Monday, March 23, 2009

My Boat


The Critter Getter is a 15 1/2 foot MirroCraft built in 1973. Her heart is a 1984 Evinrude, 2stroke 25hp that will get her up on a plane and let her run between 25 and 30 miles an hour when she's flat out. Her lines are pretty with a deep V cut bow to carve through waves that flattens out to a planing hull aft. she has just enough freeboard to keep her dry in a chop but not enough to let the wind push her around.


We've run together up and down hood canal, off the Nisqually, past the ferry at Steilacom and all over the lakes around here. My daughters have caught tons of trout on her back and slowly but surely she's teaching me about salmon fishing in the salt. We've been lost in the fog together and stuck on mud off the Nisqually and Skokomish. We've launched in high and low tide off of Arcadia point and picnicked on Hope island. We've chased herring and chum fry searching for cutthroat trout and coho to catch on a fly. We've dragged spoons up and down Lillywaup and Bald Point for chinook and jigged herring for salmon. We've watched the fluorescent glow of bio luminescence boil in her wake before dawn.


Once after fishing in August for chinook in Hood Canal we started to pull out of Lilliwaup bay for the boat launch because it was time to run home. We'd both worked hard for one bite. The tide change was on and soon an outgoing current was arm wrestling with a southern wind, whipping up a wicked short steep three foot chop. I put her nose straight into it and lit up the Evinrude and she ran hard, cutting the oncoming waves with her bow and surfing down them after they passed below.


Sheets of salt spray and wind in our hair, I yelled for joy and kept her throttle open. She never creaked or stuttered or gave me reason to worry. The study fighter-plane roar of the Evinrude sang steady and strong until we got back to the launch and one step closer to home.


Today I got her out to take the girls trout fishing. Her tent carport accommodations were blown away over the winter (literally) so she has bee nearly bare to the elements. Her bilges were filled with water and the water was filled with spilled beer, fishing gear and engine oil. Her bow seat had broken off of her wooden front deck and there was mildew on her oars.


Each year I've promised myself that I'd take the decks out, sponge out the bilges, scrub down the decks and rewire her. This is the year. She's taken care of me. I have to take care of her...

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