Two Lights in Seattle

September 13th, 2024

At this point in the year, I'm so tired of traveling. All those people who have 'travel more!' in their New Years Resolutions have no idea what they're getting into. However, for the sake of my dear friend Shreyas, I sucked it up one more time to fly out to Seattle. I made plans to fly out of Austin with my friend Samagra, but unfortunately they don't teach you in medical school that you need an ID to get through airport security, and so I ended up flying out alone, to meet both him and Aditya in Seattle later on that evening.

West Point Lighthouse (103)

The afternoon's lighthouse quest consisted of Shreyas, Samagra and me, which is honestly not the most efficient combination, but we had fun. We made it out to Discovery Park, where we following the instructions of two elderly lovers to hike a few short miles down the bluff to the lighthouse right on the sound. It was a gorgeous hike, and the lighthouse was just as pretty. When we arrived, I put my water bottle down on a rock in order to take pictures. I'm sad to report that the lighthouse has been somewhat vandalized, and is covered in graffiti, despite being under Coast Guard ownership. I would hope the station might pass into a nonprofit's hands sooner rather than later for better protection from vandals, with the added bonus of being able to tour the inside of the structure. When I returned to grab my waterbottle and hike back, I found that it had been stolen. My $15, five year old, scratched up nalgene. Can't have shit in Seattle.

Swiftsure Lightship LV83 (104)

In the evening, having filled up on the heavily discounted ambrosia of Byen Bakeri, Aditya and I hoofed it to a seaport on Lake Union just north of the Space Needle where we saw LV83. If you're not aware, lightships are the product of realizing that not every offshore hazard can support a lighthouse, and thus a boat with a Fresnel lens tied to the mast is often a more prudent financial decision. They'd generally support a crew of a dozen or so men, and had the name of their station painted on the hull in large white letters. When they'd change stations, the boat's name would be repainted. This worked fine until lightships started to need servicing, and it became difficult to track which ship had received which repairs, given the names kept changing, and so a more formalized system was put into place-- thus the designation Light Vessel 83 (LV83).