The F/V (Fun Vessel) SHOCKLES
What fun is having a boat if you can’t grab your friends and go somewhere???
Over Memorial Day weekend the illustrious crew of the SHOCKLES hopped aboard in Anacortes (Washington) and headed south for Seattle, picking up various friends along the way. Our totally crazy friend David Moe (aka Captain Powder since he and his brother Jake started the skiing magazine ‘POWDER’ back in 1970) came along for part of the cruise, helping guide the SHOCKLES through the Ballard Locks between Puget Sound and Lake Union.
We cruised around Lake Union on the first afternoon in perfectly glassy water and warm, sunny skies. What a treat to pull up to a dock in front of a great restaurant in downtown Seattle and stop in for a snack. Then we continued over to the Seattle Yacht Club where, thanks to the hospitality of John Bramstedt, the Director of Membership and Facilities.
As it turned out, one of our product designers from Seattle – Dave Shemwell – is a member of the club, so he and his wife Alecia and their two kids came down to hop on board for a cruise on Lake Washington. We putted along leisurely past the 25 – 50 million dollar lakefront homes of the likes of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Martha Stewart, and Nathan Myhrvold – former Microsoft CTO, now owner of Intellectual Ventures and author of a 2,400 page, $625 page cookbook. Geesh!
After a night at the Yacht Club, we picked up more friends – including Wayne Brown who went to high school with Captain Shockles – and headed out to Krikland, on the north shore of Lake Washington, on a sunny, warm Memorial Day. After a stroll in the local park, we headed south along the shore, passing by literally hundreds of multi-million dollar homes, palaces, mansions, chateaus, castles and all manor of crazy dwellings. Indeed, Myhrvold’s house sports a REAL tyrannosaurus skeleton in the middle of the glass house, visible from the water AND the air (the roof is glass). I guess that’s what they give you as a lovely parting gift when you donate $50 million to a local museum.
A last evening at the Yacht club docks and we head back north, out through the locks and up along the west side of Whidbey Island. We anchor for the night in Aleck Bay – we’re the only ones there – for a peaceful and quiet evening, then back to Anacortes where we close up the boat and head back to the Shockles World headquarters in Hood River.
All in all a fun, different and interesting journey on our very fun boat.
