Christmas Ships at the Ballard Locks

12/16/14 Uniball gel pen, Strathmore grayscale paper

OK, I’m a bit spoiled: Growing up on Lake Washington, I watched the Christmas ships cruise by several times each holiday season from the comfort of my livingroom, so going out in the cold, possibly rainy night to see them didn’t excite me much. But Greg has been wanting to see them for years, and last night was dry, so we bundled up and went out to the Ballard Locks.

The Argosy cruise ship Spirit of Seattle was all decked out in lights (you can see it in this Seattle Times photo), and an onboard choir entertained us as we crowded the walkway of the locks. As I used to see growing up, I was expecting a whole fleet of smaller boats, also decorated with colorful lights, to be following in the ship’s wake through the locks, but there was only one smaller Argosy boat and one yacht. Well, I may be spoiled, but it was hard not to catch the infectious holiday spirit of the crowd.

I brought along black paper and a white Uniball opaque gel pen to capture it.