Holy Shroud of Sequim Found

Sometimes the stories we unearth here at Ferry Tales bring a tear to the eye, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday afternoon when a crew member of the ferry Kaleetan stumbled across what has been confirmed to be the Holy Shroud of Sequim, an unnecessarily frilly white quilt that was hand-stitched by long-time BFF Brenda Vittles of nearby Sequim, Washington, in 1979 during her daily Bainbridge Island to Seattle crossings.

The ornate blanket -- which many BFF old-timers swear was single-handedly responsible for keeping the entire boat "warm, toasty and alive" during the 28-hour power outage that left them stranded aboard the frigid Kaleetan during the blizzard of January 1982 -- mysteriously disappeared later that year. Vittles, who stands by her long-held belief that the blanket was stolen by archaeologists seeking religious artifacts, was re-united with the cloth on Tuesday evening's run from Seattle to Bremerton when a member of the galley staff recognized it in a drawer of dish-rags.

"Overjoyed was my first reaction," said Vittles, raising a celebratory corn dog and glass of white zin (see previous post, below), "but then I was heart-broken that it was in tatters and had been used to clean up the galley."

After the snack, Vittles and her best friend, BFF Millie Jackson of Purdy, Washington, began immediately piecing the quilt back together. "Once the coffee stains and chowder smell are washed out, this is really going to help Brenda move on," said Jackson, who has worn black the past 23 years a sign of support for her mourning friend.

As for the future of the quilt, Vittles gushed that it will be tastefully displayed over the back of the love seat in her Bremerton apartment. "I'll never take my eyes off it again," she said. "But I'd also donate it to the maritime musuem if they asked."