Starting today, and for the next ten days, I’ll be charting a new course for this blog. I’ll tell you about a cruise I took to Alaska, along with my wife and another couple.
As all my steadfast readers know, I write fiction. Some parts of these blog posts may tack a bit downwind of the truth. For example, I traveled with my wife, Jean, and the other couple—Mike and Brenda Knyght. None of those is a real name. I’ve changed a few company brand names, too.
Our plane flight to Seattle went without incident. Why we flew to Seattle to board a cruise ship departing from Vancouver, BC will remain one of the universe’s mysteries. There being four of us, we rented a large SUV. Black and rugged, it resembled the Batmobile, and I signed a form promising to use its Bat-missiles only for fighting crime.
We checked into a hotel in downtown Seattle, chosen since it was near the train station. You may only reach this hotel via a series of right turns so labyrinthine I had to leave a trail of Bat homing devices to find my way out. An antique flying saucer loomed overhead, or maybe it was the Space Needle. That night, we enjoyed dinner at the delightfully quirky 5-Point Café.
Due to clever prior planning, we’d left the next day free for us to explore the wilds of the Seattle area, since Jean and Brenda had never been there.
Mike and I woke early, and walked to the Olympic Sculpture Park and marveled at the artwork.
For Mike, marveling at artwork consumes very little time. After our wives woke up, we drove the Batmobile aboard a ferryboat bound for Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound.
After a brief drive, we walked through picturesque Poulsbo, a village founded by a band of Vikings whose longboat got terribly lost. For lunch, we had Mexican food at the Hop Jack, a nice restaurant at the edge of Dyes Inlet in Silverdale. The ferry brought us back to Seattle, where Brenda and Mike met some local friends for dinner while Jean and I dined at the Green Lounge, nearer our hotel. The salmon portions there may be small, but given my over-fondness for food, that’s a fortunate thing.
Then a strange thing happened.
With the sun still up, Jean and I walked down toward the shore of the Sound. Jean spied a corner of some object sticking up from the ground. I dug it up and it proved to be a tan leather parcel or satchel, cracked and flaking with age. With care, I opened it and extracted a folded and mildew-damaged flag—a British Union Jack—and a page of parchment. Despite the paper’s torn edges and faded ink, I made out the following: “…do hereby claim the entirety of this continent, from its western extent to its eastern, for England in the royal name of Queen Elizabeth, said continent to be called Nova Albion. Set by my hand on this 4th Day of July, in the Year of Our Lord 1579. Sir Francis Drake.”
I looked at Jean and she looked at me. We discussed the matter, imagining all the consequences of finding this and of showing it to others. We did what any two Americans would do: without taking any pictures, we set fire to satchel, flag, and parchment. Having no regrets, we walked away, Jean and—
Poseidon’s Scribe
