Christmas Lights, 2009

I promised you this, and now here it is!

The view of the marina from the bluff above is beautiful on any evening, but this time of year, it is festive too!

For sailboats, there are two main lighting schemes which appear, sometimes in concert:

• Around the lifelines
• Up the forestay and down the backstay (if a ketch or schooner, then also along the triatic stay)

Here, Black Opal did both.

These sailboats on E Dock nicely filled the frame with lights.

Lacking a mast to create the tall sweep of lites, power boats get creative in other ways.  Here is an amazing Jimmy Buffet parrot (on Last Mango, I think.  But it was dark and hard to tell) I apologize that the picture is so crummy - taking 1 second exposures without anything moving is really hard when you stand on a floating dock, and the subject is a boat floating at another dock.

Those fan-inflated creatures were popular too.  This boat has three of 'em, completely covering (and more) his swim platform.

Even the Port of Seattle got into the action this year, decorating their snag scow (complete with a Red Tag flagging their non-compliance with their own policy for marine extension cords!)

Finally, tonight was the Christmas light boat parade, led off by two big Argosy tour boats, and followed by a host of smaller boats.

Santa was waving at us from the first boat as they went by!

Christmas Lights, 2009