One Boater's Trash

Old-school roller skates? Check.
Romance novels? Check.
Perfectly good pants emblazoned with tiny teacups? Check.

Nope, this isn’t my Christmas wish list. These are just some of the tempting items sitting on Shilshole Marina’s free shelf today. The gallon-sized Ziploc filled with 27 tubes of Zipfizz came back to the boat with me (the pink lemonade flavor isn’t all that bad, save for the mildly funky aftertaste… still waiting for my energy boost, however).

The free shelf is always strewn with a variety of unique items, and poking through the clutter is a great way to kill time when you show up a few minutes early to transfer over your laundry. You’d really be amazed at the turn-over rate on wicker baskets, wrought-iron dog beds, computer monitors circa 1992, rusty muffin tins (with crud in the corners) and other trash… er, treasure. Here today, gone tomorrow. Everyone knows that boaters like a deal. And you can’t do much better than free.

Our fair share of flotsam and jetsam has washed up on the free shelf—old clothes, extra galley items, raingear (no roller skates or romance novels, though)—since it’s much easier to plop something on the shelf than to drive down to Goodwill. So I don’t feel bad when I take an armload of magazines… or Zipfizz. Give and take, right?

Now that I’ve advertised the teacup pants to the world, I’d better go grab them before someone else does…

Hmmm… This might become a recurring post: What’s on the free shelf today? Stay tuned.