Treat yourself and spend some heartwarming time with Stan Morgan’s third memoir featuring his memories of living aboard the Varuna during the summers in the US’s San Juans and Canada’s Gulf islands. You will be delighted with the stories and relish reliving with Stan his childhood sailing on the Varuna. 
FLOATING ON DRIFTWOOD
As soon as we would anchor in a bay for the night, my brother, with Dad’s help, would look for long pieces of drift wood to use as paddle boards. We would drag them down the beach to the water, check for nasty splinters, check to make sure they were not water logged, and then I would hop on. If it still floated, my brother would hop on the front. If it still was floating we would paddle around on our wooden paddle board and have a great time. I have the picture below, one of my favorites, hanging in my office reminding of that great day.
DIGGING FOR CLAMS & OYSTERS
My mom and dad loved clams and oysters. We would often take shovels and buckets to shore in the search for the elusive shell fish. It was always fun to start digging in the sand and find the first butter clam, the best. We would bring them back to the boat and boil them in salt water on our wood stove just enough for them to open. Mom and Dad would be happy. My brother and I would wonder how anyone could eat such a thing, but over the years, we really started to enjoy them.
Since my mom and dad also enjoyed oysters, we would spend time looking for rocky beaches where oysters like to hang out. We were somewhat successful until one day we were up in Canada sailing along an island. There was not much wind and Dad got his binoculars out and was looking at the shore line. He announced that this looked like a great place for oysters. We dropped sails and anchored in the channel. We rowed ashore and sure enough, there were so many oysters, it was unbelievable. We always brought gunny sacks along and I think, we filled two sacks in no time. It was an unbelievable find.
After that find, Dad marked the spot on the chart so we would remember for future vacations. And sure enough we would stop there often and it was always the same, incredible amounts of oysters. One summer, we made our usual stop, but this time was a little different. We had rowed ashore and started our usual oyster harvest. We were busy collecting our oysters and had just filled our first gunny sack when we heard a guy running on the beach towards us yelling in our direction. It turned out that this was his commercial oyster farm. I remember Dad apologizing to him and pointing out that there were no, “No Trespassing” signs
posted. We emptied our gunny sack and rowed back to the boat knowing this would be the last time on this beach.
BLUEBERRIES
Most summers we would stop at an island in the Canadian Gulf Islands (North of US San Juans). Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name. On this island, we discovered wild blackberries on a hike in the middle of the island. It was a bit isolated so every year there were plenty of berries for us to pick.
The reason I bring this memory up is what we did with them…We brought them back to the boat and Mom would start a fire in our wood stove and make a blackberry cobbler. Our stove had an oven and mom would stay in the cabin with the heat of the stove and usually the heat from the sun and tend to the cobbler. It got very hot, but she never complained and boy was that cobbler good.
That memory was one of the first things my brother and I brought up at her memorial service.
SAILING DINGY
We had an 8′ pram for our dingy called a Sabot. It had a sail that fit down over the mast, a boom, a center board, and a rudder that fit down on two pins on the transom.
The mast and boom were lashed to the stays of the Varuna when the dingy was used for rowing or being towed behind the boat. It was a great set-up. One day I was sailing the dingy by myself and heading down wind when a wave come up behind me and knocked the rudder up and off the pin holders. The rudder and tiller then floated away leaving me no way to control the boat. I was far away from the anchored Varuna and I was heading out of the bay. Finally an incoming boat saw me waving for help. They retrieved the rudder and towed me back to the Varuna. Everything worked out well.
CRABBING
After we anchored we were always anxious to put the crab pot down. My brother and I would usually put the pot in the dingy and row out and
put it down making sure that the water depth was not greater than the attached line. We always held onto the line to insure that we did not see the buoy submerge under the water. We had a great time pulling up the trap to see what was inside.
Just a side note on crabbing – We never heard my dad swear until one day he was taking the crabs out of the trap and one grabbed his thumb and would not let go. I still remember seeing him standing on the stern of the boat trying to get the crab off his thumb and using some choice four letter words. We never heard him swear after that episode.
Great memories and thanks for letting me share them even though some happened over seventy years ago.
To view and read Stan’s sailing MEMOIR 2 CHRISTMAS IN JULY – click here
Such incredible adventures & memories! Thank you, Stan, for sharing these amazing experiences!