Red Head Brings Port Townsend And Seattle Comfortably Closer

``There it is, home sweet home,'' Kit Africa said, swinging the wheel of the Red Head smartly to port. The fitful morning sun chose that moment to light up the waterfront of Port Townsend, glinting off shop windows and turning the sandstone bluffs a warming gold.

The small Victorian city is, indeed, home to Africa, and Shannon, his artist wife, and their growing family.

Much of the time, Africa can be found there, employed in the ancient craft of rigging wooden boats. But several days a week - following the profession that led his Dutch merchant ancestors to earn their unusual surname - Africa leaves Port Townsend before the crack of dawn, guiding the Red Head to Seattle and back.

Africa is one of three skippers for Puget Sound Express. The Red Head is their 58-foot, 45-passenger vessel. For the past three years the Red Head has spent the spring and summer plying a daily route through the San Juan Islands. This October, it began a twice-daily (three times on weekends) schedule between the north harbor of Port Townsend and Seattle's Pier 56.

One recent Monday morning, I scrambled aboard the Red Head in Seattle not long after the morning's commuters from Port Townsend and Kingston had disembarked.

Africa and deckhand Michael Kennard were tinkering with some new steps, so I had time to sip a first cup of coffee and notice details such as vases of fresh flowers at each of the comfortable passenger booths.

Right on schedule at 8:15 a.m., Africa revved the engines and pivoted the Red Head to enter Elliott Bay.

While the southward morning run and the companion trip northward at 5:30 p.m. is already popular with commuters happy to trade cars for a passenger ferry ride, the ``excursion'' schedule at other times is a northwest jaunt just waiting for discovery.

My only fellow passenger the day I took the Red Head was Janet Hammer, a Seattle graphics designer whose mother-in-law operates the Ravensscroft Inn in Port Townsend.

Janet and I perched behind Africa on a seat in the pilot house for much of the northward trip, turning down the offer of blankets but taking him up on the offer of binoculars to scan the scenery. Gleaming in a fresh coat of snow, Mount Baker and the rest of the North Cascades stood tall to the east, and on the northern horizon we could make out Mount Constitution on Orcas Island in the San Juans.

There was plenty to see at water level, too. Gulls and cormorants skimmed by, Dahl's porpoises danced briefly to the surface, and fishing boats on the way to net silver salmon powered across our bow.

When not dealing with navigation duties such as monitoring the weather report on the short-wave radio and phone calls to the Coast Guard, Africa offered an entertaining commentary on the passing scene - speakers in the main cabin are put to use when more passengers are aboard.

The two-hour trip flew by. Accustomed as I've been to driving and waiting for car ferries, it seemed almost magical to step straight from the Red Head into the quiet peninsular world of Port Townsend.

In this friendly little town, strangers and acquaintances alike greet each other as they pass, and the shops are redolent of salt air and potpourri.

On a blustery fall weekday, every car on the street had Washington license plates. I felt almost like a local, browsing through one of several used-book stores along Water Street. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 played softly on the shop's radio, and soon I found a book I'd been looking for - The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin.

A little later, I crossed Water Street and ducked into Five Fingers, where close to 400 local artisans consign handicrafts. There, the radio brought in ``You Can't Hide Your Lying Eyes.''

Earlier, I'd taken a quick look at the exhibits of the Jefferson County Historical Society, 210 Madison St. I'd climbed from the basement with its ball-and-chain jail cells to the top floor, where a grand Victorian bed carved of walnut resembled nothing so much as a pulpit for a pope.

Now, it was time for a late lunch, and at the Silverwater Cafe I found just what I was looking for. With mild jazz playing, a woodstove warming my back, and a view of the now storm-swept water before me, I sat with May Sarton's ``Journal of a Solitude'' and one of the world's best French Dip sandwiches.

Port Townsend boasts many small businesses run by people who found Eden at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula and stayed to cultivate the quality of their own lives and those of others.

Summer tourism is a mainstay of the economy, sometimes a controversial one as the community struggles to retain its identity. But the welcome is warm and genuine for any visitor able to appreciate the town's leisurely, unpressured pace.

Once again, time had slipped away. I pulled the hood of my parka high and headed back to the dock for a chat with Peter Bedame of P.S. Express.

The company wants to serve three segments of the public with the route between Port Townsend and Seattle, Bedame told me:

-- The commuter, for whom P.S. Express strives to keep on schedule in the face of contrary currents and head winds.

-- The local resident, for whom the Red Head represents a needed option for reaching the urban reaches of Puget Sound for medical, recreational or business reasons.

-- The visitor, like myself, who enjoys exploring ways to leave the automobile behind in favor of mild adventure on the not-quite-high seas.

To serve that segment of the public, P.S. Express has initiated a booking service for Port Townsend accommodations and will provide transfers and advice as needed.

The wind had kicked up a bit by 3:15 p.m. when the Red Head, with Africa at the helm, departed for Seattle. The boat scissored through the whitecaps, leaving a wake that frothed like eyelet lace. I stood again in the pilot house, legs braced against the swells, and thought about how easy it is to travel back in time.

It might have been a century ago, the engine running on steam, and the ship one of the hundreds in the Mosquito Fleet that once kept private enterprise buzzing on the waters of Puget Sound.

Then the modern skyline of Seattle began to glow in the south. We drew close enough to see the huddled forms of commuters waiting beneath their umbrellas for the Red Head, and two eras touched.

IF YOU GO:

-- The Puget Sound Express departs Pier 56 on Seattle's waterfront at 8:15 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. daily, with an additional departure at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. The southbound schedule leaves Port Townsend at 5:30 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. daily, with another run at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Weekday mornings, the Red Head leaves Kingston southbound at 7 a.m., arriving in Seattle at 7:45 a.m. It departs Kingston northbound for Port Townsend at 6:25 p.m. weekdays. It does not stop at Kingston on weekends.

-- Round-trip excursion fare for the Seattle to Port Townsend route is $33, with a two-for-one pass given with each full fare for later use. A discount set of 10 one-way tickets costs $125. Round-trip excursion fare between Seattle and Kingston is $12.50. Freight and bicycles are accepted.

-- Reservations are required; call 1-385-5288 or 1-800-628-1826.

Karen Mathieson is a Seattle free-lance writer and arts critic who contributes frequently to The Seattle Times.