The Old Man, the Mountain and the Sea
Naturalist Has Big Plan for Sailboat
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 28, 2004; Page A01


ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. -- At 85, App Applegate keeps pushing the limits of living off the grid.



Out here in Puget Sound, on the upper west side of the American dream, he lives in a shack without running water, listens to National Public Radio on a hand-crank radio and avoids outhouses as ecologically incorrect. He prefers a shovel and an open field.

Barely 5 feet tall, Applegate is a Hobbit-size pioneer among the counterculture cadre that has long sought soggy exile in the far corners of the Pacific Northwest. But Orcas Island, which Seattle millionaires are busily refurbishing as the Martha's Vineyard of the West, is not nearly far out enough for Applegate. So, for the past 15 years, he has been building an escape module.

It's a whopper: An 80-foot, 50-ton, three-masted sailboat. Local sailors say the wooden barkentine is nearly finished, solid and seaworthy, if a bit rough around the gunnels. Applegate built it by hand -- outdoors, often in miserably dank weather -- and he paid for the whole thing with Social Security checks. He plans to sail east around the world to dock in Cienfuegos Bay, Cuba. He's a fervent admirer of Fidel Castro.

There is a logistical kink. The boat sits where it was built: on the side of a mountain beneath towering Douglas firs, 400 feet above sea level, six miles from a suitable boat launch. A narrow dirt road -- steep, potholed and snaggled with switchbacks -- lies between Applegate's boat and its departure for his beloved "Coo-bah."

"We will set sail in April," he said. "I am not yet sure which April."

Before explaining how Applegate -- a retired physics professor and self-described atheist, socialist and radical -- intends to get himself and his boat off the mountain, it makes sense to examine why he went up there in the first place.

"I came to Orcas to sit down and read, to enjoy the ferns and moss and to escape the contemptibility of our politicians," he said.

In this respect, Applegate is not all that far off the demographic grid, as it exists in the Pacific Northwest.

The region is more liberal, more literate and much less religious than the country as a whole. Washington and Oregon lead the states in the percentage of adults who report no religious identification -- 25 percent here, compared with 14 percent nationally.

There is a secular orthodoxy here, and it believes in wild salmon, clean rivers and urban growth management. Twenty-eight percent of the population voted for George W. Bush in 2000, compared with 45 percent nationally. Politicians in Portland and Seattle have welcomed gay marriage. Heterosexual marriage, meanwhile, takes its lumps. The Northwest has a higher divorce rate than any other region of the country.

Politically correct Northwest residents drink Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale and build houses out of wood that is certified by a third party to have been cut from sustainable forests. When Washington state residents die, they are 12 times as likely as Alabamans to be cremated rather than buried. Eco-aware residents, apparently, don't want to contribute to cemetery sprawl.

The name of Applegate's boat is the Aproximada. It's Spanish for "approximate," and the word captures Applegate's design and construction philosophy. It also describes his departure schedule and his technique for recruiting sailors who might want to go with him to Cuba.

The Aproximada has eight berths and will need a crew of at least five. So far, there is only one sure bet.

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