Shilshole Blog

I made the mistake of leaving something visible in my car. It cost me $250 to fix the broken window so that some jerk could take the $20 yard sale item I bought earlier in the week.

Don’t leave visible items inside your car regardless of the value. The drug addicts think they can sell anything for the next fix. 

This happened early Sunday at the head of G dock and was discovered by SBM security staff and reported to POS PD. 

According the signs posted on the entry to my dock there’s a meeting coming up 16 September from 6-8pm at the Corinthian Yacht Club.

Not sure, but I assume this is open to all. If you know otherwise drop a note.

Here’s the posted agenda:

• Welcome and Introductions
• Security Matters – Giuseppi Alvarado from Port of Seattle Police
• Safety Inspections – USCG Outreach program  Lyn McClelland
• 2008 Customer Survey

• What questions should we ask?
• Dock Captain Program, what needs to be improved?

As most liveaboards at Shilshole know, the Annual Meeting of the Washington Liveaboard Association is March 18th (tomorrow) at 7:00 p.m. at the CYC. There are five open positions in the rotation – these are the result of the association’s bylaws which provide that 1/3rd of the board member’s terms expire each year. Each of these positions is for a three year term. There are also two open positions that have been created by resignations which will be filled by the board, and those appointees will serve only the remaining term of the board members who resigned (one term has a single year remaining; the second term has two years left). If you’re interested in serving on the board, just come to the meeting and raise your hand.

In fact, Angela (S/V Ghost) it’s a good place to meet your neighbors and get involved with the liveaboard community. 

~Gail (M/V Infinity)

Hi friends and neighbors, I’m writing a story for Pacific Yachting magazine about “liveaboard lessons” – those handy things you have discovered from living aboard your boat that might not be immediately obvious to non-liveaboard boaters, or might take them longer to figure out. I’ve had some great suggestions from those of you I’ve harrassed on the dock, but thought I’d also put the question out to the Shilshole blogosphere and would really love to get your input.

What are some things you’ve learned the hard way (or the damp way or the cold way!) that help make your boat a more comfortable place to spend your time? It could be ideas about storage, climate control, life in close quarters, easier docking, maintenance issues, sleeping configuration, pets onboard, grocery shopping, weather preparedness, the marina environment, stretching your boating dollar futher – pretty much anything you can think of that has improved your liveaboard lifestyle in some way.

Please share your thoughts either via the Shilshole Community blog or you can email me directly: charlotte at charlottefranklin dot net (I’ve written it in words rather than traditional email format to stop my address being bot-harvested, but you know what to do to turn it into an email address).

Many thanks for your participation. Happy to leave out names to protect the innocent so if you’d rather share anonymously just let me know.

Cheers,

Charlotte

S/V Pacific Orca, K-dock (soon to be J-dock!)

From our Friends at the Sunset Hill Community Association:  The City of Seattle is planning a clean up day on the new section of the Burke Gilman trail from the Ballard Locks to 61st Street on Friday, October 26. This will primarily involve weeding the planting beds adjacent to the new trail, and the City is asking for volunteers to help out. Volunteers will meet at the Locks parking lot at 8:30 a.m. and you can work as long as you are willing/able. The City will provide tools, gloves, and jackets (although you might prefer to bring your own gloves). If you think you will want to work past noon, you may also want to bring lunch and a beverage. The Sunset Hill Community Association has also extended this invitation to the Friends of Burke Gilman and Groundswell. The more hands the merrier!! So if you are willing to help, it could be a fun way to meet some of our neighbors. The more volunteers scheduled to participate, the more City people will be scheduled, according to Carol Beers. If you can help, please call Carol at (206) 783-2006 or send her an email at: c.beers@comcast.net.

As many readers will recall, the liveaboard association has undergone some changes this year. Members elected an expanded board of 15 directors that has met every month except August. During these meetings, the directors agreed to retain the association’s name, “Washington Liveaboard Association,” and amended the bylaws and articles of incorporation. Over the course of the year, the new Liveaboard Agreement was negotiated. It was signed and went into effect on August 27th. Our thanks to the negotiating team for its work on behalf of all liveaboards at Shilshole!

 We have now started looking at other ways we can be of service to our constituents. In addition to this blog, which is separately owned and maintained and where content is determined by its readers, the WLA now has its own website, www.washingtonliveaboard.com. There is also a link to the WLA website on the upper right hand side of this page. Here, you can find summaries of action taken at board meetings, make use of links to resources, and learn about other liveaboards.

In particular, although the page is now pretty sparse, we hope to provide profiles of liveaboard boaters as a way to “put a face” on the liveaboard community. We are looking for volunteers (or nominations) who are willing to be interviewed for the “Liveaboards at Shilshole” page. For now, we will be scavenging material from other websites that we can find (starting with the links on this blog), but we want the Liveaboards page to fully represent the depth, personality, and diversity of the liveaboard community. The WLA website has an email link where you can volunteer or suggest someone we should interview.

The board also agreed to be a sponsor of the 4th Annual Sustainable Ballard Festival, September 29th-30th. While we will not have our own booth, there will be a small informational flyer available at the Information Booth which links to this website. We also hope to add a calendar page that will include meeting notices and community events that may be of interest. Also feel free to send suggestions for website content, projects, and events that you think will be of interest to other liveaboards.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and let us know what you think.

~Gail

Finally, the Shilshole Blog is back! With a new home, new service, new backend servers, updated software… and a new look. And I am very confident that we won’t have any of the problems that plagued us in recent months anymore.

All your old user accounts are still working just as before, so please, feel free to post away!

In addition, I intend to publish on this site any document and notice that the board of the Washington Liveaboard Association deems of interest to the community, especially now with the newly elected board of directors, and a new communications commmittee (which I am part of). Whether this Shilshole Blog will be the “official” WLA website or not is still up for debate, but I think nobody will be opposed to establishing an ongoing online presence for the WLA, here or elsewhere.

Thanks for your patience!