return to the San Juan Update

READERS: These photos were passed on to me by a friend downsound after the storms two weeks ago. Here are his notes about the intriguing photos he took, which all of us who ride ferries all the time can "feel" as you see them.....

The photographer is Ross Frotheringham - check out his work at (http://www.pbase.com/trackside_photography)

On Thursday October 18th Western Washington was hit with a 50+ MPH wind storm. Here are my pictures of the event.

After work, I made my way down to the Mukilteo Lighthouse Park where I witnessed the Mukilteo to Clinton ferry taking a pounding. These Issaquah 130 Class ferries are over 300 feet long and 78 feet wide and weight in at 2477 tons (4,954,000 lbs) unloaded......

Someone suggested that I should send these to the WS Ferry System. I tried to sell them a much tamer, but similar shot and they told me these kind of shots don't promote rider ship. I couldn't argue that one.

I'll start with some Rock & Roll..
Ok, here's one for you Long Flume lovers... During storms like this the crew plots a course which puts the ferry in the least vulnerable position, but at some point they have to change course, and when they did Puget Sound made up for lost time. After this run the ferry system stopped running at full capacity and ran 1/2 empty for the rest of the night. Note that there are no longer cars visible in the last shot. I'm sure they were washed into the cars behind them Each shot was taken 0.3 seconds apart hand held at 320mm's. During the wind storm I like to go down to the Lighthouse Park in Mukilteo and watch the ferries, but I've never seen a ferry take a hit like that. After this run they added a 3rd ferry and ran them 1/2 empty.