Catching a Historic Fishing Boat

2/26/14 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, watercolor, Zig marker, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

We made it in the nick of time.

Ever since Greg and I read the article in The Seattle Times about the fleet of vintage wooden fishing schooners that would be mooring at South Lake Union for a couple of weeks, we’ve been wanting to get down there – I with my sketchbook, he with his camera. But the weather has been so consistently wet and cold since then that we were afraid we’d miss them before they made their journey to Alaska. Today – temperatures in the 50s and sunny – was our opportunity!

When we got there this afternoon, though, we didn’t see any of the fleet of nine ships, some more than 100 years old. We stopped in at the Center for Wooden Boats (which currently has an exhibit about these historic fishing vessels) to ask if they had all left. It turned out that just one ship, the Kristiana, was still moored there, and a staffer pointed it out.

I regret that we missed seeing the full fleet, but I’m happy that I was able to sketch at least one. The Kristiana was built in 1945, among the youngest of the commercial fishing schooners that are still working hard to bring in tons of halibut and black cod (which I eat a lot of, so I’m grateful) each year.

The rain is supposed to return tonight, so we really did get there in the nick of time.