Happy Halloween from s/v Wondertime!
kids on board
A Visitor From the Deep
“Mom! Mom! Dad! Dad! Come quick! Hurry! Hurry!” We heard Leah exclaim from outside the boat on the dock where she had been laying quietly watching the water. She was squealing with excitement. “You have GOT to see this! Something is swimming under the boat with many legs!”
Now we were intrigued. We had got to see this.
We stepped onto the dock and peered under the boat. And indeed we saw the beautiful creature too, a translucent sea animal swimming, no, undulating peacefully through the murky marina water. It had countless soft spines, each with a dark brown tip that looked a little ominous. “Get the bucket!” our budding biologist commanded and Michael grabbed the white bucket that has now held many a sea creature. He gently scooped up the 6″ long animal with some sea water and set the bucket on the dock for all to view.
“What is it??” Leah asked us. We were certainly stumped. While we’ve had hundreds of jellyfish swim past our boat, thousands of teeny, tiny fish and there’s a handful of healthy sea anemones on our pier this fascinating animal was a mystery. It definitely seemed out of place and we wondered how it had gotten stuck in our marina.
We grabbed our Audubon Field Guide to North American Seashore Creatures and identified it as some type of nudibranch. None of the species in our book seemed to match, but a quick check on Google (oh how we are going to miss the internet when we are cruising!) identified it as a Giant Nudibranch. It turns out that these are quite a sight to see while diving in Puget Sound, especially if you get to view one feeding on an anemone; we felt very fortunate to get to watch one from our nice dry dock.
Leah just had to share her new discovery so she ran a few boats down and told the girls from Pearl what she had found. They were intrigued and came over for a look and were fascinated too. Turns out it was their first marina nudibranch sighting as well.
For a number of minutes the creature did not move at all, clearly terrified. You know, that playing dead trick. Then it must have realized it was not actually dead yet and started to swim around our bucket. We observed our unique visitor for another 10 minutes then gently set the creature back into the sea where it quickly undulated away. Leah was tearful but it was yet another chance for us to explain how we can look at the sea creatures we find for a short time but, no, they are not going to become our pets. They must be returned back to their home, the sea. She understood and was grateful, as were we, for the chance to have this beautiful creature visit us for a while.
Which just goes to show that if you lay on your stomach on the dock peering in to the depths of the sea for long enough you never know what will come swimming by.
First weekend aboard
One fine Saturday last April we packed up the Subaru with teddies and blankies and diapers and cookies and various other necessities and headed to St. Helens, Oregon where Wondertime was moored. We were spending our first night aboard. We aren’t going to leave the dock of course, but we did enjoy a lovely 75 degree Spring weekend on the Columbia River with Leah, 3, and Holly, 5 months, in tow.
Leah and Teddy, ready to board.
The girls are on deck...we (and our vast quantities of "gear") made it.
It's official, she's ours!
Wondertime is a custom 38' ketch designed by Jay Benford and built by Miller Marine on Bainbridge Island, WA. From what we can gather, her hull was laid up in 1978, she was launched in 1985, and finally finished in 1998. She is just the right size for us, has the perfect layout for four, and is in such excellent condition we couldn't pass her by.
The DVDs come out while mom and dad unpack and check things over.
Holly falls asleep right away. A good sign!
Little stars
This has little to do with staying on the boat, I just love this photo, taken while exploring the town of St. Helens, OR. You do know that 3-year olds are entirely responsible for dandelion repopulation? On an entirely different note, I had no idea we were in one of the towns the movie Twilight was filmed in until I saw a girl run excitedly down the street saying "OMG! Is there where so and so was chased down? OMG!" And here I was thinking we were just in a plain old small Oregon town when it was practically Hollywood.
A playground! All is well. This is likely the first of many playgrounds we will explore by sail.
Even Holly is having a good time.
Leah snug in her bunk (she finally fell asleep, um, 2 or 3 hours after this photo was taken).
Holly is asleep! Yay! (No, we didn't leave her to sleep there. That would not be an AAP approved sleeping venue). She did sleep with Sara in the double bunk, probably not an AAP approved sleeping situation either now that I think of it.
Breakfast-time. Yes, those are chocolate-chip cookies. We do what we can to keep everyone happy in times of potential chaos.
Do they make childproof locks for faucets?
A self-portrait. Ok, I wasn't really reading. I only had enough time to take this photo and suddenly naptime was over. But if I could, this is how I would have loved to spend my morning!
Holly napping (again!) in our bunk. This is going well!!
Leah reading under her rainbow-maker (i.e. deck prism).
So cute.
Ready to go home. Leah protested the whole way down the dock (I wanna stay on the booooaaaat!). Hooray!
This is Wondertime.
She is a good little ship, and always tugging at her docklines.
One day, a man had a dream of building a small stout boat that had a nook for everything and neat tidy bunks. She would have a ketch rig that was easy to sail and a center cockpit that was cozy and dry. His little ship would be simple and true.
So, Meridian Passage was born one Spring day in 1978 on Bainbridge Island, Washington and was carried over land to her new home in sunny Southern California.
Over the next years, she would be fitted out with a galley for cooking and a dinette for gathering and eating aft, a sea berth, a double berth and a head amidships, and two little bunks in the bow (perfect for — unknownst to him — the two little girls who would one day sleep there).
Two stout masts were added and sails and an engine for when the wind wasn’t blowing and one fine day she was launched into the sea.
Meridian Passage enjoyed many years of sailing in the sunshine to the California islands then destiny took her to the Columbia River where she explored fresh water nooks.
One day a small new family happened upon her and knew she was the ship they’d been searching for: not too big and not too small, not too simple and not too complex, not too old and not too new. This lovely ship sparkling in her slip was just right for the little girls who would soon dance on her decks and their parents who would sail them near, and someday, far.
So Meridian Passage was sailed northward up the sea to the sound where she was born and nestled into her slip in the crook of the sound.
The family took to her and loved her right away and knew that she was their true home. Her little girls loved her too, and were filled with wonder every time they visited.
And that is how Wondertime found her new home.
