DOCK STREET MARINA - MIRADOR'S NEW HOME
MAY 2006

Mirador lived at slip A-1 in the Murphy's Landing Marina, Gig Harbor, Washington, in the years before we took her to San Diego and Mexico in August 2000.  When we brought Mirador back to Puget Sound in August 2004 we were fortunate enough to find another vacant slip in Murphy's Landing.  We have been renting slip C-8 from Steve and Kaye Van Slyke who took Kavenga, their Lord Nelson 41, back to Mexico in August 2004.   I had worked with Steve at Weyerhaeuser in Tacoma in the early '80s and had spent a lot of time talking with him about cruising before we left Tacoma.

Kaye and Steve had previously done a three year Pacific Ocean circumnavigation in the early '90s (US West Coast, Mexico, South Pacific, New Zealand, Japan, and back to Gig Harbor).  Steve provided a lot of excellent advice as we prepared Mirador for her trip south.  Steve and Kay spent 2005 and 2006 in Western Mexico and have now purchased a condominium just outside Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  Kavenga will return to Puget Sound in late June 2006 aboard a Dockwise transport vessel. You can read about Dockwise at: http://www.svmirador.net/April_16_2004.htm which is the story of how Jim and I helped Eric Stephans put his Norseman 447, Indara, aboard a Dockwise Transport ship in La Paz, Mexico.

You can read about Kavenga's travels down the US West Coast and around Western Mexico at: http://kavenga.home.att.net/

Steve and Kaye needed their Murphy's Landing slip for Kavenga so we have moved Mirador to a brand new 50' slip at the Dock Street Marina on the Thea Foss Waterway in downtown Tacoma.  The marina was completed in late 2005 and is beautiful.  Here is a link to a map showing the marina.  DOCK STREET MARINA.  It is 1.1 NM from our slip to open water in Commencement Bay. 

The main reason we moved Mirador back to Tacoma from Gig Harbor is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  The Murphys' Landing Marina and Gig Harbor are on the Kitsap Peninsula and the ONLY practical way over there is via Highway 16 and the Narrows Bridge.   From our apartment to Murphy's Landing is a 15 mile trip, 13 of which are on Highway 16 (four lane freeway) which crosses the mile wide Tacoma Narrows.  Anytime between 2 PM and 7 PM on weekdays that 13 miles on the freeway requires at least 30 minutes and is often impossible.  Several times a month the bridge is closed for hours at a time due to accidents.  Additionally, during the summer or on holidays the traffic coming back into Tacoma across the Narrows in the evening is even worse.   Twice this year I have had to cancel trips out to Mirador because the bridge closed after I got on Highway 16 and twice I have been stuck in Gig Harbor for many hours when I could not get across the bridge to come back to Tacoma.

The State of Washington has allowed a private firm to build a new parallel bridge on which there will be a $3 toll to return to Tacoma.  That bridge will open in April 2007.  The old bridge is by state law free to all but will be made into a one-way bridge heading from Tacoma to the Kitsap Peninsula and Gig Harbor.  So the cost of every trip out to Mirador would be an hour of travel time and $3 beginning 2007.

The Dock Street Marina is only four miles and eight minutes from our apartment. 

Here are some pictures of the marina and surrounding area. 

Click on any picture to see a full screen image.

This is the view looking north along the Thea Foss promenade as you leave the marina parking lot headed toward the office and ramp to the slips.  The first building to the far left is the Albers Mill lofts (condominiums build in the old Albers Grain Mill).  The odd inverted funnel is part of the Tacoma Glass Museum.

 The large building in the distance are the Thea's Landing condos.

The ramp headed toward the Thea's condos alongside the Glass Museum leads to the footbridge that connects with the Washington State Historical Museum, University of Washington Tacoma campus, and downtown Tacoma. 

The marina is just to the right of this picture.

The marina office taken from the same spot as the previous picture.

The marina dockmaster is Doug Hicks who I met in Mexico at Playa Burro in Bahia Concepcion.  Doug and Baja Gary were serious team cribbage opponents for Dick Frank and I on many long afternoons at either Gary's palapa or Bertha's resturante.  Here is a link to pictures and stories about Playa Burro, Baja Gary, and Bertha's: Burro Bay and Palapa Pictures

Another picture from the same spot looking ESE toward the East-West highway bridge and the east  end of the Thea Foss waterway.  From this spot I can walk, skate, or ride my bicycle 8 miles to Point Defiance.

The east end of the waterway is the beginning of the Thea Foss promenade which connects to the Shuster Parkway walking path and the Ruston Way waterside walk, and then eventually to Point Defiance Park, Five Mile Drive and the Tacoma zoo.  

Here is the Tacoma Glass Museum from the top of the ramp leading down to Mirador.  That is the Washington State History Museum in the background.

Finally!  A picture of slip F-9 - Mirador's new home.  The arrow points at F-9.  The Freedom 36 sailboat in F-7 belongs to Doug Hicks.  He singlehanded her from Seattle thru the Sea of Cortez and back to Seattle. 

The big crane to the left of the picture belongs to Martinac Boats who build large fishing boats and are now trying to win a bid for the four new 200 car Washington State ferrys.  The marina across the Foss waterway is Delin Dock's which is operated by the same folks who run Dock Street and the Elliott Bay Marina in Seattle.  Delin Dock's were just completed in March 2006.  Doug is the dockmaster for both Delin and Dock Street. 

The large flat top building behind Delin Docks is the SuperValu warehouse for the PacificNorthwest.  They wholesale to many major supermarkets around here.

This is looking east from near Thea's Landing's condos across the Museum of Glass reflecting pool toward the marina office and the Tacoma Dome in the far distance. 

The Tacoma Dome has the has the largest open floor of any wood beamed (with no interior support structure) building in the world.   My signature is on the laminated arched beam at the very peak of dome.  I worked for Weyerhaeuser when we laminated the enormous beams and we were allowed to sign them before they were put in place.

Another shot of the slip, looking east, taken from the promenade in front of Thea's Landing.

The tidal range in the Thea Foss waterway is about 10 feet on a normal day and over 15 feet in January and June.  In this picture (3:15 PM) the tide is at a level of 5.6 feet.  It dropped to 0.6 feet in at 7:12 PM and then rose to 12 feet at 2 AM. . 

The large brown building the the left of the bridge towers is the new dry storage marina.

That is the Albers Mill Condos and the Museum of Glass in the background.  The tide was at 0 feet when this picture was taken.

Thea's Landing Condo's in the distance. 

This looking SE from the walkway just north of our slip.  That is Mt Rainier with a summit of 14,410 feet 41.5 miles to our SouthEast.   Current estimates are that if Mt. Rainier were to erupt as did Mt. Saint Helens the entire Tacoma tideflats (industrial area), including the Thea Foss waterway would be covered by 30' of boiling mud in less than two hours.  

But not to worry, it has been over 500 years since the last major eruption of Rainier!

This is looking north up the Thea Foss waterway toward Commencement Bay and Puget Sound.

That is the 11th Street (Murray Morgan) drawbridge in the distance.  I am pretty sure the drawspan no longer works.  The charted vertical clearance is 64 feet at MHW (mean high water) which is 11.0 feet on the Foss Waterway.  Mirador has a 59 foot mast so we can get out to Puget Sound on any tide below 15.0 which is almost every tide of the year.

The pilings in this picture have been replaced by the C-Dock set of floats and slips for Dock Street Marina.

This is the top of the Museum of Glass looking ESE from the footbridge that takes you to downtown Tacoma.