Christmas Cruise on Lakes Union and Washington

Introduction

On December 21st, Captain Brad Phillips took his Alaskan tourist boat for a night tour of Seattle's Christmas lights, as seen from Lake Union and Lake Washington. This was a tour for friends, due to restrictions on charging related to sales tax in Washington. Brad and his boat run the summer time 26 Glaciers Cruise on Prince William Sound in Alaska. He and the boat spend winter in Seattle. The cruise was arranged through Brad's long time friend Bill McKinley.

Brad's boat, MV Klondike Express is an Australian designed catamaran, holding 350 people. It was built by Nichols Boats on Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle.

Note that many of the photographs here are blurred; that's just a consequence of taking long exposure pictures from a rocking boat, and short of having an expensive motion compensator (used for handheld cameras in movies or TV) there's not much that can be done about it. And, since the boat can travel at 50 mph (80 km/h), there are times when just the forward motion is sufficient to greatly blur an image. You should see some of the ones I left out!

Inside The Boat

Getting underway aboard the MV Klondike Express for Christmas Cruise

Judy Bennett, back to camera, among the many guests.

Getting underway aboard the MV Klondike Express for Christmas Cruise

Another view, no flash this time, and showing more of the other guests.

Inside of Klondlike Express, Judy & Matthew Bennett in mid scene

Later on the Karaoke session started; this is some of the audience, variously watching or ignoring the whole event.

Outside - Lake Union

These photos are blurred due to motion - of the boat and the photographer! Most of these are taken from Lake Union, which is smaller, and better decorated than Lake Washington.

Old Seattle Steam Plant (now bio-tech company) building on Lake Union, I-5 in the background

The old Seattle Steam Plant, which has a number of chimneys, no longer in use, but retained when the building was converted into a bio-tech company. And so with lights strung up to the chimney tops, it looks a little like a ship. The horizontal zig-zag line along roughly the centre of the image is traffic on Interstate 5.

Down town Seattle and Space Needle from Lake Union aboard Klondike Express

Downtown Seattle and the Space Needle, as seen from Lake Union. And a couple of the younger members of the tour.

Queen AnnE Hill, from Lake Union; decorated TV tower and boat (our boat was also moving!)

Really blurred, but it shows two things of interest. On top of Queen Anne Hill are three of the TV transmitting towers in Seattle. The one on the left is "decorated" for Christmas, with lights up the legs. And the cloured blur in the bottom left is a highly illuminated pleasure boat which followed us for a while.

Lake Washington

Not too much to see on Lake Washington. We did sail under the SR 520 bridge, as well as the University and Montlake Bridges. The latter two are draw bridges, and had to open to let us through. It was the first time I have been under any of these bridges!

Bill Gates' home, as viewed from Klondike Express cruise

Bill Gates' mansion. I don't know exactly where his property/home ends, but I think it occupies most of the width of the picture. The red blurs near the water are a couple of Christmas Trees, just the branches, and illuminated in red. They were quite stricking.

Bill Gates' home & smoking deck of Klondike Express cruise

Bill Gates' home as seen from across the smoking deck of MV Klondike Express.