Of Shoes and Ships and Ceiling-Wax

As a child did you ever dream of sailing to far away lands? Did you ever fill a lazy afternoon imagining yourself rounding Cape Horn with supplies bound for Alaska, fishing off the coast of Maine, or Captain of a Caribbean pirate ship ? I did, I suppose most children do.
A block or so from Grandma Brumbaugh's house in Marysville there was an old fishing boat. Long past the day when its keel felt the cool touch of Puget Sound, it sailed a field of blackberry and broom.
I would dream as I walked by that my hand was upon the wheel, wind in my hair not a single cloud on a blue horizon. I can still smell it, the musky scent of rotting wood and yesterdays rainwater pooled upon the deck. Even as an adult I thrill at the sight of these forgotten hulks. Less common now, they are victims of time and tide, yet ready to sail in my memory.
Here are a few salty haunts I have collected.

The schooner Wawona at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle May 1985
When restoration efforts proved too expensive she was dismantled in March 2009.

Great Uncle Gene Sapp’s fishing boat on his farm in Sequim, Washington July 1990.

The Tugboat Mary D. Hume near the Rouge River Bridge in Gold Beach, Oregon June 2005.
I think every child needs a boat to sail away on so this mommy built one of plywood, Velcro and pipe insulation.
Darren & Morgan sailing the fields of King Rd. May 1995