Not to brag, but I own a boat. My very own seafaring vessel that I use for recreation, launched from any port that suits my fancy. It’s also only 11 feet long, two and a half feet wide, and six inches thick. It is, of course, a standup paddleboard.
I’m not the only one to embrace paddleboard ownership in the last decade; on Tuesday, more than 800 people (at least by one count) took to the water near Gasworks for something called the Seattle Paddle Rave, a new event meant to thaw out the Seattle Freeze. The flotilla gathered offshore, a giant blur of turquoise blue sidewalls and exposed shoulders just waiting for a sunburn. Watching them, it was clear that paddleboard culture has changed the face of Lake Union.
Lake Union, the city’s central water park, was formed by the Vashon Glacier thousands of years ago and was used by the Duwamish Tribe for centuries—for fishing and transportation but also, inevitably, for recreation. White settlement brought lumber mills and pleasure craft, and eventually Lake Union became home to “every single kind of boat that possibly exists,” says Josh Anderson, executive director at the Center for Wooden Boats, which sits on the lake’s southern shore. Oh, plus seaplanes…