This column features recollections of the author’s 36 years as a golf writer. These installments stem from his many travels and experiences, which led to a gradual understanding that the game has many intriguing components, especially its people.
Over the past eight years I’ve covered a lot of ground in this column . My golf subjects have ranged from personality profiles, trends, history, conservation efforts, books, industry-boosting programs, travelogues, and other meanderings.
One area not touched upon is moving – lock, stock, and barrel – to a different place. This is because I haven’t had to in a long time, until now. Maybe golf course superintendents can relate. After all, to enhance one’s horizons – regardless of occupation or situation in life – and find happiness it’s okay to leave one’s comfort zone in search of greener pastures.
That’s the scenario envisioned by my wife and me as we pack up – donating, discarding, and recycling untold “stuff” accumulated from living in the same home 31 years – and leave the big city of Seattle before venturing northwestward across Puget Sound to Whidbey Island.
This decision is a life-changer, in many ways. Living on an island means being 23 miles – and an inland sea – away from family and friends. But it’s a 20-minute car ferry trip across Puget Sound (when conditions are perfect, and excluding wait times in line; boarding and exiting procedures; wild weather; ship malfunctions; etc.)
We’re vacating a comfortable space within a familiar community where places to eat, drink, listen to music and walk the dog are second nature. The move involves selling our 30-year-long membership at Sand Point Country Club, where our daughter got married and we’ve celebrated milestone birthdays, attended memorial services, won some hardware in golf tournaments, and forged lifelong friendships and memories.
But the list of things to do for this move is daunting:
- What stuff to take or discard? How about our dog and cat, which will undergo the most abrupt change in their lives?
- Overseeing complicated logistics: renting a place on Whidbey while our Seattle home is “staged” for sale; finding a trustworthy moving company and temporary Whidbey storage facility for our worldly goods before buying a new home; medical appointments in Seattle with current doctors; renting a post office box before getting a permanent address; and so on.
The length of this punch list reminds me of a Gary Larson cartoon that shows an overwhelmed, small-headed student raising his hand in class and asking the teacher: “Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full.”
If it weren’t for my motivated wife’s and my sense of adventure, or our desire to see this big move to fruition, we’d be overwhelmed. But dagnabbit, it’s time for us to do something different. And if we don’t do it now, we never will. I read long ago that people who successfully adjust to transformative moments in their lives are happier and live longer.
We’ll soon find out if that’s true.
Where We’re Moving
Ranked 40th among America’s 68 largest islands, Whidbey (pop. 58,000) stretches 37 miles south to north and 1.5 to 10 miles in width, comprising 169 square miles. It’s not an isolated island in the true sense, as motorists can drive off the north end via the ominous-sounding Deception Pass Bridge to reach Washington State’s mainland.
For millennia, this islet was occupied by Native-American tribes (who called their ancestral homeland “Tscha-kole-chy”) before the arrival of Europeans. Spanish explorers came first in 1790, followed two years later by British Royal Navy captain, George Vancouver, during his 1785-1791 Northwest expedition in the HMS Discovery.
In typical British-Colonial fashion, Vancouver disregarded the natives’ placenames and anglicized them on his maps, updating cartographic drawings originally conceptualized in 1593, in Antwerp, Belgium, of all places. With his first dibs on naming rights, Capt. George lives on in both Vancouver, British Columbia, and Vancouver, Washington.
In addition, he christened 75 prominent landmarks in the Pacific Northwest that exist today. Prominent among these are Whidbey Island (after shipmaster Joseph Whidbey) and Puget Sound (lieutenant Peter Puget). Vancouver dubbed Mount Rainier after his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier – though, for centuries, it’s been revered as “Tahoma” by Washington State tribes.
Once settled on the island we will become members of one of my favorite-named golf clubs anywhere – Useless Bay. Likely in a disgusted mood, Vancouver named this place after anchoring the HMS Discovery during a storm. He was stranded for several weeks on its sandy shore, unaware of fluctuating tides that vary with the time of the year. Instead of honoring colleagues, he angrily jotted down a placename that now identifies a neighborhood and golf course which opened with nine holes in 1967 (a second nine followed in 1974).
We aren’t the first Seattleites or other city dwellers to move to Whidbey Island and won’t be the last. Indeed, many Puget Sound islands have experienced a recent influx of new inhabitants. During the pandemic and advent of remote work, Seattle-area folks headed to rural climes as well as holiday/vacation island destinations such as this.
Major islands in Puget Sound include Bainbridge (named after William, Commander of the USS Constitution, a War of 1812 frigate); San Juan, Lopez, Camano, and Orcas (Spanish origins from a 1791 visit); and Vashon (Vancouver’s Royal Navy buddy, James Vashon).
Whidbey and Camano are the only two with bridges connecting the mainland. It’s comforting to have the option of “driving around,” a much longer commute than via ferry, when one of the 21 vessels in this world-class system is out of service (sadly, a regular occurrence of late). Also notable is that Whidbey lies partially in an Olympic Mountain Range rain shadow, resulting in around 20 inches of annual rainfall compared to Seattle’s 39.
What We’re Hoping For
We’re seeking a little peace and quiet while leaving behind the hectic “noise” and traffic of a big city. It’ll take some time to adapt to a mellower pace. (When asked where they’re going on the ferry, many Whidbey-ites grumble in response, “The United States.”)
We hope to spot an orca breaching; eat fresh-caught salmon and Dungeness crab (many islanders have crab pots off-shore); observe and photograph waterfowl and raptors; find “Bruiser” the lonely elk, which 10 years ago left the Skagit Valley and swam across the Sound to a new home at Whidbey’s Strawberry Point; and hike the many saltwater-lapped coasts and inland forests of this mysterious new place.
And who knows? Maybe we’ll find a few birdies at Useless Bay Golf & Country Club.
Jeff Shelley has written and published nine books as well as numerous articles for print and online media over his lengthy career. Among his titles are three editions of the book, “Golf Courses of the Pacific Northwest.” The Seattle resident was the editorial director of Cybergolf.com from 2000-15. He also co-founded the Northwest Golf Media Association in 1995. For seven years he served as the board president of First Green, an educational outreach program that is now part of the Golf Course Superintendents of America and Environmental Institute for Golf.
