Friday, February 20, 2004

Late on a rare cloudless evening in Seattle, the air is crisp and dry. All is quiet on Lake Union. It is after midnight, and the only sound is the hum of light traffic on the I-5 Bridge far above. The breeze blows over the surface of the lake in sheets, creating disjointed migrations of waves. The glow of the city sparkles on the broken surface, and the Space Needle rises unobstructed in the distance. Along the shore, the chain of light is unbroken except for one small hole of near-darkness. It’s hard to see what’s there. The smooth, light-colored skin and the dark porthole eyes are barely visible through the night. The ghostly figure is a vessel of some kind, but with unusual structural lines that are both sleek and anachronistic – the outdated modernism of Buck Rogers and brave new worlds.

It is the Kalakala (a Chinook word for “flying bird” pronounced Kah-LOCK-ah-la), a much-beloved Puget Sound ferry that operated from 1935 until 1967 and held a place as elevated as the Space Needle currently does in the hearts and minds of Seattleites. At one point, in the midst of the Great Depression, this darkened hulk was the civic symbol of Seattle, representing a hopeful, promising future for humankind.

The most prominent feature of the boat is its streamline design. It is curved and aerodynamic, 276 feet of floating Air-Stream Trailer with portholes and a stern that tapers smoothly to the hull. In its day, the interior was luxuriously art deco, with a famous double-horseshoe lunch counter, a ballroom and decks that could accommodate 2000 passengers. The seating areas boasted 500 velvet upholstered easy chairs. It was so popular that the ferry service, in addition to its usual daytime run between Seattle and Bremerton, started to offer night cruises. The Kalakala even had its own band: Joe Bowen and the Flying Bird Orchestra. The exterior was metallic gray, and the people of Seattle affectionately called the vessel the “Silver Slug.” It was hailed as “the most important nautical vessel since Noah’s ark.” Today it is rusting hulk in search of a home.

The ferry was evicted from its moorings months earlier, and to the chagrin of the newest owner, Steve Rodrigues, no one was willing to take the ship in. Finally, the Mekah Indian Tribe offered mooring in Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula. This was good news. The Kalakala had been amassing a $1000 per day penalty to dock in Lake Union. Tomorrow the ship is scheduled to begin the voyage to its new home. But tonight, all is dark and quiet. There are no indications that the vessel is prepared to leave the next morning.

The Kalakala was not always the Kalakala, and it did not always service Seattle. The ferry was commissioned for service in San Francisco and initially christened the Peralta in 1927. On its first launch, the Peralta hesitated. To many seafarers, this was a sure sign of bad luck, and so far, they have been correct. Misfortune was the Peralta’s captain from the beginning. Just a year after the launch, the ship was involved in an accident at an Oakland, California dock in which five people drowned. Five years later, in 1933, the Peralta burned down to its main deck.