r/LifeInKitsap

My husband and I watch an embarrassing number of terrible '80s horror movies. We were in the middle of one when I got up for... honestly, I don't remember. Probably a glass of water. Maybe to pet a cat. Around here those are the two most likely reasons I'd leave the couch.

I went by the front window. No idea why now, maybe Amazon? (I just can't quit them. I'm trying. This was also like three years ago.) Let's imagine I was getting up to pet my cat, just because.

There was a ferry going the wrong way.

Now, I realize that sounds banal. Logistically, since it's a mode of transportation, you expect a certain amount of back and forth. Ferries can obviously go whichever direction they want. But I live on a hill overlooking Puget Sound, and after years of looking out this window I've gotten used to the rhythm of the traffic. I can see downtown Seattle, the Bremerton ferry, the Bainbridge ferry, and the Southworth route. Day after day, the ferries follow the same patterns. They go to Seattle, they come back.

Instead of heading toward Seattle like my li'l brain expected, it was cutting straight across the Sound, perpendicular to the shore. On top of that, it gave some little blasts on their horn.

My husband and I pulled up MarineTraffic, which is one of my favorite apps- one I use far more often than any reasonable person probably should. If you've ever looked out at Puget Sound and wondered, "What ship is that?" it'll usually tell you. Ferries, tugboats, cargo ships, Navy vessels... if it's out there, chances are you can identify it. It's a whole thing at our house. He won't download it himself, though. If he's home by himself he'll send me pictures of a boat and have me look it up. We're a little codependant over here too. If it wasn't funny, I'd probably make him download the damn thing.

Nothing too weird was actually happening, as it turned out! Washington State Ferries was repositioning a boat to another route. Southworth was stealing a boat from Bremerton. The horn wasn't announcing some mysterious ferry emergency. It was warning a few kayakers who had wandered a little too close.

That's how I (really we, but the SO isn't writing this) ended up learning that ferry horns aren't random. They're actually a language. You want me to explain it? You know I would really like to!

Ok!

-One short blast means, "I'm altering course to starboard," or turning right.

-Two short blasts mean, "I'm altering course to port," or turning left.

-Three short blasts mean the vessel is "operating astern propulsion", or backing up. No, I'm not going to tell you that I knew those words before I spent some time Googling. I can't know everything, I'm using source material here.

-Five or more short blasts are the one you've probably heard if somebody is making a really dumb decision. That's the danger signal. It basically means, "I don't understand what you're doing, and we're about to have a problem." It's actually pretty easy to underestimate a ferry if you're out on the water yourself. They don't throw a ton of wake really, and I've kind of disregarded them myself while I'm kayaking. They're FAST though.

-Long blasts are a little different. A prolonged blast is used in several situations, but around Puget Sound you're most likely to hear it when visibility is poor. In fog, vessels sound a prolonged blast at regular intervals so other boats know they're there, even if they can't be seen.

-If you hear "shave and a haircut, two bits..." ...well, I don't actually know what that means. My thought is the ferry captain is drunk, but the Coast Guard may have a different interpretation. (There's a long history of sodden ferry captains, but that's for a different day.)

My husband ruined my Tuesday.

That's not entirely fair.

He left a Seattle history documentary playing while he went back to work after lunch. Usually, if I'm eating alone, I'll throw on something wonderfully mindless. Maybe a train ride through Switzerland. Maybe an old Cubs game. Instead, YouTube decided I needed an emotional crisis. About twenty minutes later I texted him: "You ruined my day."

The documentary had started talking about Tokitae.

I've loved orcas for as long as I can remember. I was exactly the kind of kid who would've covered every school folder in Lisa Frank unicorns and whales if I'd gotten enough of them from the dentist. In my mind, orcas were supposed to be leaping through rainbows while synth music played in the background.

That's how childhood works.

When I was 10 or 11, my parents took me to Orlando. We went to SeaWorld. I was OVER THE MOON. It was the 1980's. I transformed into a child who wrote letters to the president about the ozone. I donated to manatee protection, even though I lived in Kansas.

I finally visited SeaWorld again for my 30th birthday. Instead of leaving amazed, I left disappointed. Not just in SeaWorld. In us. I cried when I saw the orca, my ex-husband kind of giggled at me.

Humans can do awful things. (Not his laughter, the orca.)

I couldn't enjoy the show anymore because all I could think was, Why did we decide this was okay?

Years later, when I found out I was moving to western Washington, one of my very first thoughts was, How long will it take before I see my first wild orca? Not the Space Needle. Not Pike Place. MAYBE Rainier. Orcas.

Eventually, I did.

The first time was during the firstl No Kings rally in Manette. An orca surfaced beneath the Manette Bridge, and I completely forgot there was a rally happening. The second time was from the beach across from the shipyard earlier this year. I have blurry little videos that probably look like black commas floating on the water to everyone else. Life goal recognized!

Ironically, my husband has lived here since 1996. He's the only postal employee at the Southworth Post Office, which sits practically on top of the ferry dock. We live near the Manchester dock. We kayak. Between work and home, he's spent thousands of hours looking at Puget Sound. He's never seen a wild orca.

I somehow got there first.

So when the documentary started talking about Penn Cove, I figured I knew the story.

I didn't.

Somehow I'd never connected that Tokitae wasn't just an orca I'd grown up hearing about. She was OUR orca.

She was taken from the Salish Sea. From the waters I now consider home. That realization stopped me. Not because the facts were new. Because the geography was. I'd separated those ideas in my head without realizing it.

Then I did what I always do, I dug in. THat's how we do things in this house. We're readers. This is going to be a hard one to write, but I'll be better for it.

In August 1970, the Southern Resident orcas were chased into Penn Cove by boats and aircraft. Explosives underwater were used to frighten them into nets. Pods were separated. At least 5 whales died during the captures. A young female was sold to the Miami Seaquarium, where she'd spend the next fifty-three years performing under the name Lolita.

Her name was Tokitae.

Then I found myself reading what the Lummi Nation had written. They don't describe Southern Resident orcas as wildlife. They describe them as relatives. That changed the story again. It wasn't just about conservation and bad decisions anymore. It was about family. About home. About loss. I realized I wasn't really reading about whales anymore. I was reading about the place I live.

It was about discovering that the place I now call home is the place she lost hers. Her family, her home, the area she felt most safe.

I always think I'm researching one thing. Instead, I end up learning something about people. Sometimes it's something wonderful. Sometimes it's a reminder that humans are capable of extraordinary cruelty.

But every once in a while, learning a story changes the way I look at a familiar stretch of water, or a shoreline I've driven past a hundred times. Because if understanding something helps me care for it a little better, or helps someone else care a little more...

Quick question! Are the weekly event posts I was doing before helpful to anyone? I never really nailed the format, and they're weirdly time consuming to compile... Should I keep trying to land a format? I'll totally do it if anyone scans them!

https://preview.redd.it/f1qj9craweeh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d2683b12501ac6fda76f5de813621ee1c93853e

There used to be a fence behind my house. Technically, there still (sort of) is. I know this because there's still a gate. The fence itself has been completely torn apart by what I can only describe as a blackberry empire. We spent $600 earlier this year to have them pushed back about 3 feet and have the fence boards finally removed. Are the blackberries on my property, you might be asking? No. They are not. They're on church property. I am not that church. Every year I cut it back, and every year it comes back. Stronger.

My husband and I were talking about it the other day, discussing what the plan is for this summer. Freeze berries? Make pies? Barbecue sauce? Leave them to the birds? I feel like this would all be up to me, so I'm satisfied with birds/deer. Regardless, we were watching a Vincent Price movie a little while later when he asked me if I knew about why they were here. The blackberries, that is.

Weird question.

Back in 1885, famed horticulturist Luther Burbank (also a total eugenicist, but I feel like that topic is considerably less fun,) introduced what he called the Himalayan blackberry. He thought that this hybrid berry it would make an incredible crop. The berries were large, the plants were tough, and they produced fruit like crazy. Honestly, he wasn't wrong. The problem was that birds loved the berries just as much as people did. They spread the seeds everywhere with their projectile poo, and the canes rooted almost anywhere they touched the ground. Western Washington turned out to have the perfect climate for a plant that was already a little too rough and tumble. A little too enthusiastic.

Many of us have a pretty complicated relationship with Himalayan blackberries. We spend half the year trying to get rid of them, and then spend the other half eating them. Meanwhile, we actually have a native blackberry too. It's called trailing blackberry, and although the berries are much smaller, a lot of people think they have a better flavor than the giant Himalayan ones. They just never tried to take over the neighborhood. I completely agree with this take, actually. It's my personal stance.

Now I have another confession. Every time I see someone buying fresh blackberries at the grocery store in July, I have to fight the urge to say something. Not because they're doing anything wrong. My brain just immediately thinks, "You paid for those?" I usually tell my husband about it later.

What I should really keep in mind is that harversting your own requires accepting a certain amount of danger and personal risk. It isn't like my husband didn't accidently hit me directly in the face with a cane a few years ago while we were fighting them together.

That would never happen at Fred Meyer.

Sometimes when the weather is nice, I’ll take my usual daily walk at Banner down to Anderson point instead (is that Port Orchard? Olalla? I’m honestly not totally sure where that line is.) This last week I found myself wandering around all the driftwood and kind of wondering where it actually came from.

Not in the “well… it’s a tree” sense. I mean, did these grow a mile away? Did they float over from the Olympic Peninsula? Have they been out there for months? I’d somehow never stopped to think about prior tree locations. I can build a lean-to though.

Imagine a cedar growing along the Hoh River. A winter storm rolls through, the river swells, the bank gives way, and suddenly that tree is headed downstream. Rivers are basically like conveyor belts, carrying logs to the Pacific. Once they reach the ocean, currents, tides, and storms take over. Some wash ashore pretty quickly. Others drift around for months, maybe even years, before finally landing somewhere.

That’s why all of our beaches can look so different. Rocks, driftwood, whole drift trees, sand…

Around here, Anderson Point has plenty of driftwood, but it’s nothing like Kalaloch. If you’ve been there, you’ve probably seen what are basically entire trees on the beach, root balls and all. Dungeness Spit is another one that always amazes me. (And Ruby Beach, and La Push… you get it.)

The difference is mostly the water. The open Pacific has powerful waves and huge rivers feeding it, so it throws enormous logs onto the beaches. Inside Puget Sound, we’re more sheltered. The tides still move wood around, but you’re generally looking at smaller logs and branches instead of entire trees.

I probably need to apologize in advance to anybody who decides to go hiking with me in the future. I feel like I’m going to be wondering aloud about where specific trees came from after writing this.