Sentinel across the Rockies.

Sentinel across the Rockies, Nov 07
Monroe Harbor, Chicago Hey, you, listen up! Yeah, it’s me, Sentinel. Wanna know the story of how I slipped my owners and bootlegged mussels over the Rockies? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. I don’t often get the chance to tell it like it really is. It all started in Chicago, where we were hangin’ out with the mob. A thousand other yachts on the mooring field in Monroe Harbor. We were getting the heat. 32°C, no less. So we hi-tail north to Winthrop Harbor, where I get hauled out. I ain’t sorry to leave freshwater Lake Michigan. I like my water with a bit of oomph to it, if you take my meaning. They power hose me down, my annual bath. And then I get dumped in a car park. What sort of hide-out is that meant to be? But there’s nothing so bad that it can’t be made worse. They take my mast off, and then my rudder. There's some talk about whether I was still oversize. Hey, nobody gets to calls me fat! Then this low loader rolls into town. Nice shiny black cab, looks like a hearse. I should have smelt a rat. Before I know it they have me slung aboard and tied down with chains. Slick job, looks like the A1-Haulaboat boys finally caught up with me. My mast is all wrapped up in padding too, and I’m guessing the concrete boots and the yo-heave-ho back in the lake. But no, the loader rolls forward, and there’s my owners waving a teary farewell. Not very far. It seems like we don’t have the paperwork for Illinois. No matter that its just a quarter mile to the Wisconsin state border, where we’re all clear to go. Make a run for it, say I. No, we have to stay put for a day. Owners shrug their shoulders, its OK for them, they are catching the Empire Builder express from Chicago. I bet they don’t get their paperwork checked at every state crossing. At last we’re off, out on the state highway at full speed. Kinda breezy, and we are headed upwards. Across the Dakota badlands, then in Montana we head through the Rocky Mountains and the Glacier National Park. The sort of place dames do the oohlah about. Me, I’d trade it all for a decent patch of flat water. I’m a yacht, not a mountain goat. After a week we cross the Washington State border, where the boys in blue spring an ambush. “Sentinel, we’re impounding you for illegally importing zebra-mussels.” What?? This is worse than when they send down Capone on a tax-evasion rap! Nasty little critters, I didn’t ask them to get in my inlets. They’re spreading all over the Great Lakes now, bumping off the local stuff, and it seems Washington doesn’t want them. It’s looking like big trouble, so I use my phone call. My owners must have pulled some strings, because the officers back off. “OK Sentinel, seems like you’re free to continue to Anacortes. But we’ll be seeing you on Monday”, they snarl.
We make it through to the Marine Service Center in Anacortes without further let or hindrance, where I’m dumped in Quarantine behind a shed. Other than that its not such a bad joint, with a view of the fishing village. My owners seem relieved I’m in good shape. Then on Monday in comes Eric Anderson, the Washington Invasive Species Control Officer. It’s third-degree with boiling hot decontaminant up all my passages. They don't get me to squeal! But owners crack and sign a confession. Eric says: “As Sentinel is out the water for three weeks, the mussels are all dead. Anyway they are a freshwater species, and won’t breed in salt water. You are free to go”. My owners show great signs of joy.	Anacortes, Washington
“That was a lucky escape”, they say. Lucky? How do they think I feel? Just to show them, I think I’ll blow my transmission before I go back in the water!

Sentinel across the Rockies, Nov 07

Chicago, Monroe harbor
Monroe Harbor, Chicago

Hey, you, listen up! Yeah, it’s me, Sentinel. Wanna know the story of how I slipped my owners and bootlegged mussels over the Rockies? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. I don’t often get the chance to tell it like it really is.

It all started in Chicago, where we were hangin’ out with the mob. A thousand other yachts on the mooring field in Monroe Harbor. We were getting the heat. 32°C, no less. So we hi-tail north to Winthrop Harbor, where I get hauled out. I ain’t sorry to leave freshwater Lake Michigan. I like my water with a bit of oomph to it, if you take my meaning. They power hose me down, my annual bath. And then I get dumped in a car park. What sort of hide-out is that meant to be?

But there’s nothing so bad that it can’t be made worse. They take my mast off, and then my rudder. There's some talk about whether I was still oversize. Hey, nobody gets to calls me fat!

Then this low loader rolls into town. Nice shiny black cab, looks like a hearse. I should have smelt a rat. Before I know it they have me slung aboard and tied down with chains. Slick job, looks like the A1-Haulaboat boys finally caught up with me. My mast is all wrapped up in padding too, and I’m guessing the concrete boots and the yo-heave-ho back in the lake. But no, the loader rolls forward, and there’s my owners waving a teary farewell.

Lowloader

Not very far. It seems like we don’t have the paperwork for Illinois. No matter that its just a quarter mile to the Wisconsin state border, where we’re all clear to go. Make a run for it, say I. No, we have to stay put for a day. Owners shrug their shoulders, its OK for them, they are catching the Empire Builder express from Chicago. I bet they don’t get their paperwork checked at every state crossing.

At last we’re off, out on the state highway at full speed. Kinda breezy, and we are headed upwards. Across the Dakota badlands, then in Montana we head through the Rocky Mountains and the Glacier National Park. The sort of place dames do the oohlah about. Me, I’d trade it all for a decent patch of flat water. I’m a yacht, not a mountain goat.

After a week we cross the Washington State border, where the boys in blue spring an ambush. “Sentinel, we’re impounding you for illegally importing zebra-mussels.” What?? This is worse than when they send down Capone on a tax-evasion rap! Nasty little critters, I didn’t ask them to get in my inlets. They’re spreading all over the Great Lakes now, bumping off the local stuff, and it seems Washington doesn’t want them.

It’s looking like big trouble, so I use my phone call. My owners must have pulled some strings, because the officers back off. “OK Sentinel, seems like you’re free to continue to Anacortes. But we’ll be seeing you on Monday”, they snarl.

We make it through to the Marine Service Center in Anacortes without further let or hindrance, where I’m dumped in Quarantine behind a shed. Other than that its not such a bad joint, with a view of the fishing village. My owners seem relieved I’m in good shape.

Then on Monday in comes Eric Anderson, the Washington Invasive Species Control Officer. It’s third-degree with boiling hot decontaminant up all my passages. They don't get me to squeal! But owners crack and sign a confession. Eric says: “As Sentinel is out the water for three weeks, the mussels are all dead. Anyway they are a freshwater species, and won’t breed in salt water. You are free to go”.

My owners show great signs of joy.

Anacortes, Washington

“That was a lucky escape”, they say. Lucky? How do they think I feel? Just to show them, I think I’ll blow my transmission before I go back in the water!

« Home