Boats, Planes and Automobiles

I am very fortunate to work in Gig Harbor, a small harbor town on the Puget Sound. According to Wikipedia (and therefore irrefutably true) Gig Harbor, based on per capita income, ranks 49th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked. As such, things tend to happen here, what with the marinas, private airport and all.

Last week was a veritable lunch time feast with tall ships and vintage airplanes visiting the area.

The Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain are two working tall ships that sail around the area, stopping in marinas for visits and allowing young people to travel and work on them. The boats are only 20 years old, so as a Brit used to the SS Great Britain etc, it was strange to be aboard such young wood.

The Lady Washington (pictured below) was featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Apparently there's a documentary on the boat at the end of one of the DVDs. It was a most handsome vessel.


The next day, I went to the Narrows airport to see three WWII planes that were visiting and taking off that day. I went with Dean, who since childhood has been into planes. At the airport they also had several guides who had flown or worked on the planes in their hey-day. It was fascinating to learn about the planes we were looking at from an historical and a personal perspective. I won't even pretend to know anything about them. I've linked to Wikipedia for each of them if you're interested.

The B17. Someone in our office told us that him mom worked on the riveting of these planes at Boeing, near Seattle. Up close you can see every single one of them, hand punched.


The B24 - Standing heavy and stationary on the tarmac, it was fascinating to see this leaden behemoth turn into a wobbling fish as it started to roll down the runway for take off. A bomber with no bombs in it has little to fill its belly.


An ex-serviceman who flew on these talked with us for quite some time about his experiences on board. He told us how a great deal of learning had to take place on the job with regard to the design of the plane and the crew's conduct onboard. He said that a lot of men died finding faults in the designs. He saw people jump out the back in a certain way and had their heads cut clean off by the air force.


The P51 Mustang - This plane had been grounded in California with work to do on it. It flew in just in time towards the one. One lucky chap got to ride in it for an hour for the princely sum of $3000.



At the weekend Tony and I went to the Fremont Fair. It's locally and nationally known for its bike parade and er...nakedness.

There was also an Art Car show. All kinds of craziness in car form. There were working fountains, extending arms, a cor covered in shoes and handbags...


And then driving down I5 this beauty was spotted!


What a joy it is to live in such a creative environment, to be visited by pieces of our history, and to have the privilege of talking with living heroes.