Kalakala update: Aboard for Faith, A First-Hand Account

The Kalakala:  See?  She floats.

It's historic.  It's beautiful.  It's creepy.  It's alive.  Today, Zanne and I boarded the Kalakala for the first time, after years of seeing her from afar.  As previously written, Steve Rodrigues had put out an open call to come out Friday or Saturday to help "clean."  It was an opportunity not to be missed, and it was so very worth it.

Muppet Dodge



Yo, Bert!

Back to the Duck Dodge yesterday, where the theme was "Sesame Street."  It doesn't take much for me--an overgrown kid with a daughter as an excuse to relive my childhood--to conjure up that place "where the air is sweet."  Getting a costume together in a pinch was much harder.  I knocked around being the Count, but I had no cape.  So, in a pinch, I put on the fringed buckskin shirt of my Berkeley days and said I was Buffy St. Marie; remember when she actually was a regular on  the show, representing for the First Nations?  Zanne had much better inspiration and pulled off a very good Zoe, the pigtailed, ballet-dancing, tutu-clad girl Muppet.  Very few other people in the Dodge seemed to be doing anything with the theme, except for this fellow in a very complete (and somewhat disturbing) Bert costume.  Dan wore nothing special at all.



Our skipper, Dan, and Zanne as Zoe





"Buffy St. Marie."  Or is that Jeremiah Johnson?  And, no, that is not a dead Muppet on my head.  Really. 

Perfectly proper public plunder

'Scuse me, mate, aren't ye missin' an "Arrrr?"

Saturday was the Renton Stop and Swap, an annual event where locals can drop off stuff they don't want and/or grab stuff for FREE.  This could be cookbooks, random pipe fittings, NordicTracks, printers, or fake trees.  It's a scene of controlled chaos, and it's decidedly piratical.  People wander through the parking lot of Renton Memorial Stadium, looking over junk and taking what they like as if they're picking over the beached wreck of a galleon.  The more valuable items--generally furniture--are distributed by a sort of lottery system.  A volunteer from the City, armed with megaphone, calls the item, sees how many people are interested by show of hands, and then decides who gets it by random number.  This is not unlike the distribution of booty after a ship takes a prize.  What makes this salvage faire even cooler is that it's governmentally sanctioned!  Wait, does that make it a privateer event?

Kalakala update: Hope in tourism?

I never heard back from the Kalakala team, and the Net's been quiet.  Today I got curious and went over to kalakala.org, where I discovered a brand new press release.  The owners, who, for a while, have been going under the moniker of the ferry's old operator, "Black Ball Line," have signed with Select Contracts, an international company that advertises its "turnkey" approach, which basically means that they oversee planning, design, implementation, and operation, all under one budgetary umbrella.  This press release gave me a little flutter of hope:  Might there actually be a plan to save the boat?  As I dug further, however, the proposal became about as murky as the waters of the Hylebos Waterway.

Return to the Duck Dodge

  

'Mirus' is a Latin word that translates roughly as "wonderful," "amazing," or "awesome."  It is related to the Latin root from which the word "miracle" is derived.  It is also the name of the little cruising boat owned by Dan, Zanne's best friend.  Last week, as Zanne was gearing up for her birthday celebration, we called Dan and, in addition to inviting him out for dancing and beers, discussed getting back out on his boat for the Duck Dodge, Seattle's 37-year-old summertime tradition of sailboat racing, mayhem, and inebriation.  Dan naturally invited us out.  Yesterday we met Dan at the little marina under the Aurora Bridge, and we set out, just the three of us, a little shy of 7:00 and the start of the race.