No photos, just words.

An experience of a lifetime.

Lady anchored near Quinault, crew stood easy. We had just finished a quite night all together in the aft cabin, enjoying a respite from the days adventures.  Bleary eyed we ascend to the deck to find the ripples around our anchorage aglow.

The surface cascades with light as we toss deck buckets into an ocean of magic. Specks of green shimmer in our hands with each dip or cupped sample. Iridescence flows through the scuppers and arcs of brilliance flash with each cast of a line, or swish of a boat hook, or a plunge of a frolicking, shivering sailor.

We are surrounded in luminescence, bright enough to outline the fish swimming in the murky depths, but too dim to be captured by the camera's skeptical eye.


With each and every disturbance the water turns the color and brightness of a Fourth of July glow stick. Splashes send waves of light across the surface, and anything wetted sparkles with flecks of light. The echo of a constant surf tears across the bay like Minnesotan pines roaring in a December storm. My shipmates laugh and play for hours before one by one slipping off to bed or standing reflective watch on the quarterdeck.

This is what we are living for. This is why we sail the reclusive and spiteful sea.
I wish I could better share this moment of magic, but at least I'm lucky enough to have it tucked away, for myself.