light stuff. Jason did that not I! The jib, neatly folded in the bow as we didn't have a bag that suited the dinghy's new suit of clothes. "She roids in the water roight noicely"said Jason punctuated by odd puffs of smoke from his pipe. "Once we 'ave our weight in 'er she'll settle on 'er lines." I nodded sagely. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. She was floating and she was mine....that's all I knew......at the time.

She looked happy.If she could smile she would have. It's almost as though she was asking why it had taken so long to get her back in the water. Eager.

"Well get in." says Jason. "Get your weight on 'er centre line and sit yourself down on the forward thwart." Whaaaa. Centre line? Forward thwart? This boat has her own language. I knew I wasn't going to be driving so, by elimination, I concluded that a thwart is a seat and there were only two. I got in and sat down. Not much room. Jason stepped over the gunnel and sat down.

He just sat there for a while not saying a word, tiny puffs of blue smoke coming from his pipe as he breathed. He looked about our little world. "You'm did a roight, noice job on 'er. All Bristol loike."

He picked up one of my bright, shiny, clean oars upon which I'd vested hours of work and actually put it in the water. He poled us off until we were in a few feet of water.

"Grab the jib sheets and bend them onto the clew of that thar little jibs'l" he says. I looked at him questioningly. "Hmmm" he says. Another puff of smoke. "Watch me. When you don't understand.....ask! Stupid not to ask."

He was a good teacher. As he worked he named each item, each part. He recited its function and how each was a part of the whole. There I was, sitting in a small boat, listening to an old man who, only a few short weeks before, had been a complete stranger to me. Listening to him opening a world to me that I'd rarely thought of until, on a whim, I'd parted with my fiver and bought a small boat. Watching his gnarled old hands, burnt black by the sun, calloused by years of manual labour, deftly tie knots with a skill I have not matched to this day fifty years later. Always punctuated by little puffs of smoke. What did he do at night?

I remember him looking at me over his pipe and saying "if you'm only larn one knot larn the bowline. You'll need her if you take to the sailing. Learn to tie 'er upside down, blindfold and soaking wet. You'll need 'er. She can save your life."

He was patient. Never critical. If I got it wrong he would simply grunt and show me again.

Soon we had the sails up and I do mean "we." My bowline on my clew. My hanks on my forestay. Cunningham off. Outhaul tight. There we were head to wind, sails gently luffing.

Jason pushed the tiller over and fell off the wind slightly. The boat actually started to move!! Miracle of miracles. "Haul in on that thar jibsheet until the jib is full and bye." I actually knew what he meant.

The dinghy accelerated.....as much as an old wooden dinghy can accelerate. The sound of the tiny waves lapping against the hull as she moved through the water was payment enough for the hours of labour.

As we moved away from the shore the light breeze filled in slightly and the lapping of the waves turned into a hiss and the dinghy developed a slight heel. The joy of sailing! Drops of water sparkling in the sun. Saltwater wake astern of us. Eddies around the rudder. Slight weather helm. Quiet. Gulls wheeling high above. Wind in the air. The boat talking her own language.

Jason sat there. Tiller in one hand mainsheet in the other his pipe doing it's best to lay a smokescreen astern of us. He crossed his legs and, leaning against the transom, spoke of sailing.

"Sailing a boat is a feeling." he said. "She'll talk to you if you've larned to listen. Feel the wind on your cheek. Feel it shift. Larn how your boat reacts to adjustments." I didn't realize then just how many adjustments there are on a well fitted sail boat. "Larn in a dinghy!" He was adamant about this. "The dinghy tells you immediately what's up. You sail with all four cheeks sensitive to what is going on. The cheeks on your face tell you what the wind is doing. The cheeks on your arse tell you what the boat is doing." "Get it wrong and are insistent she'll get mad and dump you in the water. Get it right and she'll sing to you down the waves of the ages. If you can sail a dinghy you can sail anything!"

He was so right. Fifty years later I still pass on the advice of this old man.

We sailed together through that summer. I think he looked forward to it as much as I. He spoke of the intricacies of trimming a boat large or small. He talked of the weather and how to observe. He talked of trust and trusting your boat providing she was well found. He talked of tides and the effect of the moon. He talked of currents...the danger of wind against wave. He talked of open water, the danger of a lea shore, the thrill of a big boat, rail down, charging through the water.

In retrospect he was talking about life, analogous to our needs and the needs of a successful relationship. He walked the talk!

We talked of many things but never of himself or his family and rarely of his experience.

Except once........but that's another tale!

The photo by the way is the dinghy complete with me in my youth. Taken in 1960. Regrettably I have no photo of Jason. He would have been a good subject.

12 to 40. A yarn. (Part 2 of several)

Although time tends to erode memory and memory itself is impacted by the present there are events and characters in our lives that remain so well imprinted it's as though it were yesterday.

Jason was one of those characters!

Jason...not tall but erect as any Guardsman even in his advanced years. Jason with the pale blue eyes that always looked slightly amused, squinting as though looking up sun at some distant horizon. Jason with the omnipresent pipe and cloud of pale blue smoke that followed him wherever he went. Jason with the shock of white hair, bushy eyebrows and few words. A grunt and a gesture was often sufficient. You knew exactly what he was saying. You always felt as though you wanted to please him.

I don't know exactly how much time I spent scraping down that old, carvel built, dinghy. The yard was like a time machine for, once inside, time seemed to stand still and the work didn't seem like work at all. No belt or palm sander. Just a scraper that Jason had slightly modified with a file to take the corners off preventing it from gouging and a stack of sandpaper of varying grits.

People would stop and gam for a while or just stop and watch the progress as they made passage from one part of the yard to another. Everything unhurried. The buzz of the occasional fly. Sawdust motes hanging in the sunbeams flooding through the large doors to the shed. The rasp of the scraper. No thought given as to when the job would be finished.

At first my yacht was a lifeless turtle lying on those oversized sawhorses. Twelve feet of wood covered by a peeling layer of yellowing varnish which, in turn, covered another coat which, in turn another. Some of it dry and brittle. Some hanging on like a limpet not wanting to be worried off the wood beneath. Brass gudgeon pins and pintles, rowlocks all green with the verdigris of time.

As I scraped the wood below slowly came into view. Golden in color and soft to the touch. I soon came to know what Jason had known all along. Still plenty of life beneath those multi coats of aging varnish.

He would periodically stop by to view the progress and assess the quality of the job at hand. He rarely said anything. Sometimes he would look at the boat slowly coming to life and just walk away beneath his cloud of smoke. Other times he would run his hand over an area recently finished, grunt, look quizzically at me and then walk away. You knew he wasn't satisfied and you wanted him to be pleased.

I arrived one Saturday morning to find a gaping hole in the port side. A plank had been removed. I hunted down Jason. He was busy stoking the wood burning boiler that generated the steam for the bender.

He looked up. "Oi tore out one board. Didn't have no loife left in 'er. Oi'll bend a piece to fit for ee." That soft west country accent accompanied by a puff of smoke from his pipe. "Oi found the perfect piece for 'er in the seasoning shed."

He bent down and picked up a board to show me. I learned something else about him at that moment. He picked the board up almost as though it were alive. He didn't see just a board as did I rather he saw in it the function and the form. He could see it's shape and how it would become part of the whole. He exposed the artist in him.....unintentionally.

It took weeks to refinish that little boat. I think, under Jason' pale blue critical eye, I might have finished it several times. The hull both inside and out. The thwarts and gunnels. The centreboard, the rudder. The mast and boom. The oars. Jason laminated a new tiller as the original had gone missing. Perhaps rooted in the garden in which she had lay for so long.

At last she was finished. At least to the extent that any boat is actually finished. Experience has since taught me that boats are a constant work in progress.

We manhandled her onto a launching dolly and wheeled her outside for to meet another chapter in her life.

Jason took a hose and filled her with water while I watched in astonishment. "If it can't get out it can't get in."

Logical to me. Nothing got out!

Perhaps too soon she lay, right side up, in the sun showing off her several coats of new varnish. Now I know why varnished hulls are referred to as "bright." Her brass bits glinting. Her new lines coiled as if on a navel vessel. She was ready for the water. Problem........ I wasn't!!! I'd never been in a sailing dinghy before. Now what?

Over a mug of tea served in the cozy little shed that served as an office I said "Jason do you ever get out on the water?" He looked at me over the rim of his mug. "Ar 'ee wants me to take you'm out in 'er." "Oi'd like that. Must be twenty year since oi sailed that little skiff."

So began my sailing lessons. Jason in his overalls and flat cap. His only concession being that he exchanged his old army boots for an even older pair of plimsolls that had seen better days a long time ago.

Mudeford Water. An almost enclosed stretch of tidal water that the ebb emptied like a bathtub. Tidal flats that suddenly were there and least expected. Gusts of wind that exposed the frailties of small dinghies but sufficiently sheltered from the rowdiness of the English Channel.....but more of this later.

12 to 40. A yarn. (Part 1 of several)

I remember being twelve, most of us do. My second year in High School in the North of England. My school uniform not quite as newly minted as it was a year ago. A crease no longer in my shorts. My leather satchel already replaced by an ex army haversack.....like the big boys. Rugby boots swinging on the outside. A distinction. School cap no longer straight but worn at a cocky angle.

Now I have friends whereas a year ago we were a company of strangers. Some are still alive over fifty years later. Alas many are gone.

I also remember being forty. No longer in the North of England. I'd travelled a route that took me through London, Paris, every major city in Europe and North Africa, Toronto and now to a small community in Southern Ontario. I'm surrounded by friends, a wife and two small children. It's October but still warm enough for us all to gather around the pool. Gathered to give and receive the gifts normally associated with reaching this landmark age. None of them practical. All of them representative of my interests and my sense of humour. One of these was a wooden toy boat with twenty little wooden feet glued to each side.

You see 12 to 40 has nothing whatsoever to do with age but everything to do with boats!

What is it with people and boats? Not the people for whom boats are a necessity and a way of life but people who have boats for pure pleasure.

Of course there are boats and boats. From kayaks to Giga Yachts. From quiet to noisy. From wood to steel. From power to sail and yes.....muscle. Then there are the uses. Over a third of the boats in North America are used for fishing. Many are high powered tow boats towing water skiers, wake boarders and the like. The list is endless. The fraternities huge. The friendships lifelong.

My first boat was twelve feet long! A wooden sailing dinghy of the type rarely seen any more. I bought her in Mudeford, Dorset in the South of England. She was lying derelict in some one's yard. Five pounds later she was mine.......still in some one's yard as I didn't have a trailer or a trailer hitch for that matter.

Mudeford. Pronounced "Muddyfud." The name just rolls off the tongue. I think perhaps you must go to Dorset to hear the sound of it. That soft, rolling west country lilt exported all over the world by seafaring men.

Didn't alter the fact that now I'm a yacht owner but my yacht is forlornly stuck in a Dorset front garden sharing the space with Hollyhocks, tall grass and Dandilions.

Three strapping rugby friends imported from London one weekend and two two by fours saw my yacht transported the mile or so to the local boatyard. In Mudeford in those days nothing was more than a mile from anywhere. Sleepy little place. Two churches. Three pubs. The odd thatched cottage and the boatyard on Mudeford Water. Bells on Sunday. Salt in the air.

I distinctly remember stopping at two of the pubs during this, my first seafaring passage. Purely for moral support of course.

We eased into the yard, my yacht nestling between us resting on its cradle of two by fours seemingly like a Nordic funeral byre. Bringing up, with the office to starboard, we rested not quite sure what do next. "Arr that be moy brother in laws auld skiff." A voice from the shadows of the doorway. "Oi'd 'eard he'd sold un." Again that west country lilt.

Jason! I rarely saw him without his pipe in his mouth. A throwback. A whiplash of a man. Surely already in his teens at the turn of the century. Born in a time when sail was the norm and synthetic a word not yet coined. Looking as though he more belonged on the deck of an Elizabethan ship of the line, sail needle and leather palm steadily and rhythmically working in time with the rolling deck......pipe in mouth.

"Put 'er on those saw 'orses over yonder oi'll show ee what to do," pipe never leaving his mouth. A cloud of acrid smoke followed him where ever he went rather like the smoke trail left by a lean, steam driven destroyer, from days past. How he never set fire to the place is beyond me.

We did as directed and then trooped off back to the weedy garden to collect the other bits. Wooden spars. A pair of oars that had seen better days. A stained and beat up old sail bag containing a cotton mains'l and jib. Another ditty bag containing assorted manila lines and brass bits and bats, nautical in nature, but alien to me at the time. Naturally we stopped both there and back for liquid support. It's called scrumpy and is peculiar to that part of the world....South Western England. A raw cider. Dangerous to the uninitiated or unwary. Deadly if you're thirsty.

My rugby pals and temporary delivery crew head for points north and civilization and I head back to the yard and my new yacht.....all twelve feet of her.....but she was mine even if I didn't have the faintest clue as to what to do next.

The "yard." No marina this. No fibreglass in sight. No power tools. No forklifts, fancy storage racks, travel lifts. No slips. Rather a boatyard that probably hadn't changed much in a hundred years other than installing a phone. No row of fuel pumps, standing at attention, waiting to feed its glass and stainless steel visitor.

The "yard." An anachronism. A time machine.

The first thing assailing your senses is the smell. Fibreglass has an acrid smell. A mixture of resin and glass. Cold and synthetic. A smell that always seems to be in a hurry but transports you nowhere. Diesel is an ugly smell. Greasy and malevolent.

Not in the "yard!' Here the smell is warm. A mixture of fresh wood shavings, varnish and woodsmoke. A smell that evokes a sense of a time gone by, of distant places. A smell that slows you down.......puts things in a different perspective. A smell that, feeding your imagination, can transport you to a different time.

Busy modern marinas are noisy places. The rumble of diesels. The whine of power tools. Fork lifts, travel lifts, ringing phones. A cacophony of sound rather like an orchestra with each element playing in a different key. An unpleasant dissonance as though industry is measured in decibels. Impatient.

Not in the "yard!" You can hear the gull, sitting on a piling, insisting it be fed. The hissing of steam from the plank bender fed by an old wood burning boiler. The soft thud of the caulking hammer as Jason's son patiently repairs a hull that today would be described as "traditional" even antique. The growly rasp of sandpaper as an elderly workman refinishes a spruce spar soon to be replaced by extruded aluminum. You can close your eyes and know where you are. You can close your eyes and think of what might have been had you been born in a different time.

The sound of patience, of happiness with self. Contentment. A time, sadly, gone by.

I see a small pall of blue smoke approaching. Jason. A bit of a wry smile on his face. I think he'd been watching me for a while. Knowing what was going on in my mind and happy to be on the inside looking out.

He stood by my side, quietly puffing, not saying a word, looking at my newly acquired yacht lying upside down, like a turtle, on over sized saw horses. "As oi remember she never leaked that much." He said quietly. Very reassuring I thought. "First you"ave to clean"er up so as we can see wot 'as to be done." More west country lilt "You'll need a scraper and sandpaper. Oi 'ave some in the shop." "More than a weekend job but we're in no 'urry." OK for him to say! "Get all that old varnish ofn 'er, insoide an out, then we can see wots wot."

He left without saying another word. Faithfully followed by his cloud of smoke like an old dog and not unpleasant.

So began a lifelong interest and love of boats. Of dreams accomplished. Of dreams still in my mind although now I'm older and not as strong as I was.

So began my friendship with Jason....a mentor.....but more of him, his yard and my new acquisition later.

Autobiographical memory.......or the lack of it.

Foggy this morning!

Not the type that is muffling or eerie. Not the type that asthmatics fear. Not dirty or threatening, the stuff of "B" rated movies. Rather lying in green hollows, light and fluffy, laying diamonds in the grass as the dawn light reaches out. Cool and damp but soon to disappear, like it had never been, as the sun rises and burns it off.

Wet enough to hold all the good, new smells as Sam trots along nose in the grass. The canine equivalent of reading the morning newspaper. Who was here? Who has passed during the night?

Golfers striding off from the first tee leaving tracks in the grass soon to be obliterated as the sun slowly rises seemingly out of the clubhouse roof.

The precursor of another beautiful day.

It reminds me........but there we go. This notion of memory. The extent to which all our senses are evocative. How sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch all evoke memories. How suddenly the forefronts of our minds are flooded with images, not necessarily pictorial, of things or events long past.

Why are we the way we are? Why do we behave the way we do? Is it genetic? Perhaps, perhaps not. Are we a product of our environment? For me, at least, absolutely. Directly and indirectly.

Hmmm I see a very large and very wriggly can of worms opening up before me. Frankly not just "opening up." It's been "open" for a number of years now as I struggle with the memory of an environment of which I am a product. (Frankly !! )

I suppose, by most standards, I am a reasonably educated individual but most certainly not in the fields that encompass memory. What I find interesting is that these fields have changed over the last few decades as our knowledge expands. Changed ? Perhaps not. Rather they have, evolved, become more specific however, having said that, they have drastically changed from the notions of ages past......or have they?

A description of memory could be as follows:

In psychology, memory is an organism's mental ability to store, retain and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a branch of science called cognitive neuroscience, an interdisciplinary link between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

As I delved more into the subject the more I became aware of the extent to which many paradigms are inconclusive although mostly in those areas of the non-physical. It's only in recent times that students have become aware of the connection between physical and non- physical giving rise to the "crossover" discipline of cognitive neuroscience.

Does this bore me? You're darn right!! Yet only because I have many interests that leave little room for it. What I do know is that there are things/events in my past that, you would think, I should be able to remember and I can't. Events that served to shape me; in that I believe that behaviour is a learned experience and that the more we understand that experience the better we can understand our behaviour. For that we need to be able to remember!! Full circle!!

Am I different from anyone else? Nope....not really....but is that really true? I know many people who have far better recall of events long past than I but there you go.......a product of our environment. So we're all the same!

Behaviour is just that. Not necessarily good or bad just behaviour. An action or a reaction. Acceptable or not acceptable but impacted by the recipients experience and subsequent behaviour. Wheels within wheels.

Leaves one to believe that in a successful relationship not only do you need to understand the "why's" of your own behaviour but those of your partner or associate also. A tall order indeed.

A scholar claims that memory is a phenomenon directly related to the present; our perception of the past is always influenced by the present, which means that it is always changing. More wheels!

It gets worse!

Crucial in understanding memory is the distinction between memory and history. Simply put, memories are the events that actually happened, while histories are subjective representations by the historian. In our personal lives these historians are close relatives. Parents, Grandparents, uncles, aunts or people simply close to you. All very subjective in the telling.

Even more wheels. No wonder it's so hard!!

However it serves to underline the importance of autobiographical memory in us in order to better understand our behaviour. Get it? Yea right. Easy? Yea right.

Memory is constructive. Block by block. The problem is that memories and the ability to recall differ for different periods of our lives. The periods being infantile, adolescent and adult. The vaguest of these being the infantile. Studies have proven that in the majority of instances people recall few personal events in the first five years of their lives. It is referred to as infantile amnesia. (It's an interesting topic and there's tons of reading available to you.)

Sooooo.....back to me!

The first five years of my life were probably the most traumatic of my life. The problem is I don't remember!! I used to think this was an issue peculiar to me. Now I know better!

I was a war baby with everything that entailed! My father was away on active service for most of the war. Must have had a huge and ongoing effect on my mother who would have been , of course, my prime source of emotional information.

I don't remember VE day although it was well within my cognitive experience. I don't remember my father coming "home." Although one would think that would be a major event in my life. I don't remember my brother being born but I do remember the winter of 47. Ain't life weird.

Classical music reminds me of my mother sitting at her piano lost in Mozart or Lizt. She was a concert pianist in her youth.

Adagio reminds me of my younger brother. Gone now.

Wet leather reminds me of my dad. Heading out at 4.30 in the morning. Fishing, ferreting, shooting. Feeling sick in the back of the car. The air a mixture of gun oil, damp leather, pipe smoke. I can smell it now.

The sound of wind evokes memories of the Yorkshire Moors. Wheeling curlews. The silence broken by the bleating of a lost lamb. The landscape crisscrossed by dry stone walls and becks you can hear down in the valley.

Mist reminds me of the West Coast. Leaving the dock before it's light. Visibility down to 50 yards. Eyes glued to the radar as it's a difficult exit by Whiffen Spit.

Church bells remind me of the old country.

Bigotry reminds me off a grandfather.

Contentment reminds me of another grandfather.

Alzheimers remind me of an uncle. He died not knowing where he was or who was there.

Hmmmmmmm.

Why do I love potato pancakes and hate tripe?

Why are some of us passionate and some not?

Why can some of us move on and some not?

Anabelle (another story) was money well spent.Her real name was Mary Trokenberg. I prefer Anabelle.

She caused me to look where I hadn't looked before. To question what I hadn't questioned before. She demanded honesty. She insisted on communication. The type of dialogue that bared past experience which, in turn and block by block, exposed memories giving rise to better understanding my behaviour.

Now where was I?

I lived on a boat !

This boat to be specific. Forty one feet of haven......or was it escape.

Today....this morning, four years later, I look at all the photos and try to come to terms with the "why" of it.

It's not difficult.

Whilst going through this period of my life my daughter got married and I was obliged to give the customary speech. I worked diligently on this in my teak and cedar lined cave.....yes cedar. Made notes. Traditional jokes and comments about her youth, her new husband. All very normal and expected and, in the end, not what I wanted to say at all.

I travelled East, backward in time, burnt black by the wind, the sun and the salt spray, feeling conspicuous in clothing from a previous life. On arrival in Ontario my family promptly stuffed me into an extremely dapper tuxedo. Even worse but showed off my tan. The service was a sea of flowers and Krista looked spectacular. Whose daughter doesn't on their wedding day?

Fast forward to the reception and the obligatory speech from the father of the bride.

I stood in front of a couple of hundred people most of which I'd never seen before and haven't since by the way. I looked at them looking at me. Me looking at them and knowing that they expected the normal traditional speech and wishing that it were over. Let the dancing begin.

I took out my notes. Glanced at the first page and promptly stuffed them into my pocket. What I had written was the "tradition" the "expected." Not my schtick at all. (Schtick.....I should look that up.)

I talked to them, from my heart, about adventure. Not the adventure of starting down the path of married life but embracing adventure for it's own worth. Talking to a newly minted son in law who'd never been further West than Port Credit. Never been in a plane. Talking to a very professional daughter with a high paying and very secure government job. Very modern, very respected young people of the age.

I talked about the world. It's size. Oceans. Mountains. Deserts. Jungles. It's variety. I talked about fear. I talked about respect for the elements after all I had the tan to support the words. I talked about self sufficiency. I talked to them about not getting seined into this trap of backyard barbecues, office politics, weekends at a cottage and the occasional holiday in the Dominican Republic.

The more I talked the more I realized that people were listening. The more I talked the more I realized I was talking about myself. I had them. They listened. Not just the newly married couple but everyone. To them I brought to life what perhaps previously had been the thing of books, of TV. I knew I had given them cause to stop and think and I was satisfied with that.

My life has been one adventure after another. Was this planned? Ordained? Fate? Not really. More the result of not being afraid. I had a bucket list years ago. Long before the movie and Jack Nicholson's success.

Hence the boat. Baileys Ride. Bought less than a week after completing a non stop voyage from New Zealand to Victoria BC. Fortuitous timing. Retirement was close aboard. Forty one feet of proven passage maker. A number on my bucket list. An adventure. Another challenge. A rush. I lived on her and with her for over two years. I trusted her and she looked after me.

Perhaps more of this boat and my adventures in some future blog. When my mind wanders down that watery way along the edges of lotusland and beyond.

Suffice it to say that when I "move on," John Cleese had a dozen different expressions for this when talking about his parrot, I will be satisfied. Now or twenty years from now. I will be satisfied. Sure there are things I still want to do. They are less physical now as I get older but still things. To me every day is a gift. My only wish is that my memory were better but I'll write of that in a future blog. I'm fascinated by it...memory that is...or the lack of it.

One thing is for sure. I will not lie on my bed saying "I wish I'd." "I wish I'd." "I wish I'd."

The photo by the way was taken in Toba Inlet in BC.

Did I tell you I lived in Paris for a number of years? Hmmmmm another story for another time.

I had to look up the word "blog." Apparently it's a contraction of the word "weblog" which makes sense I suppose.

So my "blog" is not going to be a diary as are most rather simply a collection of thoughts as they run through my mind early in the morning whilst the majority of people, in this time zone anyway, are still asleep.

I wake up early. I mean early. Usually about five I guess. I didn't use to. I think it's the result of living on my boat for a couple of years. A time when the slightest noise that was different, a slight windshift, sometimes just a sense that everything wasn't quite right would bring instant wakefulness. It's either that or Sam bugging me to join the land of the living with her wet and cold nose jammed in my ear.

It's an interesting time of day once you get used to it. Other than at the height of summer it's dark and still. The first coffee is great and Sam usually goes back to sleep. It's quiet. A quiet that lets your mind wander in all directions. Perhaps when you're young your mind wanders into the future but at my age the mind tends to wander into the past. All the things you don't know. Perhaps in some cases better you don't.

"A Road to Now" is not only the title of my blog but the title of a book I'm in the process of writing !

It's not for general publication. Quite frankly who would be interested. More it's the result of both what I don't know and what I had to go to a lot of trouble to find out. Facts about my family and my own personal history.

It's for my own family. My kids and grandkids. Perhaps even my great grandkids if I should live that long.

My blog will contain excerpts as one thought leads to another. Not the final proof just the thoughts as they mill around sometimes running into the cul de sac of memory. An issue many of us have and few choose to do anything about! (A thought for you.)

Time for my second cup. It's light. Another day. Unique in it's own way.

Can't spell.......sorry !!

Presumptuous!!!

It's dark! Not the scary type, the Stephen King type but dark nevertheless. Stygian is the word.

I know I'm safe. I'm warm and being fed on a regular basis. Dress code leaves something to be desired and the decor is not great.....but I digress.

Not far from where I am is one of the largest tank factories in Europe. Barn Bow. Three dimensional camoflage so good that, unless you know better, from a hundred yards you'd never know it was there. Jerry didn't know either apparently. He knew of it's existence but not it's exact location. He'd try for it every now and again but there was nothing close that was worth the expression "justifiable collateral damage." Of course by now the Battle of Britain was over. Goering had changed his tactics from attempting to destroy the Royal Air Force either on the ground or in the air to the bombing of strategic targets and the indiscriminate bombing of civilians with an eye to a quick capitulation. The beginning of the "blitz!"

Leeds was/is at the apex of an industrial triangle, in the North of England, formed by Huddersfield, Bradford and, of course, Leeds. A triangle brought about by effervescent soft water and a proliferation of sheep. To the North the incredible Yorkshire Dales. To the East the rich Vale of York. To the West the purple moors. The Pennines, that barrier of old. A physical line between the red and the white. The Roses of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Leeds became a wealthy city. Heavy engineering, light manufacturing, clothing and textiles.

In the 19th century one of the larger mills was owned by a Mr. Brotherton. The son of the founder but with a much broader world view. A view that encompassed bettering the lot of his employees. When he passed away his will stated that a new wing to the Leeds General Hospital was to be endowed by his estate. The Brotherton Wing ! An imposing Victorian building not too far from the site of Barn Bow. Of course in those days Barn Bow didn't exist and flying was a thing of the future.

I still can't see because of the darkness. Sounds are muffled and I'm soaking wet.

Jerry has just raided Liverpool to the North and West. Heinkel bombers in all probability as they had the range for a quick visit although not the payload of the Junkers 88. The docks were a tempting target being on the West coast. One of the main points of ingress for the needs of war originating in the US of A.

One of these bombers is mortally hit by anti aircraft fire and is limping home but losing altitude at an alarming rate. He never made his bombing run on the Liverpool docks and chose to jettison his bomb load.

The Brotherton Wing took a direct hit at the Eastern end of the building. Ironically the end that housed the rehab services tending to wounded servicemen.

Today births quite often are chemically induced. For sixty seven years it has been my opinion that nothing induces a birth better than a 250 pound bomb detonating 300 feet from your bed!

I still can't see but sounds are no longer muffled. I'm naked as a jay bird and still wet. Somebody whacks me on the bum......a portent of what's to come? I have no teeth but my hair is dark. I'm wrapped in something warm. Feed me I'm hungry....at least the decor has improved!

It's October 12th 1941. Welcome to the world Peter. The beginning of the road to now.