A May Day, a hey day, a play day. . .

   Would it be a perfect day for a boat parade?  
   Not if you looked out our window at 6:30 a.m. The low, drizzling clouds crawling up our hill shrouded the Sound from our view.
   Nevertheless, Davy and I rose from our slumber, dressed in layers, and headed south to Lake Union to watch Seattle Yacht Club’s Opening Day parade with Dan and Marilyn Wilshin (Davy’s brother), who belong to Queen City Yacht Club.
   A kaleidoscope the day became!

   First a little history from one with dubious knowledge of such things. Seattle Yacht Club has been around since the late 1800s, and all that implies. As Seattle’s premier yacht club, it hosts the annual Opening Day parade, to which it invites a plethora of other yacht clubs, some coming from as far as Canada, and for which it provides a theme, this year’s being a rather dangerous “Out of this world”. It then stages the boats, in Portage Bay, from where they sail through the channel that dumps into Union Bay, right in view of Huskies’ stadium. From the east side of Union Bay, it looks like this (top left; photo courtesy of someone else). It’s OK to say WOW!

  Anyway, after first lubricating ourselves on a boat belonging to one of Dan and Mar’s generous maties, Dan, who served as his club’s official duty shuttle-boat driver, drove us to SYC where we parked ourselves at the channel’s start, so we could view the boats as they paraded before the judges.   Here we are at SYC, Mar looking demure, Dan ordering a Westie to stay or sit or something, and Davy and I wondering what would happen next.        First out were the fire boats, which, you guessed it, fired water into the windy air. Davy, being a Marine, put up his hood and watched. So did Dan and Mar. I fled up the hill, lest my hair frizz (I loathe looking like Einstein), but still heroically got some tough-to-get shots.
   Next came the Huskies’ band and cheer leaders, followed by clubs’ officers, cherried-out classic boats, strange hybrid vehicles, Naval Academy racers (Beat Army!), boats armed with mounted police or marines, the spinnakers-out class, and then the crazies.

   Somewhere in the middle of all this the amazing seamanship class appeared. At first, three pairs of sail boats, each with three yachties in their yachties standing at attention on the bow, quite precisely started down the channel. Then, in death-defying synchronization, each column made an eighty degree turn toward the other! OMG, they were all going to die right in front of us! I blinked hard. No way would I watch this debacle and have it be the source of a million future nightmares. But when I unblinked, I realized they knew what they were doing. Before me I could see them braiding through each other, not once, or twice, but down the whole stinking channel. Amazing. Yea Royal Victoria Yacht Club, or whomever it was! (The Royal Vancouver YC’s claim to fame were the Mounties mounted on their bows.)

  Things devolved when the novelty class appeared. With a theme like Out of This World, it was practically insured that at least one yacht club would seize the moment and display a deviant take on the theme. Ah, yes. While many boats concentrated on mainstream ideas like Star Wars, Space Odyssey: 2001, and ET, Queen City YC focused on the iPhone app Cows in Space. After all, it turns out, one of their members had a large, probably stolen, plaster cow in his front yard. (Don’t ask!)
   Upon checking SYC’s site this morning, I learned that the judges were not cowed by deviancy. SYC’s Apollo 13 won first place, followed closely by Vikings in Space. Alas. The orca Kayak lost too.

   Before leaving, we made a quick pit stop in SYC for wine and fries (great combination!!!), and made our way back to D&M’s generous mates’ boat in time to witness Super Saver out-hoof Ice Box for a Derby win.

It was a May Day. What a hey day. What a play day! Thank you, Dan and Mar!!!