Author: Bettina

I've sailed as a young woman on Minnesota lakes, then joined the UW Yacht Club as a student in Seattle to sail on Lake Washington and Lake Union. After many years' hiatus, I started sailing Puget Sound with my husband in 2005, and since 2009 with a 40' Hunter. My goal for Salish Sailors is to build a site where all sailors -- young and old, new and experienced, men and women -- can share resources, tips, and stories, about sailing and cruising with family and friends.

Salish Sailors

Bettina

This blog is to provide a resource for American and Canadian sailors who navigate the waters between Puget Sound and along the Inside Passages to Alaska through the beautiful waters of the Salish Sea.

My husband Darren and I have both sailed extensively in Puget Sound and Canada, he being the only blue water sailor between us. My first experience solo sailing was on a small Hobie Cat as a teenager in Northern Minnesota at Camp Castaway, a Young Life Camp. Darren bought his first sailboat — and International 14′ — at 14. He’s engineer who truly can fix anything, and I’m the First Mate who can cook a meal while underway, take a shower in two minutes, and magically clean the heads. (He thinks we have elves 😉

Please pay attention to the rules:

No foul language or writing which might offend, please. If you must, use the extra characters: %@&# and such. Any foul or offensive hate speech will be removed.

The Journey Begins

Bettina

Thanks for joining me! This may not be my first adventure, and I certainly hope it won’t be my last. With the help of friends and the community outreach team at Hewlett Packard in Corvallis, I put my first publication online in 1998. While I’ve been involved in helping other publications along the way (Oregon.com, a travel resource hub) and Commonties.com, which launched the same year Twitter was born. While there is a plethora of great blogs for sailors (and some rocking good entertainment on Youtube!) I am not seeing YET a resource hub for sailors that specifically serves the Salish Sea.

The term Salish Sea encompasses the Puget Sound region and extends northward to  British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and beyond up the Inside Passage. The ecosystems of the Salish Sea have long been challenged by the timber and paper industry, human waste deposits from our sewage systems, fuel spills and the daily transit of cargo ships including ginormous oil tankers. Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm for generations now, and with the recent news about the decline of our orca pods reaching the four corners of the planet I think it’s critical that those of us who can assist in monitoring these inland waterways step up and make ourselves heard.

There are many small things we can do as boaters that can have a big impact. Whether it’s taking extra care to keep engines running clean, minimizing noise and waves near shore, taking notes and reporting whale sitings, noting the decline and/or possible return of cretaceans, fish, and mollusks, and/or simply confronting those who violate the rules of the waterways by getting too close to marine life…we all need to take responsibility for our behavior out on the water.  Seamanship in the Salish Sea should include being good stewards of this amazingly wonderful place. As I learned from the Girl Scouts: always leave a place cleaner than you found it.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton