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“Inability to a ccept the mystic experience
is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack
of awareness of the basic unity of organism
and environment is a serious and dangerous
hallucination.
— Alan Watts,
Psychedelics and Religious Experience”
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1950s Beatnik Era. Onslow-Ford and Varda live
and work aboard
in harmony; Varda entertains constantly and the
Vallejo becomes
the center of the local art community.
1960s Summer of Love Era.
1961 Onslow-Ford leases his two-thirds to his
good friend,
writer/philosopher Alan Watts.
1967 Houseboat Summit with Timothy Leary, Allen
Ginsberg,
Gary Snyder and Alan Watts.
1970 Varda dies unexpectedly at age 77. Marion
Saltzman
moves aboard.
1973 Watts dies unexpectedly.
1980s Marion Saltzman acquires the Vallejo. After
she dies a few
years later, Dennis Hurley buys it.
1990s High Tech Era.
1999 Orley Lindgren sells the Vallejo to a corporation.
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The Vallejo had become a
“charming, quaint, dilapidated fleabag.”
(Photo by Paul LeClerc courtesy of Vallejo
website.) |
2000 The Vallejo crosses the bay in a frustrating
attempt at hull restoration in drydock, then returns
to Sausalito.
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The Vallejo passed under the Bay Bridge
on her way to dry dock. (Photo by Heide Foley
courtesy of Vallejo website.) |
2001 Steve Speers becomes part-time manager and
builds the new dock, among other restoration projects.
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| The Vallejo today. (Above and
below photos by Danford/Campbell.) |
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New Yorker Steve Speer
came aboard in 2001 and has made dramatic
improvements in a short time. |
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SEASONING THE VALLEJO
Seagoat island
a white Volvo swerving
mud-tainted marsh-grass and a
square-shaped R.V. .
And a hundred-and-twenty year old Ferry :
its V-shaped iron hull, mud-set,
arched-gangplank off a guillotine-trussed dock ;
with wood-slat siding, skylit, and a Gothic door,
smokestack looking over two white-painted pilot-houses
:
a Bohemian scene of thick-timbered cheer !
All-round are white sailboats at-rest,
muddied Arks, houseboats at-play,
black cormorants circling in the water by day :
a most spirited blend of salt-crust, and Bay !
—Paul leClerc
Poet, photographer, and Sausalito historyphile
Paul LeClerc is a Vallejo muse.
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