A Dream Comes True

The Dolores M. Jackson, a 43-foot Murray Peterson designed coastal schooner, built over 32 years by Roy and Dee Jackson.

I met Roy Jackson in 1982 when we worked together at an advertising agency. At that time, he already had six years invested in building the Dolores M. Jackson, a 43-foot Murray Peterson designed coastal schooner. The schooner gradually took shape in a shed at his house on Bainbridge Island.

Turn the clock ahead twenty-six years to September of 2008. Visualize calendar pages turning, and a line being drawn on a navigation chart marking our course from Seattle to Bainbridge Island as my wife Nola, daughter Sara and I sail our boat to spend the night at Winslow Wharf Marina in Eagle Harbor. I evaluate marinas on their P/D ratio. What is a P/D ratio, you might ask? Pub to Dock ratio, of course! There are three pubs within a couple of hundred yards from Winslow Wharf Marina, so we sail there a few times a year to spend the night and sometimes visit with friends that live on the island.

On this voyage, we got a chance to meet up with Roy and Dee (Dolores M.) Jackson. After 32 years, their dream had come true and the Dolores M. Jackson was nearly complete, sitting perfectly on her lines a few docks away from where we were moored for the night.

I walked our Cairn terrier, Ella, over to Roy and Dee’s boat and was surprised to see another Cairn Terrier already aboard! Iris is Roy and Dee’s Cairn terrier, and her nose was a bit out of joint when another terrier invaded her territory. Iris remained on deck while Ella checked out the beautifully laid out and appointed cabin below deck.


Dee Jackson and our dog Ella relax in the library aboard the Dolores M. Jackson

The galley is set up very efficiently, with a large sink and plenty of storage space. Books surround the library on shelves behind the settees, and a Dickenson stove keeps the cabin warm and cozy. Deck prisms let in the sunlight from above and cast rainbows here and there, adding a magical quality to the light inside the cabin.


Roy plays host in the galley

The salon amidship has comfortable seating, upholstered in supple Italian leather, and a bunk to climb into for a good night’s sleep. The light color of the leather is balanced by the dark, hand-finished woodwork and bright, white enamel.


Creamy Italian leather sets off the dark finish of the wood in the salon amidship

The spars were recently stepped while the Jackson was on a grid in Poulsbo, a Scandanavian fishing town a few miles away from Bainbridge Island. My great-great granparents lived in the 1880’s. All that remains to be done for the Jackson to be completed is a bit of rigging before bending on the sails, and then she will take her maiden voyage under sail.

Roy searched far and wide for just the right sail maker and found one in Maine in the hometown of the boat’s designer, Murray Peterson. Roy called sail maker Nat Wilson and explained what he needed. Nat said he had done sails for a number of similar packet schooners, and would be glad to take the job. Nat said that Roy would have to wait a while, because he had a big job ahead of him. When Roy asked what the job was, Nat responded: “The USS Constitution”. Nat built the suit of sails used when Old Ironsides sailed for the first time in 117 years to mark her bicentennial. Roy said he could probably wait for that.

He offered to send Nat a set of plans for the Jackson with the dimensions of the sails. Nat said not to bother sending plans; he would just walk across the street and get some. Puzzled, Roy asked for an explanation of how Nat was going to get the plans, and Nat said that he was looking out his window at Bill Peterson’s house, son of the designer Murray Peterson. It seems that Nat and Bill had been room mates in college and Bill kept copies of his father’s designs. Small world

On deck, the Dolores M. Jackson has traditional running rigging with blocks and tackles; not a single winch to be seen! By coincidence, Gordon Sims, Roy’s friend who has been helping to rig the boat, was the Captain aboard the schooner Adventuress when our daughter Sara was an intern on the crew. Small world!


Looking forward on deck. Not a winch to be seen!

Every detail of the boat is traditional and authentic. Finding rare parts and supplies was part of the challenge that Dee and Roy faced. Rather than settle with a plain steering wheel, Roy had a wheel cast with “Dolores M. Jackson” in raised letters. Nice touch!


The steering wheel has the name of the vessel, “Dolores M. Jackson” cast in raised letters

Many people have dreams, but very few of them are realized. Roy and Dee Jackson are part of that rare group that can make dreams come true.

For more photos and stories about the construction and launching of the Dolores M. Jackson, visit her website at http://doloresmjackson.com/

Sublime’s Maiden Cruise from Shilshole Bay

Sublime sailing downwind making 7.4 knots

Our 27-foot Coronado sailboat, Sublime, had been moored on Seattle’s Lake Union for the past year or so, which definitely had its good points. Our dock had a perfect view of the fireworks on the Fourth of July, and we stayed aboard on New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks on the Space Needle. We even did a few of the Duck Dodge races on warm Tuesday evenings in the summer and rafted up with the other boats after the race for a floating party with a few hundred other sailors.

My wife, Nola, and I love to go for overnight cruises on our boat, usually accompanied by our Cairn terrier, Ella. When the boat was on Lake Union, to get to the cruising grounds on Puget Sound we had to go through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and wait for the Fremont Bridge to raise, then pass through a set of locks, transitioning from fresh water to salt water. On a good day, the trip to the salt chuck would take an hour and half. On a bad day, it could take four hours. Ella, who had been the perfect boat dog up until these frequent trips through the ship canal, was reduced to a quivering mass because we would blow the loud boat’s horn to signal the bridge tender to raise the bridge. If we got anywhere near a bridge, even without blowing the horn, she would become catatonic. Or should I say dogatonic?


Ella decked out in her sailing gear, still worried about loud boat horns.

When I got the call from the harbor master at Shilshole Bay Marina on Puget Sound saying that our name had come to the top of the waiting list for a slip, I jumped at the chance. No more waiting for the locks! In the time it had taken us to get from Lake Union to Puget Sound, we could be at a half dozen beautiful overnight destinations from our new slip at Shilshole.


Nola and Ella aboard Sublime at her new slip at Shilshole Bay Marina

The weather forecast for President’s Day weekend promised sunshine and moderate temperatures. After the unusually wet and chilly winter we have been having in Seattle, it seemed like the perfect chance for our maiden cruise on Sublime out of Shilshole. We packed some warm clothes, made a run to the grocery store for provisions and drove the easy ten-minute drive to the boat. We decided to cruise to Kingston the first night. The water was glassy calm and we had a flood current against us, so we motored ninety minutes north to the Port of Kingston Marina. Within a half hour or so, Ella had figured there were no bridges in sight, so she began to relax.


Bundled up in the cockpit on the way to Kingston

Kingston is a small town with lots of character. If you go, do try the take-out Crepes at J’ Aime Les Crepes, or the microbrews and great food at the Main Street Ale House. Nola and I had cocktails at the Ale House and went back to the boat to cook dinner of pasta with Marsala sauce and chicken.


Main Street in Kingston has great restaurants a short walk from the marina

The marina is nestled into well-protected Kingston Cove, which is ringed with cottages and beaches that are exposed when the tide goes out.


Cottages on Kingston Cove

The outer bay at Kingston is called Apple Cove, and is the home to the Washington State Ferry terminal that connects Kingston to Edmonds.


The ferry Klickitat

There is a short trail from the ferry landing to a beautiful, sandy beach that looks out at Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains.


Beach combing on Apple Cove

The waters near Kingston are abundant with marine life. In season, salmon and Dungeness crab are plentiful. We saw a strange creature as we walked down the dock at the marina and it came over to study us. It was a Rat Fish, with large, bulging eyes and a slender, tapered tail reminiscent of its namesake.


A curious Rat Fish swims close to check us out.

After a wonderful night sleeping on the boat as if being rocked gently in a cradle, Ella insisted on going on her morning constitutional at 5:15 a.m. Grrrrr. I walked carefully on the frosty docks to take her ashore. I went back to sleep when I returned to the boat, then awoke to the aroma of fresh coffee brewing in the galley. I cooked pancakes with real maple syrup for breakfast and we prepared for the next leg of our cruise to Port Madison on Bainbridge Island.


Morning light illuminates the Port of Kingston Marina

The conditions were perfect for sailing – a tailwind from the north at about 12 knots and a flood current sweeping us toward Port Madison. We reached a peak speed over the bottom of 7.4 knots! The scenery was so beautiful we were on sensory overload. The chill wind stung our cheeks and whipped the waves into whitecaps that glistened in the sun, Overhead, the sky was a deep, indigo blue. We were flanked on every side by snow-capped peaks. The Olympic Mountains with their rugged peaks and glaciers stood out like a 3D picture on our west side, and to the east the Cascade Range showed a coat of fresh snow down below the tree line. Huge volcanoes stood sentry to the north and south of us; Mount Baker was crystal clear a hundred miles to the north, but Mount Rainier was still waking up, barely visible, wrapped in a blanket of mist.


The Olympic Mountains standing tall as we sailed to Port Madison

Nola had been below in the cozy, heated cabin and chose just the right moment to take a break from reading her novel and come on deck. She looked across the water and saw some seabirds that looked unfamiliar. She grabbed the binoculars and saw that the birds had orange beaks, tufted heads and dark plumage. Nola looked in the bird book we keep on the boat and discovered that these were Tufted Puffins. Think arctic Toucans. We had never seen them before. Hope we see them again. It took only an hour and half to sail to Port Madison, and we only had to do one gybe!


Nola finds a good place to read a book in the sunshine at Port Madison, with Ella by her side.

We were lucky to get one of the last remaining slips at Port Madison, and after we got the boat put away, I made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Port Madison was a town with a large lumber mill before the settlers landed in Seattle. The founders of Port Madison hailed from Cape Cod, so the older houses and many that followed have Cape Cod architecture. The mill is long gone, replaced by charming waterfront homes. You would swear you were in New England when you look around the bay.


Sublime is dwarfed by the yachts surrounding her at Port Madison

Nola made a delicious omelet for breakfast the next morning, and then we sailed back home with a brisk north wind on our beam. An hour and ten minutes later we were back to our slip at Shilshole, glad that we didn’t have to make the trip through the locks and ship canal. Our faces had some color from the sun and the wind, and we were happy that we could cure our cabin fever with a wonderful overnight cruise – the first of many to come from our new homeport.

Yacht to Victoria, Floatplane Home

Little Harbor 68 at Shilshole Bay Marina

This was a week of coincidences, connections and crossed paths that reminded me that we really do live in a small world.

My wife Nola and I had already planned to spend a weekend in Victoria, B.C. by flying on a Kenmore Air floatplane and spending a night at the Empress Hotel. When I learned that my friends at Brower Boat were going to deliver a yacht there on the Thursday before the weekend we had scheduled, I jumped on the opportunity. Nola opted out because she had work to do, but I decided to go early and get a chance to spend some time on a fine yacht with my buddies, brothers Carroll and Mark Brower and another Brower Boat employee, Vern, who hails from the island of Bequia in the St. Vincents and Grenadines in the Caribbean.

If you could see the boat we made the trip on, you would understand why I was so eager to go on the delivery. This was a Yacht with a capital Y; a Little Harbor 68 sloop in bristol condition. It had four staterooms, three heads featuring towels with the yacht name embroidered on them, a huge main salon with a flat panel TV, and a galley the size of the kitchen in our house except with more refrigerator and freezer space. The owner needed to boat to go to Victoria to be put on a yacht delivery ship and go through the Panama Canal to Florida. The trip on the ship would cost as much as 35 foot used sailboat in good condition.

On Wednesday evening, I helped Carroll bring the yacht from Lake Union through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the locks to Shilshole Bay Marina so we could get an early start the next morning for Victoria. Also along for that leg of the trip was Tom Andrews, who works with Carroll at Brower Boat. Tom is a New Zealander who used to run the Lidgard sail loft in Honolulu. The locks opened as soon as we approached, but we did have to wait a while for the railroad bridge on the outside of the locks to open due to the approach of an Amtrak train.


Making 10 knots enroute to Victoria

We left Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle at about 8:30 on a gray, chilly January morning . As we cleared the marina breakwater, Carroll turned the wheel over to me and I immediately delegated the driving duties to our friend Otto (A.K.A. autopilot).

Down below, the main salon glowed with the color of teak and the heating system made it warm and cozy inside. Mark and Vern provisioned the boat with hot coffee, pastries, cookies and sandwiches. Mark found the local NPR jazz station on the stereo so we had a sound track for our adventure that matched the elegant style of the yacht.


Main salon of the Little Harbor 68



The waters of Puget Sound were calm, and the snow on the Olympic Mountains showed through breaks in the cloud cover. We cranked up the big diesel to cruising RPMs and cut smoothly through the water at about 9.5 knots. As the current began to ebb in our direction, our speed over the ground increased to as high as 14 knots, so the scenery was moving by at a good clip.


Carroll at the wheel

As we approached Port Townsend, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and two escort vessels passed us. Huge! It made a blip on the radar screen that looked like small island.

North of Port Townsend, the Straits of Juan de Fuca awaited us. This body of water connects Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean and lies in a funnel between the Olympic Mountains to the south and the landmass of Vancouver Island to the North, so the wind can be accelerated through this narrow slot. If the current is opposing the wind, the Straits can produce killer waves. Not this day. The water was glassy calm, with only a few freighter and tugboat wakes that were handled easily by the 105,000-pound displacement of the Little Harbor 68.


Mark and Vern bundled up against the cold

We set a course of 280 degrees magnetic across the straits and made for Victoria. We pulled into the harbor only 7 hours after departing Seattle! We found the customs dock and only took a few minutes for Carrolll to clear us and get on the radio with the harbormaster to get a slip for the night. We tied up in the same slip that the yacht Atalanta did after I raced on her for the 2007 Swiftsure International Yacht Regatta. See my blog story about that race.



After the solitude of being the only boat in our proximity for hours, the Victoria inner harbor seemed busy by comparison. The ferry Coho that runs between Port Angeles and Victoria blew three short blasts on her horn and backed out of her slip causing us to change course. We slalomed our way through several floatplanes, and a police boat decided it would be a good idea to cross our bow as we were making our way to our slip. We got the boat tied up near the Empress Hotel and got everything put away.


Little Harbor 68 at her slip near the Empress Hotel in Victoria’s Inner Harbor

Carroll, Mark, Vern and I got settled into our respective hotel rooms and met later at the Bengal Lounge in the Empress Hotel, which gets its style from the days when India was a British colony. There is an impressive Bengal tiger pelt hanging on the wall above a roaring fireplace and the signature entree is the curry bar.


The Bengal Tiger that is the namesake of the lounge at the Empress Hotel

The next day, I bowed out while the other guys brought the boat to Esquimalt Harbor to put on the yacht transport ship. They had to wait longer than expected because a 93 foot sailing yacht from Seattle, Altair, was being loaded onto the ship. It turns out our friend Joe Grieser was aboard Altair. Small world.


Our luxurious room at the Empress Hotel


The view from our room of the Inner Harbor

I got a chance to spend the next couple of days visiting my favorite haunts in Victoria, and I met Nola on Saturday morning when her floatplane arrived. We checked into our harbor side room at the Empress Hotel to start our weekend together. We enjoyed the hot tub and pool at the hotel, strolled the town and did some shopping. Nola had cobb salad for lunch and I had bangers & mash at the Irish Times. For dinner, we feasted on the curry bar at the Bengal Lounge.


Our ride home taxis to the dock

Sunday afternoon, the wind in the Victoria Inner Harbor was blowing about 25 knots and there was some doubt that the floatplane we were booked on would be able to fly in those conditions. The pilot had to attempt landing at the dock twice because he was blown away the first time. We boarded the floatplane for the beautiful, one-hour flight at about 1000 feet above the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound. We landed on Lake Union, completing a full circle. The floatplane harbor was just a few docks away from where I had started the trip on the yacht. We drove about 10 minutes back to our house in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, feeling as if we had been to a far away land.


Full circle: approaching Lake Union as we pass the Space Needle.

Nautical New Year's Eve in Seattle

Fireworks on the Space Needle mark the beginning of 2008.



Every New Year’s Eve, about 400,000 people gather at view points around Seattle to watch the fireworks on the Space Needle at midnight. Some of the best vantage points are from boats moored on Lake Union and Elliott Bay.

Our evening started with a wonderful house party with our dear friends, Keith and Janet. We got to see some old friends, meet some new ones and enjoy some delicious crab cakes and other delicacies. My wife, Nola, and I left early to run by our house and pick up Ella, our cairn terrier, and drive ten minutes to our boat on Lake Union.

At the marina, our neighbors in the slips on either side of us were on their boats to celebrate. As far as you could see along the shore, there were lights glowing from portholes and parties happening on yachts. Firecrackers were going off, and the sound of party noisemakers could be heard drifting across the water.

At the stroke of midnight, the fireworks blasted off on the Space Needle. After just a bit, they stopped and we wondered if that was all, but they got the show going again with only one more brief interruption. Fireworks lit up the needle from the base to the top, and the clear, cold sky made for perfect viewing. Yachts were blasting their horns to mark the passing of another year and the beginning of 2008.


Ella and Nola snuggle into bed aboard Sublime.

We settled into the cozy, warm cabin of Sublime for a good night’s sleep, being rocked by the gentle waves like a baby in a cradle. In the morning, we had delicious, hot coffee and a breakfast of pancakes and sausage. What is about eating on a boat that makes the food taste so good?


Nola aboard Sublime with the Space Needle in the background.

We took Ella for a walk along the shore of South Lake Union and visited the Center for Wooden Boats, where the members of the Pacific Northwest Fleet of the Classic Yacht Association had moored their gorgeous wooden boats to bring in the new year.


Classic wooden yachts gather at the Center for Wooden Boats to celebrate New Year’s Eve.


The view of the Space Needle from the Center for Wooden Boats.

Seattle to Port Townsend by Passenger Ferry

Water jets push the passenger ferry Snohomish at a speed of 30 knots.

Washington State Ferries recently took the 80-year old Steel Electric car ferries that ran between Port Townsend and Keystone on Whidbey Island out of service because it was determined that maintenance to make them safe to operate would be cost prohibitive. It will be at least 14 months before new car ferries are back in service, leaving Port Townsend high and dry during this important holiday shopping season. To help Port Townsend merchants, a passenger ferry from Seattle to Port Townsend was added. My wife, Nola and I needed to finish off our holiday shopping, but we couldn’t stand the thought of fighting traffic in our car and elbowing our way through throngs of mall shoppers. When we heard about the new passenger ferry to Port Townsend, we jumped at the opportunity. The Snohomish, a high-speed catamaran operated by Washington State Ferries, departs from Pier 50 at Colman Dock on the Seattle waterfront four times a day, reaching Port Townsend in ninety minutes. Round trip fare is only $6.70! On our voyage, we passed close by the lighthouses at West Point and Point No Point, and saw huge container ships steaming their way down the sound.





Passenger ferry Snohomish docking in Port Townsend

We docked at the Washington State Ferry terminal in the heart of the Port Townsend waterfront, walking distance from the shops, galleries and restaurants. If you take the 8:30 a.m. boat from Seattle, it allows enough time to stroll around Port Townsend for about five hours, have lunch, do some shopping and take the boat home and be back in Seattle by 4:15 p.m. without ever touching the steering wheel of a car!


The Snohomish docks walking distance from the shops, galleries and restaurants in Port Townsend.

If you have more time, you may want to spend the night at one of the many, eclectic B&Bs or hotels in Port Townsend. We stayed at The Commander’s Beach House, a bed & breakfast right on the water near Point Hudson Marina. The innkeeper, Jim Oldroyd, picked us up at the ferry dock and drove us to the Beach House. Built in 1934 in the Colonial Revival Style, the Beach House was originally the residence for the Commanding Medical Officer of the U.S. Quarantine Station at Point Hudson.

The Commander’s Beach House, a B&B built in 1934 in Colonial Revival Style.

After getting settled into our room, we walked three blocks into town and completed our holiday shopping. Rather than shop at the same chain stores that are at most major malls, we were able to browse shops and galleries with one-of-a kind arts, crafts and merchandise. After shopping, we dropped into the Water Street Brewing and Ale House for appetizers and drinks. We were expecting typical bar food, but were pleasantly surprised when we were served gourmet smoked salmon on croquets and crab cakes that were to die for.

The living room at The Commander’s Beach House – a great place to curl up with a good book.

When we woke up in the morning, there was a break in the gray, rainy weather and the sun broke out against a deep blue sky. We took a walk on the beach and visited the Wooden Boat Foundation, which has a store and boat chandlery with hard-to-find supplies for wooden boats.

The Wooden Boat Foundation headquarters and store at Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend.

Our host, Jim, drove us back to the ferry dock, and I was concerned to see that the wind had increased to about 30 knots, whipping up four-foot whitecaps on the water. I was afraid our trip home on the Snohomish would be rather bumpy, but it turned out to be remarkably smooth. The bright sun highlighted the spray from the waves as the boat cut through the water like a knife through butter. The view was spectacular as we made our way back home to Seattle.

The view of Puget Sound from the cabin of the passenger ferry Snohomish.

We returned home with our holiday shopping done, feeling very relaxed and refreshed. Compare that to fighting gridlocked traffic and mall madness! The passenger ferry between Seattle and Port Townsend is only going to be in service through early January, 2008, so if you are interested in taking this trip, do it soon!

Port Townsend Passenger Ferry Trip Information
Washington State Ferry Schedule & Fares 1-888-808-7977

Port Townsend Passenger Ferry Schedule

From Seattle: 8:30 a.m, 12:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m.

From Port Townsend: 6:45 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:45 p.m., 6:15 p.m.

Round trip passenger fare: $6.70

Port Townsend Lodging Info
http://www.ptguide.com/

Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival 2007

Boats of all sizes show their stuff at the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival

A Festival to Celebrate Wooden Boats

The Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival has been happening on the fourth of July weekend for 31 years now. If you have never been, you owe it to yourself to go sometime. It is a festival in the best sense of the word, with live music, art exhibits, and workshops to pass on nearly forgotten skills. It is a time for people with an affinity for the water to come together and share the experience of being surrounded by gorgeous wooden boats, and maybe take a free ride on a New Haven Sharpie, a 36-foot cat-rigged ketch designed for harvesting oysters on the Chesapeake.

The Festival is hosted by the Center for Wooden Boats (CWB), and is staged by a small, hard-working staff and boatloads of energetic volunteers. I love to go to the festival because I get to see all the friends I've made hanging around the Center for Wooden Boats for years. I taught sailing there for a long time, and my kids Skyler and Sara pretty much grew up there. The festival gives CWB a chance to spotlight its own collection, and dozens of classic boat owners from all over the northwest cruise to Lake Union to exhbit their yachts.

Pirate Gets a New Lease On Life

One of the most historic boats on view at the festival was the legendary R-boat, Pirate, designed by Seattle naval architect Ted Geary, built by Lake Union Drydock and launched in 1926. In her day, Pirate was a racing boat to be reckoned with. She was the first west coast yacht to compete on the east coast, where she topped L. Francis Herreshoff's Yankee to win the R-boat national sailing championships in 1929. Scott Rohrer, long-time CWB volunteer, found Pirate in California in less than pristine condition and formed a syndicate of donors to finance bringing her back home to Lake Union. After years of hard work, Scott's volunteer team and generous donors have Pirate in bristol condition. While I walked the festival, I happened to be at Pirates's slip just in time to hand crew member Paul Marlow a mooring line as they returned from a jaunt on the Lake.


The legendary R-boat Pirate after a sail on Lake Union

Pirate Pond Yachts Born Again

In 1927, at the urging of a sports writer for the Los Angeles Evening Herald, Pirate designer Ted Geary copied her lines in a 1/12 scale pond yacht. School boys at Westlake (Now MacArthur Park in Los Angeles) and on Seattle's Green Lake raced their Pirate pond yachts for a chance to ride on the real Pirate. CWB volunteer Paul Marlow has helped bring Pirate pond yachting to a new generation of kids, who now race the models they build at school to earn a coveted summer internship at the Center for Wooden Boats. At the 2007 Festival, kids got to use sticks with tennis balls on the end to keep Pirate pond yachts on course.


Kids playing with Pirate pond yachts, a tradition started by designer Ted Geary in the 1927

Live music plays as the Arthur Foss tugboat puffs away



The 1899 tugboat, Arthur Foss, was on display at the Festival, with her stack puffing away. I was standing next to the Arthur just as her whistle shattered the airwaves, causing small children to run for their mothers. Foss Tugs was started by Thea Foss, the real-life person after whom the fictional character Tugboat Annie was based.

Virginia V Just Keeps Steaming Along

Another vintage work boat at the festival was the Virginia V, the last remaining commercially licensed passenger steam vessel in the U.S. She was built in 1922 for the Mosquito Fleet, small passenger ferries that served communities on Puget Sound and Lake Washington. I can remember cruising on the Virginia V when I was about ten years old, crossing Shilshole Bay on Puget Sound, sailing under the Agate Pass bridge connecting Bainbridge Island to the Kitsap Peninsula, and landing at Kiana Lodge for my Dad's company picnic.


The Virginia V, the last operating commercial steam passenger vessel in the U.S.

Floating Wood Sculptures

The Seattle Art Museum recently opened the Olympic Sculpture Park, overlooking Seattle's Elliott Bay. On this weekend, there was another sculpture park in Seattle,with wooden sculptures afloat on Lake Union.


Sexy curves of a water taxi from Venice, Italy

About the Center for Wooden Boats

The Founding Director of the Center for Wooden Boats is Dick Wagner. CWB started at the house boat on the northwest shore of Lake Union that Dick and his wife Colleen still call home. Dick was an architect and urban planner with collection of small, wooden boats that he rented out to visitors. When his passion for wooden boats exceeded his desire to be an architect, Dick found a way to follow his heart. He approached the Seattle City Council with an offer they could not refuse. The deal? An affordable lease for the most blighted part of the industrial shoreline of Lake Union to Dick's new non-profit organization, the Center for Wooden Boats, in return for making it the most beautiful part of the Lake. Dick and his legion of volunteers exceeded that promise.

Today, the Center for Wooden Boats is an oasis in the middle of urban chaos. As you walk down the gang plank toward the floating docks and buildings of the Center, you can feel the stress of city life dissapate. By the time you reach the clubhouse, you are transported into a different time and place. The architectural style is that of a turn-of-the century boat livery. As you walk the docks, you pass by wooden row boats, a floating workshop, and a fleet of classic sailboats.

At most maritime museums, the collection is viewed from behind ropes, where the boats collect dust sitting in cradles ashore. At CWB, people are encouraged to get out on the water in this museum's collection. CWB makes boating accessible to a lot of people would not otherwise be able to have this joy in their lives. The Center keeps the flame alive for wooden boats by hosting workshops to pass on skills that are at risk of being forgotten: lofting, carvel-plank boat building, sail making and even casting of one-of-a-kind bronze marine fittings. Families can come to the Center and build their own sailing dinghy. The SailNow program has taught hundreds of people how to sail instinctively. I taught there for 11 years, and my son Skyler starting teaching adults to sail there when he was only 11 years old.

CWB serves some very special groups. They sponsor a program for at-risk youth; kids who have had little in their lives to be proud of. The first time these kids succeed in landing a boat under sail, you can see their sense of self-esteem multiply. The residents of Bailey-Boushay House, an Aids Hospice, come to the Center for sailing lessons that give them something to look forward to. The Footloose Sailing Association helps their members leave their disabilities ashore with sailing events hosted by CWB.

The Executive Director of CWB is Betsy Davis, who has helped the Center become an even more vibrant place with her energy and enthusiasm.

Cruise to Blake Island

Native American carvings adorn the doors of the longhouse at Blake Island

Cruising from an urban lake to an island getaway

My wife, Nola, and I are so lucky to live in the Puget Sound area. Where else can you start a sailboat cruise on an urban, fresh water lake surrounded by commercial shipyards and multi-million dollar floating homes, pass through an industrial ship canal, drop down a set of locks, and cruise out into the saltchuck where dozens of pristine islands and harbors await within a half-day sail?

We started out from Seattle's Lake Union, home of the Duck Dodge sailboat races, and headed out the Lake Washington Ship Canal. As many times as I have gone through the canal, I see something new every time. This time, we saw the classic, 100-foot, fantail motor yacht Thea Foss hauled out in drydock for a refit. Thea Foss was designed by Seattle naval architecht Ted Geary and built in the 1920s for Hollywood star John Barrymore. Thea is now the corporate yacht of Foss Tugs and its parent company, Saltchuck. Nola and I had the pleasure of a dinner cruise aboard her at the invitation of my good friend and former boat partner Jack Martin, a retired officer of a Saltchuck company, Totem Ocean Freight. Elegant is an understatement for this yacht.


M.V. Thea Foss in drydock on the Lake Washington Ship Canal

This Lake is too high. Let's lower it about twenty feet.

Seattle's founders had great vision for their growing city. If they didn't like a major natural landmark, they just changed it. They sluiced Denny Hill into Elliott Bay to form Harbor Island. Then, they decided they wanted to connect the fresh water lakes with Puget Sound, so they dug a ship canal and built a set of locks in 1917. To reduce how much water needs to be pumped out of the locks to lower boats down to the water level of the Sound, they decided to drain Lake Washington about 20 feet. Problem solved!

Modern day boaters sometimes refer to the locks as "divorce alley" because it can be somewhat stressful to maneuver through them. Couples are often heard to be giving unwanted advice to each other at very high decibel levels.

Nola and I have passed through the locks so many times we have it down. We rafted up to a big power boat as the lock doors closed, waited as the water level dropped about 15 feet, then the lockmaster gave us the nod to cast off after the doors opened with a big rush of water.

As soon as we cleared the shallow channel outside the locks in Shilshole Bay, we hoisted our sails and set a course for Blake Island, about ten miles to the south. The wind died, so we motor sailed for a while, making frequent changes of clothing as light rains fell then subsided. The wind picked back up, so we sailed the last half of the trip and were lucky to get one of the last slips at the marina on Blake Island.


Our sailboat Sublime at the Blake Island Marina, dwarfed by the other yachts as usual

So near, yet it feels so far away

Blake Island is a Washington State Park. It is blanketed with lush forests that are criss-crossed by hiking trails. Otters and raccoons play on the sandy beaches. The deer that roam the island have grown indifferent to their two-legged visitors.

Walking on the beach, it seems like the island could be far, far away, until you look to the east and see the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.


The city seems so far away from the beaches of Blake Island

Tillicum Village

One of the attractions of Blake Island is Tillilcum Village, where visitors from all over the world cross the Sound on tour boats to enjoy a feast of salmon in an Indian longhouse and take in a Native American dance performance.

The dance performance was produced by Greg Thompson, who is better know for his extravagant topless reviews in Las Vegas. In this production, the women remain fully clothed while some of the men bare their chests.


The longhouse and totem poles at Tillicum Village

Nola and I enjoyed a dinner of barbecued bratwurst on our boat, then settle into our comfy cushions in the sunny cockpit to read books with absolutely no socially redeeming qualities. Bliss. It was the solstice, so we had plenty of light to read outside until well after nine o'clock.

We slept like babies that night, lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking motion of the boat. After after a breakfast of French toast, we took our cairn terrier Ella for one last walk ashore, and headed back home.

We were able to sail all the way back to the locks, with a gentle tailwind pushing us at a leisurely pace. The sun was peaking out from behind puffy with clouds, and we saw the Olympic Mountains to the west and the Cascade Mountains to the east. Mount Rainier was too shy to come out that day.

When we got to the small locks, the boat that entered just ahead of us was a whopping big power catamaran that was just barely able to squeeze in. Had we been in the large locks, the cat would have fit with room to spare. The large locks are the second largest in the world, next to the locks in the Panama canal. Battleships can sail through the locks into Lake Washington.


This power catamaran was so wide it just barely fit into the small locks

Going through the Locks on the way home


Open sesame!

As we motored through the ship canal on our way back to Lake Union, our mast fit under all the bridges except one. We blew one prolonged blast and one short blast on our air horn and the bridge tender raised the Fremont bridge for us. It gives a skipper a feeling of temporary omnipotence to have the power to raise a bridge and stop traffic for several blocks in either direction. Once, I waved politely to the waiting motorists and they responded with a one-fingered salute telling us we were number one.


Sublime passing under the Fremont bridge