❖ OLD FERRY GREETED BY HER OLD CAPTAIN ❖

Captain Halvorsen (L)
and Captain Ole Rindal
Two four–stripers heading for shore –– after cake.
Original, undated photo signed by
Williamson's Marine Photo Shop
from archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Back when the Puget Sound ferry ENETAI was known as the SANTA ROSA –– the first time –– one of her captains was Ole Rindal, at right in the above photo at his retirement.
      He may have thought he had seen the last of the boat when he skippered her into retirement.
      But he hadn't.
      When the old ferry, now the SANTA ROSA again, was given a champagne welcome upon her return to San Francisco Bay Ole Rindal was there.
      The SANTA ROSA was towed from Puget Sound to Oakland along with another ferry well known to residents of both areas. The other vessel was the FRESNO, which resumed her original name after plying Puget Sound as the WILLAPA.
      Oakland's fireboat greeted the ferries as they went under the Golden Gate Bridge, the span that ended the SANTA ROSA's service between San Francisco and Marin County. 
      Then the ferries went under the Bay Bridge, which put both of them out of business on San Francisco Bay in May 1940, and opened the way for them to be purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Co.
      Several hundred people greeted the returning ferries at Oakland, where the SANTA ROSA (ex-ENETAI), was rechristened by Mrs. Don Clair, the ferry's new owner.

M.V. SANTA ROSA
Permanently anchored at Pier 3,
adjacent to downtown San Francisco for
Hornblower Cruises and Events.
The former car deck is now a dance floor,
with corporate offices above.
Hornblower Cruises website 2018.

      "Capt. Ole Rindal was there in his Washington State Ferries uniform," Harre Demoro, member of a steering committee which plans to turn the SANTA ROSA into a maritime museum, said in a letter received here today.
      'He was skipper of the ferry when she arrived on Puget Sound and ran for a few weeks as a diesel-electric, under her old name.' 

M.V. ENETAI (ex-SANTA ROSA)
and Captain Ole.
Click image to enlarge.
Photos from the archives of the Saltwater People Log©

Then he was one of her first skippers when she emerged in 1941 as the ENETAI.
      Then he tied her up for the last time last June. 
      'He was quite the celebrity.'
      Like the ENETAI and the WILLAPA, Capt. Rindal is now retired.
      The SANTA ROSA and FRESNO are tied up near where the KALAKALA, another former Puget Sound ferry, was launched as the PERALTA in 1927.
      About 100-feet from the SANTA ROSA is the bulk of the CHIPPEWA, the first Puget Sound ferry which Clair bought for a museum ship. Workmen have begun removing the charred superstructure of the CHIPPEWA, which caught fire, apparently burned by vandals, while under conversion."
Text by Jay Wells, Maritime Editor, the Seattle Times. May 1964.
Clip submitted courtesy of Capt. Jack Russell, Seattle, WA.
Here is another Saltwater People Log entry regarding a young Capt. Ole.