“Wow, that was a quick shower,” three of us observed as Diane returned to the boat from the restrooms onshore. In the twenty years of boating with us she and Tom have never used the onboard shower stall. She wrote this in the log book:

    “Our time (Turners) in Anacortes was eventful, to say the least.”

She didn’t mean the brisk wind rising in the south, or the fog in the channel, or the light misty rain, or the cold morning temperature.

Diane came onto the boat, retrieved her credit card, left again, and later wrote in the log book

how she had gone for a shower, undressed, and started looking for the machine to pay her quarters for a long, hot shower—“$1.25 for 5 minutes.” 

She did notice that the “quarter slot” was not the sort familiar to her. She tried and tried to put her quarters in, determined to figure the darned apparatus out then finally saw the photo of “how to insert your credit card.”

THAT’s when she dressed and came back to the boat—for a credit card.

That’s when we said, “Wow, that was a quick shower.”

Later,

Tom gathered all his shower necessities, and remembered to take a credit card with him. After a very long time, as I was leaving the boat for a Skoshi run, Diane said, “Tom’s been gone forever.” 

This is what I learned from Tom when I ran into him on the dock, this story is in the log:

    “Tom went for his shower, undressed, and discovered his credit card will not work. After multiple tries between three different shower stalls, he dressed and found a maintenance man who, said, “Oh yeah, the card reader is screwed up today. Let me start one for you.”

He did that. Only, by the time Tom had stripped to his skivvies, half the five-minute-shower time was gone.

“I’ll start a different one,” said kind worker, moving to the stall where Tom had stashed clean undies to, you know, keep them dry.

“Let me wipe down this floor for you,” worker said, grabbing at a cloth he saw on the empty shower shelf.

“Stop!” shouted Tom, struggling out of his jeans, hopping to the stall where his new, clean undies were being used to wipe a floor. 

“Oh. Sorry,” said worker, noticing that he had underwear in his hand. Dirty now, but, hey, look at that clean shower stall floor! 

    It was Turner Time Today. Then . . .

We made a brief run from Anacortes to “HOORAY!” the small dock at James Island. Rosario Strait was kind to us. Quiet water and a current push. We love this small, tucked away cove on the west side of James but seldom do we find room for us at the small, sturdy dock. But today, Yes! Tomorrow, on to Fisherman Bay, Lopez Island.