September 3-5 and so to the voyage …..the North Pole via Seattle

We have enjoyed a quite delicious appetiser to our North Pole expedition - a brief sojourn in Seattle with special friends. The 24 odd hour travel time over a couple of days to transfer between continents was made up for by the delights of Seattle and wonderful company. My head is not quite where it should be but we have enjoyed a few of the delights that Seattle has to offer - not to mention a talkfest catching up on perhaps 15 years. 

Glorious views from where we are staying - Queen Anne Hill. Mt Rainier on the horizon

US Coastguard icebreakers. T: services McMurdo, Antarctica. B: goes to the Arctic

The Queen Anne district where we stayed with friends with the Space Needle 

The waterfront Rock n Roll hotel where people can fish out their windows  

After a marvelous water tour of Elliott Bay in Puget Sound followed by clam chowder on the pier, we headed for the Space Needle (built for Seattle’s Worlds Fair 1962 - who could forget Elvis Presley ‘It happened at the World’s Fair’!?).  The Space Needle is quite something but we chose  the Chihuly museum - gallery and gardens instead.

A Seattle way to start the day

Ivars Fish Bar for delicious clam chowder

And I am in love all over again! Perhaps a slight exaggeration … but in the afternoon we basked in the gloriously dazzling colour, the sensuousness of David Chihuly’s art - right next door to where he began his stellar career (Tacoma an hour from Seattle). Like all artists, Chihuly has always drawn inspiration from the world around him - the waters of Puget Sound, his mother's gardens in Tacoma, and the art of dozens of Indigenous tribes, including those who reside along the Pacific Northwest Coast. Truly inspired works. 

Ikebana and float boats

Ikebana and float boats one of my favourites. This installation was gloriously sensual to me. It includes two of Chihuly's wooden rowboats, one filled with Ikebana elements and another with Nitjima Floats the layer inspired by discovering Japanese fishing net floats along the beaches of Puget sound. The Ikebana Boat features long, flower-like glass stems inspired by the Japanese art of ikebana.