Boat Photo in Blue Horse Gallery

Chuck Dingee's photo, Peaceful Anchorage.

Only a few days left until the end of “Public Hanging” at the Blue Horse Gallery in Bellingham, where both Capt. Kathy Sheehan and Chuck Dingée are exhibiting photos.

The sailors and principal photographers of PhotoSynergy are participating in the non-juried art exhibit at which the public is invited to vote on their favorite piece of art.

Our photographs are hanging among more than 100 works by professional and amateur artists from the Pacific Northwest. Prizes will be awarded to the top vote getters when the exhibit ends on Friday, Jan. 30. Get down there and vote!

Chuck’s entry in the competition is an artistic photo he took while anchored at Eagle Harbor, Cypress Island, in 2007. It shows two sailboats anchored nearby, with small islands and the Cascade foothills in the background. The anchorage has become one of our favorites.

Capt. Kathy has a photograph of a tiny frog in the hands of her favorite cabin boy.

Both photos are available for sale at the Blue Horse Gallery or through PhotoSynergy.

Read more about the photos in The Sheehan World.

Can’t Get Warm

Cocoa Beach

Originally uploaded by PhotoSynergy

No matter how far away we go, Linda Dingee and I can’t get away from the cold.

Who woulda thunk it would be 35 degrees in Florida?

Good thing we had our gloves in our pockets before we left on our trip.

When it warmed up to about 45 degrees, we went for a walk on the beach to watch the seagulls, sandpipers, ospreys, pelicans and humans fishing in the surf under a brilliantly sunny sky.

CaptKathy: Winter Sailing

Winter sailing

From Flickr by PhotoSynergy

Horizen handled very well today without a jib in light air — but boy was it cold!!! About 40 degrees!!

And we weren’t even the only ones out in Bellingham Bay this afternoon. There were 3 other sailboats and a couple of powerboats. I guess Peter wasn’t the only one jonesing and in danger of spontaneously combusting from being on land for almost 3 solid months.

I screwed up docking her, but Peter and Chuck were there to help, supervise — and criticize!

Next sail is the Alger Yacht Club regatta, the first full moon in February.

Woohoo!

Seattle Boat Show

We went to the Seattle Boat Show last year and looked at the very, very, very expensive sailboats on Lake Union. Ran into several people we knew and stayed the weekend in Pioneer Square.

This year, the Seattle Boat Show is Jan. 23 through Feb. 1, but I don’t think we’ll go.

It would be nice to find a good insurance company down there, though, since the jerks who sold us a policy in August are now saying that they will only insure two parties, not the three families who own Horizen (the boat formerly named Notorious and Windsinger).

Yacht Club Dance

The Corinthian Yacht Club is having a winter dance in February.

All sailors in and around Bellingham are invited Feb. 28 to The Majestic on Forest Street in Bellingham.

The Motown Cruisers will play, and there will be food, drink and general good fun. Chuck and I have gone to several potlucks with the Yacht Club and one cruise. Good people. Good fun.

I just hope that Chuck doesn’t have a gig that night. Because I want to go and dance!

In Memory: Capt. Penny Britton

Capt. Penny Britton

A memorial service will be held Friday, Jan. 16, in Anacortes for Capt. Penny Britton, who lost her battle with cancer on Dec. 30.

Penny was a totally inspiring woman who had an unending amount of enthusiasm and patience for her employees, students, and family. She seemed to be happy all the time, even while enduring several bouts of cancer and the treatments that go along with it.

She and her husband Dick were the former owners of Penmar Marine in Anacortes, where I worked as a checkout skipper for a couple of summers after I got my captain’s license in 1997. She hired me at the marina after I met her at WWU.  I was teaching journalism, part-time, in the same building as her.

Penny was 67 and still teaching at the Communications Department at Western Washington University. 

Among her many achievements, Penny was a licensed airplane pilot and a licensed captain for sail and power vessels. She won the Ronald Kleinknecht Excellence in Teaching Award at WWU in 2008 and had a master’s degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

The memorial will be at 3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16, at Christ the King Church above the Eagles Hall, 901 Seventh St., Anacortes.

Donations may be made in her name to a favorite cancer-cure-seeking organization. She raised money for a few organizations, including the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, and inspired her students a few years ago to put out donation cups all over the WWU campus in a “Pennnies for Penny” campaign. 

Read Penny’s obituary

I’ll miss her.

Want to Sail With Me?

Want to sail with CaptKathy? We’ll both feel more comfortable on my sailboat if you have some experience on the water.

The Bellingham Technical College, in partnership with the Bellingham Sail & Power Squadron chapter of the  U.S. Power Squadron,  is offering a course in basic navigation starting in late January.

Introduction to Maritime Piloting is being taught at BTC on Tuesday nights, starting Jan. 27. You’ll learn how to use a compass, read a chart, and avoid running into rocks in the San Juan Islands.

I learned everything I know from my maternal grandfather, the Community Boating Club in Boston, and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, but I understand the Power Squadron runs a nice course.

Hybrid Engine on the Horizen?

Owning a 27-year-old sailboat, with the original auxiliary diesel engine, it’s only a matter of time before we have to do some major work on the engine. Already we’ve spent a few boat units ($500=1 boat unit) on the exploding pressure sensor that spewed black diesel all through the bilge. Twice.

Replacing the engine in a few years is a distinct possibility, even though it has less than 2,000 hours on it. So, it’s nice to see that some of the commercial mariners are getting into hybrid engines.

A story in The Seattle Times describes how the Foss tugboat company in the Puget Sound has developed a hybrid diesel-electric engine for use on its polluting tug boats.

Foss Maritime of Seattle says it  has developed “the Prius of tugboats.” Calling its new boat the world’s first hybrid tug, the vessel is expected to consume less diesel and generate less pollution by using batteries for all of its low-power needs. Foss expects to deliver it to the Port of Los Angeles in late January.

We see the Foss tugs on Bellingham Bay a lot, and we know how diesel spews its black pollutants all over the place.

I hope the technology is advancing fast so that we can get a marine hybrid engine for the Horizen when she needs an overhaul.

“Tests have raised expectations that turning hybrid would cut a tug’s particulate and nitrogen-oxide emissions as much as 44 percent,” the newspaper says. “That’s enough to impress environmental groups that have been some of the ports’ harshest critics.”

The paper goes on to quote Jessica Lass, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council: “Moving the ports’ tugboat fleet toward hybrid technology is a benefit to both local residents and companies who do business at the ports,” she said. “It shows it’s entirely possible to move the ports toward greener, hybrid technology that cuts down on toxic greenhouse emissions and diesel fuel that fouls our local waterways and bodies.”