Doesn’t it just bug you when your neighbor can’t find a better place to put their boat? They look much bigger when they’re up close. Hard to ignore. The island must have hundreds of boats for fishing, sailing, having fun, or project boats sitting out of the water. Two big boats of a different sort were in town, er, harbor, lately.

A couple of container ships destined for Seattle’s harbor hit a traffic and parking jam; so, wave to Maersk Singapore and APL Qingdao – two ships sitting in Holmes Harbor enjoying our area, possibly without a way to visit the land after such a long voyage. The good news, they probably won’t stay long. The other good news, they may be holding that thing you bought a while back, or containing the thing that is needed to finish the thing that you ordered. I doubt they’d appreciate a visit and let you rummage around looking for the piece you need.

Holmes Harbor is a common and convenient parking place, at least according to whoever is managing the shipping traffic. While many of Whidbey’s harbors have names like “Useless”, when the water gets deep, it gets very deep. These vessels are about 1,100 feet long and deeper than many buildings are tall. Ever Given, the one that blocked the Suez Canal is bigger, ~ 1,300 feet long, but not by much. Fortunately, Holmes Harbor is about a mile wide. That should be plenty of room to maneuver.

It should be obvious, but it is easy to ignore that Whidbey Island is a good place to watch Big Ships go by. Puget Sound has very large ports (Seattle and Tacoma), as well as Navy bases (Everett and Bremerton – plus the very un-obvious submarine base in Hood Canal), cruise ships, freighters, mega-yachts and lots of personal craft for whatever. Very few of them have any choice and must pass along the west side of Whidbey.

A popular web site to keep refreshed is MarineTraffic.com. Have some patience with it. When it loads it is getting data about every ship it can around the world. Many of the ships are obvious. Aircraft carriers and cruise ships are hard to miss. The parade passes by, mostly quietly – except for a few that could use some engine work. Grump. The site is particularly entertaining when some yacht goes by that has enough room for a helicopter; or when a heavy lift craft slowly proceeds with an oil rig on top.

Imagine the captain’s job. Navigate a 1,100 foot ship carrying millions or dollars of goods while avoiding the other ships, boats, and things like kayaks and whales – and then be told to go park it somewhere while the traffic clears. That could be frustrating.

Of course it can also be frustrating or entertaining to wake up at your waterfront property and be staring out at tons of somewhat rusting steel, bobbing in place, with a few crew possibly looking back at you.

Life on Whidbey.

As for your land neighbor’s land-locked craft, well, maybe they’re using that fishing boat to fish for chickens.