Where DID “Elwha on the Rocks” go?

Posted September 9, 2010 at 12:27 am by

Keith Loree wrote & asked a good question:

What happened to your mp3 of Elwa On The Rocks? That’s one of my favorite songs of all time and I can’t find it anywhere else, and now it’s no longer available thru your site.

Well, thanks, Keith! I like it, too – it was posted back in 2007, and the song itself is here (click this link to hear the song.) Here’s the writeup that went with it, in case you missed it (from the Update at that time):

Meanwhile, I found this little mention about the Elwa’s occasionally sullied rep (although when she whacked into the Orcas dock & caused a six-week suspension of service & three-quarters of a million dollars in damage – well, sometimes you deserve what they say about ya). Anyway, on a site called evergreenfleet.com here’s a bit about the boat ….

Unfortunately it was in the Islands that the Elwha would began to develop an unsavory reputation. Perhaps the most famous incident for the vessel happened in 1983 when her captain “discovered” an uncharted rock in Grindstone Harbor while showing a female passenger what her home looked like from the water. The event, while hardly comic as it resulted in a tear in the Elwha’s hull did have some soap opera-like qualities to it.

Soon thereafter the woman in question began being referred to as “the Siren of the San Juans” and local bars began selling a drink called “Elwha on the Rocks.” A local band in Friday Harbor cut a 45 with a song of the same title.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.


Categories: Around Here
2 comments:

2 comments...

  1. My dad, Gary Provonsha, wrote that song two months before he was killed in his airplane on December 7, 1983.

    Comment by Renee Haynes on December 14, 2013 at 8:18 pm
  2. My Grandfather George Allen Burns is the singer of this mo3

    Comment by Tyler Burns on March 19, 2022 at 8:27 pm

Trackbacks

  1. Passing: Peggy Warrack, the Siren of the San Juans | San Juan Island Update: News about the things that make living here great.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting a comment you grant the San Juan Update a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate, irrelevant and contentious comments may not be published at an admin's discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.

Receive new post updates: Entries (RSS)
Receive followup comments updates: RSS 2.0