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In my 50 years working on tug boats on the Puget Sound and adjacent waters, I’ve seen some interesting things.

One late night coming out of Bellingham with one barge in tow, the water was glowing.

Every wavelet as far as I could see was glowing, as if it had a light bulb in it. The tow wire underwater all the way to the barge was glowing white. The barge looked like it was riding on a carpet of light. Any fish that was moving in the water was like a light bulb on the move.

In Saratoga Passage between Whidbey Island and Camano Island in the 1960’s, the tug would have a white halo around it at n...