First World Problem

A few weeks ago in the not too distant past, I was confronted by a friend in the aisles of our local food emporium and random issues forum. It was not so much a dramatic confrontation as it was a questioning as to why I hadn’t been present  at recent meetings being held to discuss the latest problem with bikes on the new foot ferries being offered up at or watery doorstep. I said that I was aware of the problem, but that it seemed that we had been there once or more times before and that it was the powers that be who keep making the same mistake in spite of all the asking and questioning that the lowly, riff raff riding public put forth, and that they still apparently had no place in the decision making process. I mentioned that back in 1989 I had attended the first public meeting regarding the introduction of the then new foot ferry service from Vashon to downtown Seattle, and at the time was a bit shocked to hear that only three bicycles would be allowed on the ferry at a time, and that they were to be hung on hooks on the back deck of the ferry- fully exposed to the salt spray set up by the props and the wake. There was much ado made of that, and eventually policies were changed, but here we were twenty six years later with a brand new boat on the way with hooks on the back to dangle your bike on and a ferry system that says the best design solution they could come up with is for the bike riders to carry a bag with them to spare their machines from the corrosive effects of the sea. It can only make one wonder how we even got this far on the grand timeline, let alone in the petty contrivances of self-government.

In following up on the ferry thing I checked in to the internet dungeons and found some lively discussion. Indeed, the title for this piece was extracted from a bit of the discourse. I have seen this bit of cleverness used in arguments and statements before, all having been used with the intent of “putting into perspective” what might in other worldly terms be considered more of a tremor than a major quake on the Richter scale of life. As it is, creating a problem where none should have existed is not an example of a first world problem, it is a demonstration of a grand lack of both insight and common sense on the part of the powers that be that brought us this ferry. As it was, my reason for getting to know the food aisle confronter mentioned above was through our mutual involvement in protests over yet another ill-conceived project- the great rumble strip debacle of a few years ago. No one who rides a bike thinks these road divots are a good idea on the winding roads of Vashon, and many car drivers feel that they make driving around cyclists less safe. It is hard to imagine that even third world bike riders would wish rumble strips on their first world counterparts, as riding a bike is already hard enough as it is. Fortunately in this case, the first world chorus of complainers prevailed and the digging stopped, but the echo of ‘what was the Dept. of Transportation thinking?’ continues to this day.

Having joined the boating community last fall, I assumed there would be the usual amount of learning curve issues to get around, but I hadn’t reckoned on the Quartermaster Harbor mooring buoy fiasco to emerge quite so early on in my days at sea. My buoy in Burton Cove came with my boat, and after a few of the blows this winter and all was intact, I didn’t think much more of it- until the email from the Dept. of Natural Resources showed up and got me to head-scratching once more. What caught my eye was that all mooring lines were being cut by divers on April 15th and we were on our own to find safe harbor until  the DNR approved mooring field was installed in August. Until then, why not moor your boat in Gig Harbor or Tacoma, or just tuck your boat safely in your back yard until it’s safe again to come out and play? Why not, indeed.

The April 15th date came and went without multitudes of craft floating free from their formerly fixed points, but a new message came via electronic carrier that a new meeting was now scheduled to discuss how we were to proceed from here. As that day I arrived I headed off to the designated meeting spot and sat down to a similar presentation to that of the first foot ferry meeting. Even though there had been previous meetings about the harbor moorage plan, it soon became apparent that any discussion about possibilities and procedure was simply not happening. It seemed that despite DNR’s claims of eliminating navigation hazards and mitigating wildlife destruction and “protecting the interests of local recreational boaters”, the real reasons for the project were deeply rooted in revenue production and cleaning out the riff raff. In this case it seemed that the naming of first world problems- navigation hazards, habitat destruction, preserving ingress and egress- all seemed to be non problems as protested by some of the long time resident sailors who were present. There is already an unobstructed and clearly marked entrance to the harbor. Abandoned or unused buoys are hardly a navigational hazard to most vessels, and the supposed damage to eelgrass and other aquatic life by the circular swing of the buoy anchor chain is not happening since there is no life down there to be harmed. I will say that having kayaked over two semi-sunken vessels in Dockton this past week, if nothing else they do serve as eerie reminders of the perils of inattention and neglect, but these will not be solved by an orderly buoy field filled with paying customers.

We know what the contractors who came to the is meeting can expect out of this- a one time shot at making a buck on this new policy. And the DNR gets to benefit from a steady revenue stream of yearly fees collected on the numbers inscribed on each buoy. There was some mention in the meeting notes about the establishment of an official harbor master to make sure things stay orderly and neat. But what remained unclear was what the actual benefits of all of this will be to the local boaters and the harbor in general. Will the mountains of revenue that come from this go to any improvements, like perhaps reopening the passage at Portage and allowing for better water flow and circulation in the harbor? And what about cutting a channel across the Burton peninsula so that the waters of  inner and outer harbors can mix and mingle as well? All this would of course lead to Vashon becoming three islands as opposed to almost two. In that case, we could perhaps put in to have what used to be the American Lung Association’s Tri-Island Trek fund raiser staged out here on three actual islands, with of course, all the appropriate warnings beforehand about all of our first world problems. You can never be too careful with that, you know.