Dry Dock

A tour of Lake Union Drydock was the treat today - a friend of a friend who is the 3rd generation to own and run this amazing place. Here it is in the middle of downtown Seattle and as rough and ready as any ship building/maintenance operation one could find. The light was strong, the time late afternoon so hardly a photographer's ideal set up. This drydock was mostly full of a NOAA ship that had serious steerage problems which were in the process of being addressed, the research mission held up and the crew just kind of hanging out. We saw so much of the entire operation which covers 8 acres of water.

The scale of ship work is humbling, the machinery and timbers and various shops, all a great theatre set for visual people. There is demand for the work, but the barriers include the city's permit process, parking for employees who live out of the city now that real estate has so escalated. This was a powerful example of what is happening to what many of us would call "real" work. Those workplaces are barely present in these times. So I am glad I got to see one in full operation.