Every stretch of water has two shores, and the only way to reach the second is to leave the first. These notes are for anyone standing on that first shore—pockets light, heart heavier—wondering if work and wonder can share the same berth.

THE PASSAGE

Episode 1 — Ketchikan ⟶ Sitka, Summer 1988

A deckhand’s diary by Everett Anderson Williams

Prologue | Fare North of Free

I had twenty‑four dollars in my wallet and a play rattling around in my head—too heavy for a backpack, too light for the ferry fare.
When Captain Lou muttered, “Need hands more than tickets,” I swapped the price of passage for three days of rope burn, galley duty, and whatever else his 62‑foot wooden lady—M/V Ardent—could dream up.
Four guest cabins, one fo’c’sle for five green crew members, and a three‑legged dog named Gunner who kept watch with a single eye and a metronomic tail‑thump.
If art is born of constraint, the Ardent was a floating womb.

Day 1 | Ketchikan & Dixon Entrance

0600 — Creek Street drizzle
The tourists were still nursing hangovers when we cast off. I coiled the spring line backward and earned my first glare from Bosun Marlene—sharp enough to fillet salmon.
We nosed north into Clarence Strait, the water iron‑flat, clouds drooping like theatre curtains waiting for their cue.

Passengers

• The Rileys — retired schoolteachers photographing every waking moment, including me mopping the head.

• Ms. Imani — a birder with binoculars the size of hope.

• Jarrett & Cruz — Seattle tech yuppies before the term existed; they brought a fax machine “for emergencies.”

• Mrs. Natsukawa — grandmother, never without her sketchbook.

• Gunner — honorary guest, paid in jerky.

1600 — Kasaan Bay
We anchored so the guests could gape at the longhouse poles. My job: shuttle them ashore in the skiff. Gunner insisted on riding bow—ears like prayer flags.
While they toured carvings older than America’s collective memory, I scrubbed kelp from the prop guard and rehearsed a monologue to the gulls. Gunner offered notes in the form of one decisive bark—better dramaturgy than most grad courses.

Day 2 | Chatham Strait & Peril

0400 — Watch shift
Fog as thick as unspoken love. Radar whispering, bell tolling every two minutes. I poured coffee that tasted of engine oil, counted beats between the swells, and imagined them as drum hits in a song nobody would ever play.

Mid‑morning, the sun broke through—and so did Jarrett’s patience; the fax refused a satellite handshake. He cursed technology, the new sin of Prometheus. Captain Lou handed him a chart and said, “Try analog.”
Somewhere in that exchange I heard the first chords of a future scene: city boys lost at sea, paper map bleeding in the rain.

Evening — Peril Strait
They don’t call it Peril for laughs. Tidal rapids clutched our keel like a critic hugging an opinion. Bosun Marlene barked orders I only half understood, yet my hands obeyed—line, cleat, line, cleat—until the Ardent slid into calmer water.

At supper the captain toasted “safe passes and second chances.” Gunner licked spilled gravy off my boot; I decided that counted as applause.

Day 3 | Salisbury Sound & Sitka

Dawn — Surge Narrows
Amethyst light over Baranof peaks. Ms. Imani spotted a pair of marbled murrelets and swore she could hear their wings whistle. I listened harder and felt my own pulse sync with the prop wash.

1200 — Approach to Sitka
O’Connell Bridge rose like a proscenium arch. The Rileys cried; Mrs. Natsukawa sketched Gunner poised on the bow—hero of a silent epic.
I hosed salt from the decks, trying to sluice off the feeling that something had shifted inside my rib cage.

Arrival log

• Distance: ≈ 300 nm

• Coffee pots drained: 9

• Lines coiled correctly (eventually): many

• New scars: 2 (one knuckle, one idea)

Captain Lou pressed two hundred dollars into my palm—hazard pay, he called it. I tried to refuse; he reminded me the ship ran on barter and kindness.
That night in Sitka I rented a room above the Sheffield Bar, ordered a Rainier, and opened my notebook to a blank page titled “Sawdust Hearts.” The Ardent horn blew in the distance—another story soon departing.

Somewhere between Ketchikan and Sitka I had traded a ticket for a direction, and perhaps the opening riff of a play that would one day set plywood stages on fire.

Epilogue | Why The Passage?

Every stretch of water has two shores, and the only way to reach the second is to leave the first. These notes are for anyone standing on that first shore—pockets light, heart heavier—wondering if work and wonder can share the same berth.

Tomorrow the Ardent is slated to nose back out—north through Glacier Bay, then on to Juneau and the ragged rails of Skagway. Captain Lou says there’s an open bunk if "the salt’s still in your veins, kid." It is.

Until the next crossing,
E.A.W.

The Fables of Everett Anderson Williams - Wildly Unverified Accounts from a Semi-Reliable Narrator - Himself

THE PASSAGE

Episode 2 — Sitka ⟶ Glacier Bay ⟶ Juneau, Summer  1988

A deckhand’s diary by Everett Anderson Williams

Prelude | Salt in the Veins

Sleep was a rumor. I slipped out of the Pioneer Bar at 0200, my breath ghosting beneath the streetlamps, salt still crystallized on my boots. The Ardent’s mast lights winked from her slip in the channel like a seasoned co‑conspirator. I traced the long Lincoln Street loop around St. Michael’s, paused at the four‑way stop, then wandered up to Castle Hill. A buoy’s foghorn sighed once, and the town settled into a hush—until a raven cut the stillness, begging for either breakfast or to critique my thoughts. The first blade of dawn slid between the mountains and a low‑lurking pressure system. By 0500 I’d collected my backpack and stepped back aboard—pockets lighter, heart fuller in the best possible way.

Captain Lou: “Didn’t think you’d show.”
Me: “Couldn’t ignore the rattle in my blood.”
Lou (grinning): “Good. Glacier ice’ll cool it.”

New manifest: three days northward, threading narrow passages and unpronounceable bays, finally slipping into Juneau to swap guests and gain provisions.

Day 4 | Sitka Sound & Cross Sound

0600 — Departure
Gunner greeted me with a half‑spin, half‑limp, tail whacking the capstan. Clouds piled high like wet cordwood. Bosun Marlene handed me the deck brush in lieu of a welcome.

Crew Additions

• Max — college kid on summer break, hired as “science interpreter,” already seasick at the dock.

• Chef Lena — took over galley; speaks in haiku and chili‑powder.

1700 — Icy Strait
A pod of humpbacks lunged‑fed fifty yards off port. Guests gasped; Captain Lou cut engines. The water rolled like black velvet. I swear I felt the reverberation in my molars—low‑frequency theatre.

Day 5 | Glacier Bay National Park

0800 — Bartlett Cove
Rangers boarded to check permits. One, Arliss, carried a carved raven staff and stories older than Shakespeare. He pointed to the forest and said, “Everything you need to know about time is written in the rings.” I pocketed the line.

1200 — Johns Hopkins Inlet
We threaded through brash ice the color of candle smoke. Calving thunder cracked the afternoon; each berg rolled like scenery flats changing between acts. Gunner barked at every splash, convinced the glacier was taunting him.

2200 — Lamplight on the Aft Deck
Chef Lena passed around mugs of cedar tea. Max, finally upright, charted plankton samples under red light. I jotted dialogue about a man arguing with a glacier—nature heckling hubris.

Day 6 | Lynn Canal & Juneau

0300 — Choke Point
Fuel filter clogged; engine coughed like a veteran smoker. Lou’s knuckles went white on the wrench; Marlene held the flashlight; I prayed to whichever sea god handles petty mechanical irony. Filter cleared, throttle purred. The night seemed to stretch endlessly, as if reaching into another dimension, even with dawn just an hour away.

1100 — Approaching Juneau
Rain stitched the water silver. The Mendenhall Glacier glowed blue in the distance, a backstage light behind scrim. Guests crowded the bow; each camera raised flashed in the mid-morning light.

1400 — Juneau Harbor
Lines fast, engines idle. Gunner disembarked first—business to tend on shore. Captain Lou slapped my shoulder: “We off‑load, re‑load, and head for Skagway at first light.”
I nodded, salt still fizzing under my skin.

Log & Lessons

• Nautical miles since Sitka: ≈ 220

• Icebergs dodged: countless; one kissed the paint

• Humpback breaches: 3

• Haiku from Chef Lena: 5 (two food‑related, three existential)

• New bruises: 1 (fuel hatch argument)

One ranger’s farewell echoed all night: “Glaciers remember what people forget.”
I lay in my bunk composing an answer. Maybe a play isn’t a monument; maybe it’s an echo chamber big enough to keep memory alive.

Tomorrow: Skagway’s ragged rails. And beyond that, who knows—maybe the Yukon if the Ardent keeps tempting me. The salt is still in my veins; the story is still at sea.

Until the horizon shifts again,
E.A.W.

The Fables of Everett Anderson Williams - Wildly Unverified Accounts from a Semi-Reliable Narrator - Himself