Useless Waltz: Fourth of July weekend, down at the neighborhood lake

Other than watching the fireworks on Friday night from the roof of our apartment building, we had no plans for the Fourth of July weekend, and I think we ended up surprising ourselves by spending all three days at the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival at the Center for Wooden Boats, down at the south end of Lake Union. Each day, we found ourselves walking the seven blocks down to the lake, because for one thing, it was close (and cheap), but also, when it came right down to it, it seemed like there really was nothing better we could be doing than hanging out by the water, drinking beer on the lawn, listening to live music, walking around on the docks to look at beautifully restored historic wooden boats, taking free boat rides, and enjoying the mild, partly cloudy and cool weather that prevailed all weekend.

The old Armory building housed an exhibit of model boats, the most unusual of which was a 23-foot-long model of the Titanic made entirely of Legos.

This was cute — a rowboat tricked out to look like a model tall ship:

We toured the lightship Swiftsure (one of the many lightships once anchored offshore on the east and west coasts) and the tugboat Arthur Foss. David made sure to take some photos of the engine and other technical features of these ships for Dad; he even got a movie of the Arthur Foss's engine when it they fired it up. I'll let David send those shots to Dad separately, but here's the Swiftsure's hull and her big bell (U.S.L.H.E. stands for "U.S. Light House Establishment," the government organization that administered the lightships and lighthouses back then).

I also like this shot David took of the Swiftsure's smokestack and mast:

Volunteers and instructors from the Center for Wooden Boats took groups of people out for free rides on various boats. We signed up for a sail on the Colleen Wagner, a 28-foot two-masted fishing boat; then when we got back to the dock, we hopped on the Umiak, a replica of a Native skin-on-frame canoe. Here's David's picture of the view looking forward; the big building in the background is the Armory, and one of those tall, vertical things to the right of the Armory isn't a ship's mast with a crow's nest — it's the Space Needle:

And here's the fearless crew:

David also took this beautiful detail of the lashings on the Umiak:

And there were fun and games — nautical pub trivia in the beer garden on Saturday night, and the Quick and Daring competition, in which teams of two had 24 hours (eight hours each day of the festival) to build a seaworthy vessel and then race around a three-legged course in the lake on Sunday afternoon. The first leg had to be paddled, the second had to be sailed, and the third could be done by any means necessary to get whatever was left of the boat to the finish line. First place went to "Foiled Again," a complicated, witty boat with a cardboard sail, foot pedals (shaped like giant feet) and an "experimental hydrofoil" on the stern (really it was just a box on a stick).

The surprise was the cardboard boat (named, cryptically, "Potatoes"), which not only made it all the way around the course before it melted but actually came in second.

We had such a good time at the festival that it made us both want to spend some more time down at the CWB, getting certified and getting out on the water.