The Call of the Sea

Tall Ship Hawaiian Chieftain in Salmon Bay

I have always wanted to live at the ocean. When I was a child, every summertime Wednesday we would pack the station wagon with beach gear and my father and mother would drive us (Robby, Randy, Ricky, and Rusty) to Ship Bottom, New Jersey.  This is where I discovered body-surfing and Yoo Hoo chocolate drink.

When I was in my mid-twenties I worked for a ship reporting service in Philadelphia as a dispatcher and later held a similar job with a tugboat company. As nearly every sailor will tell you, there is something about the sea that draws you in and never releases you.  You are as hooked as a marlin on the end of a fishing line. 

Tall Ship Lady Washington

 

 The magnificent beauty of the Puget Sound is a tonic for a damaged soul, a vibrant combination of sight, sounds, and smells that will stay strong in your memory for many years. I fell in love with the sweet Pacific Ocean breezes that poured in through open windows. 

In the photographs above and the the right,  the steamship paddle boat Queen of Seattle was turning around in Salmon Bay near the Ballard locks.  Suddenly out of the locks appeared two tall ships.  Lady Washington arrived first. She starred  in the first Pirates of Caribbean movie. Following her out of the locks was the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain.  The Lady Washington actually circled our ship and our Captain jokingly exclaimed  "We're surrounded by pirates!"

From July through October of 2012, I  spent most of my working days on the steamship paddle boat "Queen of Seattle".  Once owned by Alaska Travel Adventures, a company that lost its way with this purchase,  she was built in a Sacramento  backyard by a wealthy Californian obsessed with steam engines.

The Queen of Seattle is a 149 foot long steam-powered paddle boat- the largest such vessel west of the Mississippi River. Her capacity is 243 people.  She was built to reflect an earlier time in history. She is a combination of old and new construction.

She is a lovely ship, built from decommissioned World War 2 Navy ships that were struck from the Navy register and sold for scrap. She may be haunted by the ghost of her builder, or of the men who fought and died on the decks of the ships she was built from....

According to public records, some of the Queen's windows are from the USS Calvert (APA-32),  a Crescent City- Class Attack Transport  whose superior service to the U.S. Navy won her ten battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.  In Word War II, the USS Calvert landed troops in North Africa, Sicily, Philippine Islands, Gilbert Islands, Kwajalein, Marianas, Saipan, and the occupation of Japan. She was commissioned again for the Korean war and for a final service in the Vietnam war.  The builder of the Queen was transported home from the Pacific theater on the USS Calvert.

I washed those windows every week and often thought about our passengers looking through at the city of Seattle, not knowing that our soldiers and sailors once looked through those same windows on a journey a very different, and often deadly reality.  I owed it to those soldiers, many who never  returned, to keep that glass clean for the folks who rode the Queen in leisure in the summer of 2012.

Her controls were from the USS Interpreter, a radar picket ship that was part of our early warning defense system and would sail for weeks at a time on the Pacific Ocean.  Originally a private freighter, the USS Interpreter was purchased by the US Navy and outfitted for her mission at the Philadelphia Naval Yard- on the same Delaware River where I dispatched tugboats, including a few times to the navy yard itself.

I stood at the helm several times that summer and piloted the Queen of Seattle using the controls from the USS Interpreter.  "Keep her mid-ship  Mr. Fisher" the Captain would growl in that salty Captain voice after we passed under the Fremont bridge and entered "The Cut", a man-made canal that joins Lake Union to the Puget Sound.

Naval Personnel aboard the USS Calvert

The Queen of Seattle was originally christened the Elizabeth Louise. She was built over a ten-year span between 1975 and 1985 on a vacant scrapyard lot by 63-year old crane operator Hal Wilmunder.

Her paddle engines were built in 1884 and were installed on at least 5 different ships, finally ending up on the tugboat Detroiter, which worked on the Ohio River. The engines were later sold for scrap.  Capt. Wilmunder found them and then built a boat to fit them.  He launched the Elizabeth Louise on the Sacramento River in September of 1985.

USS Interpreter

Hal Wilmunder died tragically after he fell off the stern of the paddle boat and drowned in the Sacramento River on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2003.  That isn't something that was mentioned on the tour narration and probably for good reason.  According to published reports, the ship's door alarm had gone off and Hal went to investigate. At that time Alaska Travel Adventures (ATA) had offered Hal Wilmunder 1-million dollars for the Queen but he refused, his seller price at 3-million.  After his death, his widow sold the ship to ATA...for one million dollars.  They took it to Alaska and renamed it Alaskan Queen.  The venture failed and they moved her to Seattle and renamed her Seattle Queen but didn't bother to change the large AQ they installed between the steam stacks above the wheelhouse.

On the day he disappeared, Hal had placed his a wallet and watch on the upstairs bar of the Queen. Then he took his final swim.  His body was recovered 3 days later, a few miles downriver from the ship.  There were questions about how someone who built and knew every square inch of that ship could fall and hit his head on the paddle wheel. What does the paddle wheel have to do with the door alarm?  After a short investigation his death was ruled accidental.  But he was known to have enemies and there were rumors he may have caught a thief, or his death was arranged- that it was no accident- but if that were true, the  evidence died with Mr. Wilmunder,   Some say his ghost haunts the vessel and many of the mechanical issues that ultimately ended the Queen's daily cruises were of suspicious nature.

For some, questions remain:  Why was Hal Wilmunder on board the Elizabeth Louise on Easter Sunday?  Why do some of us believe his spirit may still be aboard the Queen?  Why did the ship constantly have major mechanical problems?  

We will never have the answers but here is my truth - Hal Wilmunder built a paddle boat masterpiece out of scrap iron from decommissioned naval vessels.  The Elizabeth Louise is a beautiful ship deserving better than the junk tours she barely endured.

I will never forget the  Queen of Seattle. I loved those few short months I rode her, and she will forever hold a special place in my heart.