Lake Union Wooden Boats Festival
On 4th of July weekend, we went to the Lake Union Wooden Boats festival. This three day festival celebrates the Northwest’s nautical heritage, and apparently, beer. Or at least, there were “BEER à” signs every five or ten feet.
Of course, there were lots of boats. The pink boat in the back is the lightship, which I’ll get back to.
And work being done on boats, in this case, a mast:
There were various contests, such as build-a-boat-in-a-day races; skills demonstrations, such as bronze casting, and tours. After not resisting this golden opportunity:
We checked out this massive replica of the Titanic, built by a guy from Kirkland, made out of Legos!
We toured an old lightship from the west coast. Lightships were like lighthouses, but go where it would be infeasible to build a lighthouse. Apparently, manning them was a total pain because you had to do whatever it took to keep them in the same place, regardless of weather. Another interesting fact is that they often got rammed into, because other boats using them as navigation points would want to get as close as possible to be able to correctly navigate to their next destination. Pictured was our knowledgeable tourguide/boat geek.
Here’s a high-contrast, high-color saturation view of the light that I dig.
The lightship had sound.
Later on, we saw the inimitable Baby Gramps. I was shocked to see an artist there I actually recognize: he contributed a couple memorable tracks to Rogue’s Gallery, which is an awesome collection of pirate songs and sea shanties. Cross a mouth harp with a billy goat, imagine that voice talk-singing baudy tunes about the lovely mermaids, and that’s what you’re getting.
Here he is on “Vocalsthenics and Stunt Guitar”, and on the right, his sidekick on toy piano, known only as his “friend from the sixties.”
We took a beautiful ride on a wooden sailboat, the Admirable, around Lake Union.
All-in-all, the baffling musical experience took it over the top and made it a fulfilling day.
For some reason, this is my favorite shot from the day. I love the color and texture of the rope, and the flowers look like something from an impressionist painting. Again, I heaped on the contrast.
