The schooners Wawona, La Merced, and the steam ferry San Mateo

The name is taken from the book by Ernest Gann but was inspired by the name of the restored salmon troller “TWILIGHT” located under the bows of Wawona.  

Gann’s book is a story of a mans love for a dying ship and a way of life - a decrepit windjammer at the end of the age of sail.   Ernest K. Gann was a favorite author and I have bought the out of print versions  of “Twilight for the Gods” and and “Song of the Sirens” to read again.

Wawona is gone now - 112 years old when cut up in 2007 after years of neglect and sitting unprotected during years of northwest rain in freshwater Lake Union.  The pictures here are from 2006 when back in Seattle.   Detail pictures of Wawona and her drydocking in 1985 are here.

La Merced was built in 1917 and is part of a breakwater in Anacortes, Washington partially bulldozed full of rock and gravel fill.  La Merced was part of the breakwater when I first saw her, but proud and upright with carved name boards and scroll work still affixed to her aged bows.  There was even talk around about refloating and restoring the old vessel.   That was in the 1970’s.  The pictures of La Merced are from the 1990’s

I have added photographs of the old steam ferry San Mateo that long languished at the south end of Lake Union, with dreams of becoming a museum ship.   She too, is gone.

There is much more ..... visit the  Peregrine Sea Gallery!