Getting permission to leave the dock was liberating. Even though the weather was iffy, our cruise north up Johnstone Strait brought a following wind and calm current. We headed to one of our favorite quiet anchorages, dropped the hook and breathed deeply.

We wish we could say there were no electric surprises heading up Johnstone Strait, but unfortunately our radar decided not to work. Put it on the list for future sleuthing.

After anchoring we played some scrabble and the Captain was incredibly lucky, again, getting almost all the good letters.

Jasmine recommended that we listen to recent EconTalk.com podcast with guest Alain Bertaud on “Cities, Planning and Order Without Design.” Bertaud is French born architect, urban planner and economist. His insights are a brilliant contribution to the fields of urban economics and urban planning. Bertaud explains clearly and coherently what we have always understood intuitively: that current building and zoning regulations limit affordable housing choices that working people need. “This is a case where the weak are oppressed by the incompetent,” he says. Bertraud explains one of the key benefits of big cities as providing “dense labor markets” that provide working people with the best opportunity to eventually find the job where they are most productive and happy. But the lack of low cost housing undermines this big city advantage by making it very difficult for working people to live there, and the lack of low cost housing is caused by building and zoning regulations that artificially limit the low-cost housing that would otherwise be built by limiting both the maximum height of buildings and the minimum size of each apartment or condo. As a result of these “modern” regulations, the population density of NYC is only half what it was in the 1940’s, and it is almost impossible for middle income families to live there. The same thing has happened in San Francisco and other large urban areas, both in the USA and abroad. Bertraud believes that affordability and mobility should be the two most important goals for urban planning, but in most cities those goals are only given lip service. Jim and I found Bertraud’s analysis very persuasive and inspiring. Here is the link to the podcast if you are interested.

After being inspired intellectually by Bertaud’s talk on EconTalk.com we transitioned to a peaceful, lovely, evening. The colder weather further inspired the chef to make ramon soup. While on the True Love we rarely have good internet or even satelite connection so we often watch DVD’s for entertainment. A dear friend gave us his collection of the Horatio Hornblower series. The sea adventures of the the protagonist and his fellow English seaman is perfect entertainment for our voyage. We watched an episode while enjoying our soup and then turned in for a wonderful night of quiet sleep at anchor.

On June 28th we woke to celebrate our 38th Anniversary. The forecast predicted a rainy day, at that’s what we got. But we didn’t let the rainy weather bother us. As the “Admiral of Atmosphere” I set the mood by playing the music collection we prepared for our wedding: a playlist of songs that began an hour before the ceremony and ended with Here Comes the Sun, while we walked out, husband and wife. Back then playlists were hard to create. We used transferred songs from albums, one by one, to a cassette tape. Now it’s easy to make playlists, and we have created a duplicate of our original wedding playlist on our iPhones.

Here is our wedding playlist, in its original order:

Question, The Moody Blues,

The Actor, The Moody Blues,

The Word, The Moody Blues,

America, Simon & Garfunkel

All I know, Simon & Garfunkel

After the Rain, Barbara Streisand

For My Lady, The Moody Blues

The Story in Your Eyes, The Moody Blues

I’ll Have to Say I Love You, Jim Croce

For Emily, Whenever I May Find You, Simon and Garfunkel

Shelter From the Storm, Bob Dylan

The Long and Winding Road, The Beatles

Longer, Dan Folgelberg

Your Song, Elton John

Wedding Song, Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul & Mary)

Here Comes The Sun, The Beatles

Kathy’s Song, Simon and Garfunkel

Added for our 20th Anniversary: What If We Went to Italy, Mary Chapin Carpenter

Added for our 30th Anniversary: Prayer for Jim and Fawn (a poem written for our wedding by Scott Crowell, put to music by Troy Shaw and beautifully sung by Troy and Carrie Shaw).

We listened and remembered while making coffee and breakfast. After a yummy omelette, and celebratory pastries, we decided to do some sleuthing on the radar. First, we found the pertinent manuals and were able to track down all the applicable wiring and fuses. Not unlike other electronics, we plugged and unplugged and performed hard restarts. We found the key fuses via the diagrams and thought we had found the culprit in a sad looking fuse, but unfortunately our handy electric meter beeped indicating it was still working. We did discover that although we have a collection of fuses, we need more and different fuses for our backups. So we will take care of that when we return to Campbell River next week.

We had no more ideas, so we quite honestly just gave up and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon ignoring the problem and concentrating on each other. The rain continued to fall, but we didn’t care. The weather feels very familiar with inconsistent conditions and temperatures typical for late June and early July in Seattle (where the common saying is “summer usually starts on the day after July 4th).

Today, we woke to clearing skies. I was in need of some fresh air and exercise so I went on a long paddle board around our bay. The Captain was worried because the water is cold (52 degrees!) in these parts so he followed me at a respectable distance on the tender. The First Mate spotted an extremely tiny new born baby seal and mom. It truly was the smallest baby seal we’ve ever seen. Being nearby made the new mama very nervous so we backed away without trying to get a photo.

While paddle boarding I was also pondering the radar issue. Even in these amazingly peaceful surroundings it’s hard to turn off the multitasking. We can’t go further north without a working radar. I thought that maybe we needed to turn on the generator to “jump start” the radar with a power boost because of all our electrical problems. When we got back to True Love, we tried it and it worked! The radar is back. We have no idea why this worked, but it worked. We will still ask Ian, the marine electrician, to look at it when we get back to Campbell River. But it feels like a big win.

For lunch today we headed by tender to the Blind Channel Resort and couldn’t believe it was so uncrowded and quiet. Truly lovely. We are really enjoying this “preseason” pre-July boating. We shared our table with fellow boaters who had also had a cruise with unexpected mechanical problems. Seems to be the summer for it. We took advantage of Blind Channel’s internet and spotted a passing humpback whale (affectionately known locally as “humpies”) from shore before heading back to the True Love.

Today, we enjoyed another quiet late afternoon. Listening to podcasts (we were able to download Saul’s show from Friday while at Blind Channel) while I continued my reorganization and tidying up of the several storage cabinets in the salon.

The Captain and the First Mate of The True Love

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. F. Scott Fitzgerald