The Great Margaritaville cruise finds One Particular Harbor

Party boat.

Valdez, Alaska, seldom has a hot summer day. Built tight against the Chugach Mountains, surrounded by glaciers, and fronting on the cold North Pacific ocean, it just isn't in a place that encourages heat. But there was a day in 1987 when the temperature rose so high our favorite harbor bartender told us to take a table out into the parking lot to enjoy the late afternoon sea breeze. She promised someone would wait on us and someone did.


So, a bunch of us gathered around that table joined by others now and then and losing a participant occasionally, but a core of about eight of us remained for the duration. Conversation covered the gamut of fishing, boats and weather and sea stories until someone brought up the fact that Jimmy Buffett was playing a concert in Anchorage in the next couple of weeks and we were stuck so far away. There's a line in a Stan Rogers song about the same sort of gathering in which he sings "… with every jar that hit the bar …" a plan grew. It was that way on that hot night in a Valdez bar's parking lot.


With every jar that hit the bar we went from lamenting the fact that we would miss the concert to we could charter the tour boat I drove, get hold of concert tickets, arrange a bus ride from the harbor on the other side of Prince William Sound to the city and then sell tickets to the concert. People were responsible for their own meals and hotel.


First thing the next morning I approached the owner of the company. It being late August the tourist business had begun its late season decline and he allowed the charter. I contacted my daughter's mother in Anchorage and she purchased about $1,200 worth of concert tickets. A friend in another tour outfit scheduled one of the company's buses to take us to and from the harbor in Whittier and then to Anchorage and back and the marketing began. A few posters and a posting on the local cable channel scanner did the trick. We sold out within four days.


In a town with no movie theaters and a name performer coming by once every couple of years, people thirst for entertainment opportunities. Our plan was to leave early in the morning, reach Whittier in early afternoon and take the bus to Anchorage in plenty of time to make the concert. The next day we would meet in a central location, take the bus back to Whittier and the boat back to Valdez.


What could go wrong? For once, nothing at all. We had perfect weather crossing the sound, flat glassy water, blue skies and a party going on in the boat. The owner had installed a generator the year before and in his wildest dreams I don't think he ever expected to hear it used to keep four blenders producing margaritas all day long. With lots of music over the stereo and a calm ride, the 120-mile, six-hour trip passed happily and uneventfully.


In Whittier we secured the boat, met the bus and headed for Anchorage. And finally I could have one of those margaritas.


A few hours later we gathered in our block of seats and enjoyed the concert. Most of us had sailed for years with Jimmy Buffett singing the sound track, so we knew the songs and finally enjoyed a live performance.


Afterward we separated again and went our personal ways, eventually to hotel rooms or friends' couches.


The next day at noon everyone showed up to meet the bus, we didn't lose a soul, and off we went to the boat for the voyage home.


The weather hadn't changed and we enjoyed another clear, flat, glassy day. Feeling so good, I took the boat to places we didn't usually go on our trips and gave the folks a real treat in seeing Prince William Sound. One fellow who had been around for many years said we had showed him places he had never even heard of. The waterfall in Cascade Bay was one of those.


Night fell while we were still under way and we cruised toward the harbor in the dark on a party boat with lights blazing. Maragaritas still flowed, now it was all Buffett on the stereo and people were even dancing. We entered the harbor and I found the song I wanted. "One Particular Harbor" and played it loud enough to be heard on shore.


Right in front of the windows that overlooked the harbor from that bar I did a couple of brodies in the harbor's turning basin while the song blasted and passengers danced on the weather deck, waving to people in the bar who by then had spotted us.


When the song ended I pulled up to the dock where tour boats discharged passengers and let the partiers off, then went to our own slip with the crew. Once we had the boat secured, we all went up to the bar where the party was still in progress and lasted well into the night. At one point the owner of another bar in town, who had been on the trip, said it had been so good, if I wanted to do another one some time he would front the money. But that was for another day. The euphoria of the experience still had a grip and the party kept going until the last jar hit the bar.


The next morning I woke up and walked into the main cabin. I felt something out of place and it occurred to me that you know you had a good party when you walk in the next day and your floor is still sticky from spilled margaritas. It took a while to clean that boat but it was worth it. Over all, I lost about $90 for the effort and that was worth it too.


Now almost 30 years later I run into people who were on that cruise and they still talk about it. A defining moment? Maybe. Just plain fun? Absolutely.

Jimmy Buffett's 1987 A Pirate Looks at Forty Tour