Having "escaped" from Eagle Harbor and the distracting to-and-fro of the Winslow waterfront to the relative quiet of Blakely Harbor, I found more adventure than I'd anticipated. Though trees and modern residences have reclaimed the shores once denuded by a flourishing logging industry, the visible carcass of history still molders above the low tide line. No, my dink is not the moldering carcass. That's in the background, where you can see the opening to a tidal basin that, I think, once comprised a weir for funneling water through a small generator for the mill.
In 1841, while surveying Puget Sound, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes claimed the privilege of naming Bainbridge Island as well as the snug bay at its southern island known since then as Blakely Harbor. Captain William Renton, after failed attempts at establishing saw mills both in nearby Alki Point and Port orchard, finally discovered an ideal location in Blakely Harbor's well sheltered bay. The town of Port Blakely grew up nearby around his flourishing saw mill and the companion business of Hall's shipyard. The mill was, by the 1880s, purported to be the largest in the world, having supplied the lumber to build many of the homes in such places as San Francisco's Beacon Hill. The Hall shipyard was known for its West Coast Schooners built especially for exporting the tall, straight red cedars common in the area, many of them specifically for Renton and his mill.
Both these businesses, after enjoying many years of profitability, have long since gone. The mill eventually succumbed to declining demand. Hall Shipyard moved north to Eagle Harbor where it continued to build ships, including battle wagons for the US Navy's WWI fleet. That site is now occupied by the storage and maintenance facilities of the Washington State Ferry system.
Looking for something less frivolous to do than sitting aboard Mabrouka and admiring the setting, I ventured ashore to explore the derelict concrete building that dominates the crook of the bay. From what I've been able to determine, I believe it to be the hulk of the steam plant that once powered Renton's saw mill.
I found the building's present state to be a strikingly curious distraction from the trees and million-dollar homes that vie for more civilized attention. Trudging around the old structure and then clambering inside, I decided I appreciated the counter-culture art that blanketed its walls enough to return with my camera the next day when I had more than the early evening's failing light to work with.
Take a look at the gallery "On Blakely Harbor" found under "Local Cruising - 2013" to see if you enjoy this flagrant violation of an historical site as much as I did. The artistic talent is, arguably I suppose, self-evident. It is also speckled with tidbits of real sentiment, if not thoughtful social comment by the perpetrators. I was quite frankly surprised at the lack of profanity demonstrated here. The place was, of course, littered with trash and debris, though there were surprisingly few paint cans and other evidence of these colorful vandals.
I also whiled some time away with dinghy adventures by oar and by sail. As expected, the tree-lined shore distracted the wind from whatever significant strength it might have had out on the Sound into inconsistent swirls by the time it reached me on the bay, but it was still a pleasant time knocking about among my anchored neighbors and the docks ashore.
One image, though fleeting, is left etched in my memory. Drifting along under sail at an embarrassingly modest pace, something silver plummeted out of the sky and splashed into the green-blue shimmer of the water just a few feet ahead of me. With a squawk and a shriek, it became clear that an aerial argument between an osprey and a bald eagle had left them both without their dinner. I couldn't say for sure because it happened so quickly, but I would venture that the silver flash had been a two or three pound salmon. The visual that IS recalled so clearly is the bald eagle, broad wings above and talons in a downward threat toward the osprey below. The osprey mirrored the eagle's stance, except inverted with its back only a few feet above the bay. Despite their admirable aerobatics and hunting instincts, they both lost out in this encounter and the eagle retired to the top of a shore-side tree to complain loudly about the injustice of it all.
Leaving you with a more main-stream artistic connection, I offer the following from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet quoted, in part, on the park bench pictured above:
On Friendship
And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.