February 17, 2009
A ferry lovely trip
…listen
…about the musicWater voyage.
I love taking the ferry. If I didn’t love it, I’d be living in the wrong place, since ferries are the primary method of hopping off this bridge-less island. This week I got to ride four of them: one to Anacortes and back when I drove down to Seattle, and two days later, one from neighboring Orcas Island and back, when I went to a friend’s concert. You can’t spell “hooray!” without: a-h-o-y!
I returned from Orcas early Sunday afternoon, on a day so clear and bright that it was hard to believe it ever rains here at all. There happened to be a sailboat regatta that day, and the ferry captain had his hands full as his huge vessel Yakima barreled through the channel into oncoming and, occasionally, clueless traffic. Two boats in particular appeared to come closer to the ship than I might have dared. One was rewarded with an insistent and loud honk of the big horn. The other, on a potential collision course with us as he crossed our bow, necessitated the ferry slowing down to allow him room to pass in front of us rather than… uh, under us. Rules of the watery road are that vessels without power have right of way, since they often can’t quickly maneuver. That being said, it’s not the wisest thing for a 27 foot sloop to tempt fate and try to partner dance with a 382 foot long, 73 foot wide, roughly 2000 ton powered behemoth of the sea.
But physics-defying proximity has its payoff to a camera-toting passenger like me, and I was able to get a few nice pix like all of these, as I stood at the bow with nothing but a tennis net separating me from the sailboats and the chilly Salish Sea.
Upon closer inspection of the above snapshot, fellow sailors will appreciate the subtle humor in the alignment of the passing sloop, and that of the sign on the ferry’s port side:
The arrow should have been pointing UP!
I’ll post more sea-oriented photos before week’s end. And then, I’ll be off on a short adventure to the wild western coast of Vancouver Island for the weekend, which means a round trip of five ferries! Hooray!
Which is Pig Latin for “ahoy,” of course.
Glenn Buttkus said,
February 17, 2009 @ 6:19 am
It stayed gray and cold and rainy down here in America on Sunday, but in your little corner of the world, thrashing around in the Salish Sea you managed to corner a spot of beautiful weather. Good on you. Thanks for the generous clip, Water Voyage @ 2:03; another fine pick me up on this Tuesday that feels like a Monday. The dueling duet clarinets of Errante and Gause never cease to mellow me out.
Every ferry ride I have ever taken has always been fun, those behemoths do slide and glide and chug through the sound in a very classy way. The ride from Vancouver to half way up Vancouver Island took several hours; that started feeling kind of long. That boat from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island is cool, cuz you get into the deep water, and the current of the De Fuca Strait, making the boat feel smaller and more vulnerable. The Bremerton to Seattle run is one of my favorite and it cuts through the island passage. The San Juan trip is also a winner, though the waits are horrific.
It is great to hear that the concert went off well, and that your piece was the shining apex of the music; of course. Where was the concert held?
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
February 17, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
I think ALL of the pieces were shining apexes of new works! I particularly loved a piece by the Brazilian composer Sylvia Berg, titled “Dobles del Paramo.” The concert was at the Good Shepherd Center, a venue in the University District (Wallingford) that commonly hosts new music programs. This was part of a long running concert series called “Non Sequitur,” curated by composer and sound artist Steve Peters.
One of the ferry rides I’ll have this weekend is the short Edmunds-Kinston route, which I’ve never taken. I feel as though I’m collecting them like baseball cards!