Keep smiling, the sun will be here soon

Let’s hope this is the month when warm weather will return to the Pacific Northwest. June certainly didn’t have any. Summer is about a week old now, right?

I guess the one good thing about all of that rain is our new lawn down at the port has had a great start. I think the project to remove the asphalt driveway and replace it with more grass really dressed up Mike Wallace Park. Now we are looking at the area over by the ramps to the boat docks to see if we can re-do the runoff filtration system and add more recreation area to the marina and extend usable lawn area all the way to the boat launch ramp.

We are also looking around the park for a place for a permanent performing arts pavilion. Our old drawings of a gazebo cantilevered out over the water would be a nice feature but we are finding the costs would be prohibitive and permitting could take years.

With the way the economy is shaping up these days, we may see a lot more people staying around town on weekends and if that’s the case, we want to everyone to have an enjoyable place to hang out down by the water.

One instantly noticeable change in our park you will see is that we are planning to remove the big tree at the northwest end of the sidewalk. This tree has been spreading too wide at the base and not growing much taller for the past few years. Don’t worry though, for the holidays, we will be replacing this guy with a nice hemlock, noble or some other more suitable native evergreen.

Speaking of the economy, things sure are changing around the country. The fuel prices have really hurt recreational boating and all kinds of travel. We used to see hundreds of boats passing by on a given weekend from May to October. Now it is just an occasional few passing north or south heading somewhere. The Port of Kingston is becoming a destination for many boaters. It used to be a convenient stopover on trips further north.

We get guests from all over the world stopping by. Last year, I visited with a couple from New Zealand who were on their way to Alaska. It’s fun to go down and walk the guest dock on a Saturday afternoon and find out where everyone came from.

One of the best things we can all do during these times is to support our local economy. Keep in mind that the money you spend here stays here and helps support the things that mean a lot to us. The Kingston Farmers Market and lots of other local merchants have most of the day-to-day things we need and using a couple gallons of gas to go somewhere else simply doesn’t make much sense. With the recent flooding in the Midwest, buying from local growers is an even better choice.

With July here, our town gets pretty active. Of course, the Fourth of July will be as big as ever and from the pancake breakfast at the Kingston Cove Yacht Club starting early on Friday morning to the firing of the last rocket from the fireworks barge, it promises to be another great day to enjoy and celebrate. I know that both the stage in Tiny Town and the main band stage in the park will have plenty of music to get your feet tapping.

I hope everyone has a great time. It’s cool to finally have the Fourth come around on a weekend again. Anyone who wants to come down to the port on July 5 to help pick up trash would be greatly appreciated by the port staff.

When the sun does come out, you know we have a couple of great public beaches in Kingston. Of course, there is Arness Park at the slough off South Kingston Road, and there is also a great beach on the north side of the ferry landing that offers lots of sandy shore and tide flats when the water is out. When thinking about the beaches around town, we must also keep in mind the shoreline around the cove and all along the Sound is generally privately owned. So if you are out for a low-tide trek, be respectful of the owners of the land. Please do not litter and be sure to clean up after your pets.

As I am writing this in mid-June, I am still scurrying around trying to get enough funding for all the Fourth of July events and also getting ready for a one-week Holland America cruise up north to celebrate my mom’s 90th with a dozen of my closest relatives. Having done the Inside Passage more than a few times in Coast Guard cutters, I am looking forward to sitting back and letting someone else do the navigating. I will let you know how it went.

OK, it looks like this is the spot where the Nautical Term of the Month should go. So here is this month’s term: DONKEY BOILER – A steam boiler on a ship’s deck used to supply steam to the deck machinery when the main boilers are shut down. I was a hospital corpsman on the Coast Guard cutter, Willow, down at the port of San Francisco in the mid-‘60s. Willow was the last steam-powered buoy tender the service had. I remember tending to a burn for the boom operator when a high-pressure steam line from the Donkey Boiler line parted and the blast hit him in the leg. Long-term memory is still good. I just hope I can remember where to send this article so it will make it on time to the editor.

Well, that’s about it for this month. As always, thanks for reading this stuff. I hope you find something here either informative or entertaining. I hope to see you on the Fourth.

Like Jimmy Buffett says, “Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.”

Contact Pete DeBoer, Commissioner of the Port of Kingston, at pete@petedeboer.com.