TACOMA — The rusting Kalakala ferry, alternately a source of pride and plague for Western Washington, has found a new home.
Tucked in a narrow waterway in Tacoma’s industrial center, the 276-foot former queen of the Black Ball Line was secured to a rotting dock Saturday afternoon miles and hours away from the North Olympic Peninsula.
“The Kalakala is here,” owner Steve Rodrigues announced after gingerly climbing off the boat’s broad stern and crossing the dock’s unstable boards.
“It is going to have peace for the first time since Oct. 9, and so will I.”
Reaching its new resting place on the Hylebos Waterway marked the end of a more than 28-hour journey for the Kalakala, which was towed Friday morning from Neah Bay at the behest of the Makah tribe and the state Department of Natural Resources.
Second tow
It was the second tow Rodrigues has undertaken for the streamlined, art-deco ferry since purchasing it last October.
But unlike its departure six months ago from Seattle’s Lake Union — where scores of people lined the Ballard Locks for a glimpse, or its subsequent arrival in Neah Bay, where cheers and prayers greeted the vessel — the Kalakala on Saturday drew about 40 curious onlookers to an open drawbridge near its new moorage to watch quietly as the vessel passed beneath with Rodrigues waving from the stern.
“Look at that, Anthony,” said a man to a young child he held above the bridge railing. “That’s a big part of history.”
Rodrigues says it’s that history he hopes to restore as the Kalakala sits in Tacoma for the next 12 months.
