Travography - Travel Writing and Photography

A late starter in the cruising stakes, Seattle is more than making up for it with a visitor-friendly persona and weekly cruises to Alaska and beyond.

Words and pictures: Roderick Eime

“Chop its head off!” “Cut out its guts!” and a lifeless carcass is hurled through the air. No, this is not some sadistic pirate ritual, nor some bizarre black magic chant, it’s the Pike Place Fish Market, one of Seattle’s most talked-about tourist experiences.

The market came about in 1907 when consumers, up in arms at skyrocketing produce prices, turned directly to farmers to eliminate profiteering middlemen and created the Pike Place area as the meeting place. Over one hundred years, the market has grown beyond its original trading mandate, survived several demolition orders and become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Customers order their fish from the ice tables in the front of the stall, the order is called out and the entire fish is tossed to the packer behind the counter who wraps it for the…

Many still believed the world was flat when Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain in search of the Spice Islands of Indonesia in 1519. Three years later, with Magellan himself dead and just one ship and 18 men remaining, the first known circumnavigation of the world was completed.

Such is the allure of adventure and exploration that today, nearly five hundred years later, the thrill of a journey around the world by sea is just as intoxicating and exciting as it was then.

The great ocean voyages are the ones that have defined us as a species.

Perhaps the pinnacle of ancient maritime architecture were the enormous Chinese Ming-dynasty treasure ships of the 15th Century. These wooden leviathans dwarfed the petty craft sailed by Magellan, da Gama and even Cook with the largest of these vessels measuring some 150 metres, over five times more than Cook’s Endeavour. It is now known that vast fleets of these huge ships, and their supporting entourage, ranged throughout the Indian Ocean, stamp…