Page 8 - Early Winter 2022 SWHS Newsletter.indd

South Whidbey Historical Society
PO Box 612
Langle
A 98260
y W
Langley WA 98260

www.SouthWhidbeyHistory.org

The dock at Mutiny Bay Resort

Written by Harold Egerton
My parents, Howard and Millie Our biggest project was building the
Egerton, purchased Mutiny Bay Resort dock in 1962. I was 20 years old and

from Chet Holt in 1955 and operated it took two quarters off college to help.
for 20 years. The property had 300 feet of My younger brother Gary also helped.
sandy beach waterfront with a restaurant, We used 20-foot creosote pilings (orig-

two boathouses, 20 fisherman cabins, the inally made to be telephone poles) which
house we lived in, and a storage building. had washed up onto the beach from a a four-foot-wide ramp with chain link
In front of the boathouse was a small boom that had broken up in a storm. fence and wheels on the end of the ramp

gauge iron track which ran 100 feet into Borrowing a half-track vehicle (wheels to roll up and down on the floats when the
the water. We launched 16-foot wooden on the front and caterpillar tracks on the tide came in and out.

plank fishing boats on that metal track for back), we installed an A frame with a The two floats were made from cedar
a few years. The contraption consisted of hand cranked winch on the front of the logs and boards we had milled. Each

belts and pulleys. About once a day, we vehicle to pick up the creosote pilings and float was 30 feet long by 6 feet wide. We
applied rosin to the belts and pulleys so stood them on end. We had a seven-horse pulled the ramp up onto the dock in the
the belts would not start to slip. Briggs & Stratton motor hooked to a winter and took the floats onto the beach.

We soon came up with a better system pump so there was strong enough water We placed 8 buoys in the deep water for
for launching the boats. My father in- pressure to sluice the sand from under the people to tie up their boats. They would
stalled pilings in from the boathouse 250 pilings so they would sink down into the get back and forth to shore using a small
feet out to a shack on the beach which sand 8 feet until they hit the hard pan. We rowboat which was on the floats.

had a contraption that he made from the put two rows of pilings from the shore to The buoys were made out of old tires
rear end of a car. It had belts running to minus low tide area using this method. and beer kegs with a chain with swivels
an electric motor, pulling the boats past We then hired Mr. “Cat” Cattron from on each end. The anchor was made out of
the shack and slinging them down a small Langley. He used a pile driver to install a 3' x 3' cement block which would dig
hill we built. It was high enough that it had the pilings from the low tide area out to into the sand and hold very well. Every
quite a slant as it ran down into the water. about 250 feet. We had enough pilings to Spring, we used a hand crank winch to
Gravity got the boats into the water. complete the entire dock. lower the anchors into the water and in
We found a huge log, (Douglas Fir) on the Fall we pulled them up and stored the

the beach that had washed up south of the chain in a five gallon bucket with stove oil
resort that was three feet in diameter and to protect them from saltwater corrosion.
20 feet long. We pulled it into the boat- Warren Burrier and Harry Josephson
house and cut it into sections long enough helped with the pilings and nailing down
to go between the pilings as stringers. To some of the decking on the dock.
make it into 2' x 12' planks, we took it I think some of the original pilings that
up to Lehman’s Sawmill near Freeland to are there now are the same ones we in-
have the planks made. The wood was so stalled in 1962. It is amazing to me that

fine, there wasn’t a knot in it. when I look at maps of Mutiny Bay, the
20-year-old Harold Egerton helped his fa- At the far end of the dock, we built a 12' same dock we built for our little resort is
ther build the dock at Mutiny Bay in 1962. x 12' platform for a pumphouse and built now a landmark on all the maps!
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