Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Hot summer nights


It is just after sunset and Rhonda and I minutes ago put our 1948 Willits canoe up for the night. Tonight was the second time this week and the third time this summer that we have had our 60 year old Tacoma classic in the water. The vast majority of these beautiful wooden craft never see the water anymore, mostly, for the privately owned ones, because of there value. The rest are either hanging in museums, or restaurants. Rhonda and I both coveted these boats from childhood to the present and a few years ago ran across an opportunity to acquire the one we have now and jumped on it. We both agreed that in spite of its value and almost perfect condition that if done properly and on the best of days that the boat should be used. So with the record breaking heat of this last week it seemed like the only logical thing to do was get out on the water . with the Salmon Beach rowboat on the deck waiting for it’s turn in the shop (soon, very soon) the Whitehall hopefully in it’s final stages, and our work boat sadly waiting for me in my garage in town, the only boat left is old number 735.If the Whitehall or the S.B. rowboat look and handle half as good as our canoe does I will be very happy indeed.
Yesterday while my friend Scott was down the beach at his place studying celestial navigation, I was making sawdust and wood shavings. Along with making a mess, I was actually making slats for the floor boards in the Whitehall from some cedar that I got out of a stump down at the end of the beach. A very satisfying days work to have made something not only useful but beautiful from something that to some one passing by in a boat would look like a bleached out stump not even worthy of a beach fire. I hope to soon be making from the same stockpile of wood some quarter sawn boards for the stern seat. It does seem to be coming together I just need to keep plugging away at it , quite a trick with so many other things that I “should” be doing and another week of spectacular weather coming. Scott has one more week of his navigation class and then can have his evenings and weekends back and I will hopefully have made enough of the pieces ready for us to make some serious progress. I promise to get some good pictures of that for my next post. Till then, we will see you on the trail.