Say What????

“You can’t come on the dock. Women have to stay on the boat,” the nice woman who had just caught our lines asserted as Cathryn stepped off the stern.

“What?” Cathryn asked, incredulous.

“Women aren’t allowed to get off the boat. Only the Skipper can come on shore until you clear customs.”

“I AM the Skipper!” Cathryn declared, perhaps a little more forcefully than absolutely required.

“Oh, well in that case, you can come, but he has to stay on the boat,” she conceded.

Anyone think this story suggests the ratio of boating couples in which the male is the exclusive Skipper?

For the past 5 years, throughout our ownership of Secret Wish, our 23-foot SeaSwirl cuddy cabin, Cathryn never docked the boat at a fixed dock, and only periodically drove it on open water (until she once hit a log, after which she drove it somewhat less frequently). As we discussed the idea of buying our new, larger boat and spending more time on it than we’ve done in prior years, Bob stated he had a pretty strong preference for not being the solely responsible Skipper and wanted Cathryn to become co-Skipper. She agreed to give it a try. As a result, on this 12-day trip to the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands, Cathryn has done about 75% of the driving and 95% of the docking. While her skills are developing pretty smoothly, her confidence is taking a little longer to settle in. This morning’s directive from the woman at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Office in Roche Harbor, where we’d arrived to clear Customs before proceeding to our night’s destination on Stuart Island threatened to setback the progress of her confidence. Bob, on the other hand, thought the incident was hilarious, enjoyed having the speaker brought up short, and always appreciates upsetting those who bring sexist thinking to their points of view. While waiting to be called to the counter by a Customs Agent, Cathryn noted wryly that she was, in fact, the only woman in line. Welcome to boating in 2010.

Well, if we thought this morning’s event was sexist, we gained a little perspective this afternoon. After checking in with Customs at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island we cruised north 4 miles to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island. This is one of our favorite San Juan destinations and has a nice state park with a dock, several floats and a dozen buoys. We were lucky enough to snag a buoy and will spend the night here. Once tied up to our buoy, we rowed to shore and hiked to the Island School about a mile away.

The school currently has one teacher and a student body of two! Posted on the wall of the school was a copy of the rules for teachers from 1915. As you can see, we have made some progress as a society.

As we were eating dinner tonight, we looked up to see another near collision, this time between two sailboats. Luckily a collision was avoided, and each boat cruised off.