March 25, 2000

Tomorrow in Seattle, the King Dome, not yet even paid for, is being destroyed. Explosive charges have been set up inside, and tomorrow they're going to set them off, and let it fall. This whole thing should be visible from Elliott Bay, so Brad and I are going to lock through tonight, and pick up the families in the morning.

I tried to get the truck ready to haul out the boat, changing out the heads, and I finally got everything to line up and bolt up. Brad came over and helped, and finally, at about 10 o'clock, we headed down to the boat, which was still docked at the Kirkland public marina.

We cruised across Lake Washington and through Lake Union on water like glass. The lights of Seattle casting long reflections across the water like so many fingers reaching out to illuminate our path. We arrived at the Locks followed by a small sail boat. We discovered that the small lock had just been closed for a few weeks for maintenance, so we tied up on the large lock waiting area. We waited there for a very long time, when we finally discovered why... commercial traffic. The lock operator had been waiting for several boats from the Argosy tour boat operation. After letting them in, we followed, and let them loop our lines around the buttons at the top of the lock. This was our first time using the large lock. The small lock has floating walls that you tie up to. You pull up, loop your line over a couple of buttons, and cleat it off. But the large lock requires you to tend your lines. You loop it around a button on the top of the wall, wrap one turn around your cleat,  and as the water is let out you let out your line as necessary. Then when the water is at the lower level, you cleat your lines because when they open the gates, there will be about a 7 knot current as the levels aren't exactly the same. Apparently, one of the Argosy boats decided not to do that part. The current whipped the stern of the smallest boat around and pinched it between the wall, and one of their other boats. There was this sickening crunch sound that let us know that there would be one very unhappy skipper.

(continued on March 26)