Liveaboards are important, too
The Eagle Harbor residential anchor-out community has been an important historic part of the community on Bainbridge Island for at least a century. It continues to provide a diverse element in an otherwise rather homogenous community.
Over the years there has been varying degrees of support for the community, spanning peaceful co-existence to frank attacks on the residents. However, the current sentiment and antipathy seems to be based upon feelings left over from a somewhat turbulent time.
In studying the details, though, it becomes clear that there have been organized efforts on the part of a few to oust the people living on their boats by employing various tactics and recruiting different public entities. The efforts have mostly failed yet do not seem to have waned and with the plan to build an open-water marina “in order to preserve residence.” It seems that success might be within reach for those who so object to looking at “unsightly vessels” from their waterfront homes.
The Land Use Committee has been meeting weekly for the last couple of months to select a plan for recommendation to the City Council for an open-water marina. We have heard the refrain “…the open-water marina is the only way to preserve our ability to have liveaboards.” They just left out the part about NOT saving THESE liveaboards who live out there now. As a matter of fact, all but four people who “fit the criteria” to be in the open-water marina will have to go.
The liveaboard community is a significant historical community that deserves preserving. It has been included in the city’s Comprehensive Plan and in the Amended Shoreline Master Plan as an important piece of the efforts to provide diversity in housing options.
The people who live on the water have the smallest ecological footprint of any of us and we could all learn a thing or two from them.
Finally, they are part of our community and contribute to our society in myriad ways.
Let us find a real solution to deal with the practical challenges that face our growing community. Einstein once said: “We can’t solve the problems we are facing today at the level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Time to get creative.
CHARLOTTE ROVELSTAD
Winslow
Harbor Liveaboards need haul-out facility
For many years, we liveaboards have suspected that city, county and state governments were inventing laws to phase out our lifestyle to appease those with a lifestyle prejudice. We believe in Article III, Section II of the U.S. Constitution, which states that all matters maritime are under federal jurisdiction; therefore, we have thought the city, county and state did not have jurisdiction, but were telling us to evaporate on their say so.
I see our culture in general as being trained to need so much that it is plundering the Earth to follow the script. I see the live-aboard lifestyle as one small counter-balance to this trend. But this historic community cannot maintain their boats, skills, self-sufficiency, personal or community spirit without the legal ability to practice traditional methods of working on their boats. This means pulling out boats above high tide on a cradle on rollers for regular maintenance or major repair.
There is a large asphalt slab (former parking lot) at the foot of Weaver Road and the old Strawberry Plant. It is adjacent to a gentle, sloping beach without a bank that would be an ideal place to pull boats up onto and easy to sweep up during repairs. I have a picture from the Bainbridge Museum (circa 1900) showing two 60- to 70-foot-long schooners being hauled onto level land at that location (before the slab).
I envision a six-bar capstan with volunteers on the spokes for the power source and more people moving planks and rollers on the beach ahead of the cradle. Not having money for modern haul-out equipment inspires ingenuity – a return to past methods. And then, with the boat out of the water, all the traditional boat-working skills would come into practice.
With city permission to use this site for traditional boat maintenance, the liveaboard community would be inspired and rejuvenated. This revival of historic activity would be interesting to the public as a living museum as well as inspiring team effort in other community projects. This contributes character to the larger culture where these skills and attitudes are fading from lack of practice.
Not allowing us to use the beach would put a tourniquet on a lifestyle that can’t survive without all its parts. A vital part is the use of the beach and small portion of adjacent upland to maintain the boats and skills generation after generation.
This area is now planned as a park, but I see the occasional boat pulled up and worked on in the old ways as an amenity. This would not be a commercial boatyard. The prices charge by such boatyards are beyond the means of persons practicing voluntary simplicity, which I believe is the path to sustainability.
As the world runs low on oil, these skills and attitudes of crafting basic needs and working together will again become essential and even enjoyable.
DAVE ULLIN
Member, Bainbridge Harbor Commission
