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Lake Union is a perfect home base for cruisers who want to kayak, bicycle, and explore Puget Sound. Just watch out for the blackberries.
By Greg Breining — Spring
2004
Washington’s Lake Union is at the center of the
Seattle boating community, ringed by busy shipyards, restaurants with
waterfront seating, full marinas, and rows of houseboats. Seaplanes come
and go. The century-old, 21-foot, steam-powered Puffin
pulls out for harbor tours from the Center for Wooden Boats, in the shadow
of the wooden three-masted schooner Wawona.
Bearded and beamy, Bill Stannard has cruised in these waters since 1978. He and his wife, Janet (not only a boater, but also a pilot), met more than 20 years ago when both lived on boats at the north end of the lake. These days they live aboard a 45-foot powerboat whose home port is Chandler’s Cove (on the south end of the lake). Bill, a senior manager for Meridian Yachts, is showing off the builder’s 540 Pilothouse by acting as our captain and knowledgeable local guide for the next four days.
I want to motor about and do some biking and kayaking at just a few of the many outlying locations within an easy cruise from Seattle, including Bainbridge Island. That’s where I am when my plans are foiled on day two of the trip by blackberries—dark and glistening, ripening in the mild Puget Sound summer. They’re a hazard. Don’t stop your bike in the middle of the road to look them over, or at least try not to be on a bike behind someone else who does.
I’m distracted, fiddling with the shifter lever of my rented bicycle. When I look up again, my wife and our friend are at a dead stop ten feet ahead. I slam on my brakes. The front caliper grabs tight. I’m aware of every long second as I arc through the air. I perform a pirouette on my right wrist and flop onto the pavement.
The X-rays and fiberglass cast will come later. For the time being, we manage to continue our bike tour of Bainbridge Island, and I remember what Stannard had said as we parted ways on the boat a few hours before: “If it doesn’t have a motor, I’m probably not going to ride it.”
Funny how the locals always get things right. Thank goodness there’s plenty to see and do on a boat around Seattle, even with a broken wrist.
MARINER CITY
“This is the best place in the world to go boating,” Stannard says as he nudges the Meridian to nearly 30 mph. “You can boat year-round. There are endless places to go and see. We really don’t get bad weather. We don’t get hurricanes. We don’t get tornadoes. If we get a ten-foot sea [in open ocean] once a year, that’s pretty remarkable. Any kind of boating you want to do, you can do it here.”
>> Next page >> Part 2: The view in the sound is spectacular, as though the landscape splits open to admit the sea. Page
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