Sea Scribe

With the coming and passing of Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer for many, residents of the Pacific Northwest will surely remember some of the larger visitors that graced their shores.

I said goodbye to an old friend recently, a friend I’ve known for 60 years. I watched from the damp, sandy shore of Ship Harbor in Anacortes as Evergreen State–a Washington state ferry–moved slowly toward her terminal.

I’ve been asked many times about my introduction to boat ownership. Recently, in dumping old files into a recycling bin, I discovered the answer to that question. I found yellow flimsies, copies of a magazine feature I had written for the Seattle Times in 1975.

My Grand Banks was splashed in Singapore harbor late in 1978 and delivered to Seattle about Thanksgiving time. I bought her, from the second owner, in the spring of 1990.