Tag Archives: ferry

Porch perch

Sometimes one’s point of view can make or break a picture. The jury is still out on this one, as far as I’m concerned. This was such a weird vantage point for sketching—between the location high up on a hill, the wide-angle view of the rest of the porch, the water and ferry landing below, and the islands off in the distance, everything was just…odd. Unsettling. I spent a long time on this one, using every art-school trick I knew to check and re-check that my perspective was correct. It was…for the most part. But the drawing still feels like something M.C. Escher would have come up with.

The swan song of the Kalakala

There are restoration success stories like Lucy…and then there are others without the happy ending. In my part of the world right now, a floating rust bucket is the talk of the town. That’s because at long last, an odyssey spanning nearly 90 years, thousands of miles and a whole lot of folly is about to come to an end.

From the 1930s through the 60s, the M.V. Kalakala was a swingin’ Art Deco ferry in Seattle’s Black Ball fleet. Her unusual (and flawed) design made her either a shining star or a laughing stock, depending on whom you asked—but either way, she enjoyed a fair amount of fame. She was the recipient of the first-ever commercial on-board radar system (FCC license #001!), and even made a cameo in the popular “Black Ball Ferry Line” song by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

Once she was retired from ferry service, though, she went into a long, slow decline—beached and converted into a cannery in Alaska, then later towed back to Washington as the unfortunate victim of restoration projects that never made it off the ground. I’ll spare you all the twists and turns of the Kalakala story—a quick Google search will give you a whole host of written words, photographs, and even sketches by other folks who can tell the tale better.

Normally this is just the sort of story that would get me up in arms, ready to send a donation to the save-it fund and spread the word far and wide. But this time, I think I’d prefer to see the Kalakala sail off into the proverbial sunset. She deserves a better end than rusting through and sinking in a swirl of toxic chemicals, in a town that bears no real connection to her history.

Still, I’m glad I’ve had a chance to catch glimpses of her over the years. And I didn’t want to miss the chance to sketch her, even if only from a distance. She’s slated for demolition at the end of this month—I’m glad the weather held out long enough to give me a couple of good views of her.

Wishing you fair winds and following seas, Kalakala.

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Secrets, seastars and spring tide

There was one other time that my sketching had the benefit of a supermoon. Last summer I spent a morning with some fellow sketchers under the ferry landing in Edmonds, WA. This is one of a few spots along Puget Sound where the tide goes out far enough to expose more than just a strip of beach. You can actually walk under the ferry dock at low tide—but you have to be quick, because it’s a very short time before the pilings are submerged again.

Well, the supermoon took care of that for us, pulling the tide out so far that the clay beds were exposed for several hours.

It also attracted hordes of beachcombers, who added an extra fun element to my drawings. But the real reason we were there was the same for all of us: discovering that the rocks and pilings were just teeming with marine life.

So thanks to the supermoon, I had plenty of time to sketch as much as I pleased—as well as the chance to discover that if you stand there long enough, sooner or later a burrowing clam will squirt your feet with arcs of seawater.

(Note to self: bring galoshes next time.)

On island time

When my best friend Elizabeth came to visit last year, she told me she’d always wanted to visit the San Juan Islands. So we packed every bit of waterproof gear we had and headed north for a girls-only trip.

We spent a good chunk of our trip on various boats—

—which, even in spring’s constant cold drizzle, is the best way to see the islands (and their inhabitants!) in all their misty glory.

Still, even though we’d gladly risk pneumonia any day to catch a glimpse of an orca, it was wonderful to have a warm, cozy room to come back to at the end of the day.

We are landlubbers, after all.