Working Boats

I have a thing about workboats. Whenever we're near the ocean, I like to prowl the local harbor with a camera. Workboats are one of my favorite photographic subjects, whether they’re pangas hauled out on a beach or trawlers tied to a dock. As a kid, I learned to paddle a canoe and row a dinghy on the Delaware River in northern New Jersey. When I was a teenager, our family vacationed on Lake Ontario where my father and I fished out of an aluminum skiff with a small outboard motor, which he taught me to operate and let me run it into town by myself. As a marine scientist, I worked on commercial fishing boats and research ships from dories and seine skiffs to coastal and offshore oceanographic vessels. While we lived in southern California, I co-owned a 24-ft Skipjack with two diving buddies; we took it to the Channel Islands most weekends from May to October to hunt white seabass and yellowtail. Now I’m relegated to a sit-on-top kayak that I carry on the roof of the truck. Maybe, when we’re settled, there will be a bigger boat in my future.

Cruising yacht in Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend, Washington

Wandering on Whidbey Island

We spent a week on Whidbey Island in northern Puget Sound in January in weather ranging from cold rain and fog to shirtsleeves and sunshine where I tested the landscape capabilities of the Sony RX100. Whidbey Island was named by Captain George Vancouver for Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey who explored the island in a launch from Discovery in 1792 (link). Vancouver had a penchant for naming things after his friends – he named Puget Sound after Discovery Lieutenant Peter Puget, Mount Baker after 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker, Mount Rainier after Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, and so on (link).

Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve (NHR)
Ebey’s Landing NHR was established by Congress in 1978 as a partnership among the National Park Service; state, county and town governments; and residents of central Whidbey Island. It is administered and managed by the Trust Board of Ebey’s Landing NHR and is the first unit of its kind in the National Park System. The Reserve covers over 17,000 acres, most of which is privately owned, and includes Penn Cove and the town of Coupeville (link, link).

Farms at Ebey's Landing