Puget Sound, in the far northwest corner of the United States, is a gigantic fiord system with approximately 2000 miles of rugged coastline. The Sound includes everything from wilderness archipelagos to the mega-urban strip of Everett/Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia.

Along this island-dotted inland sea there is a small group of people (certainly fewer than 100) who truly live on the water -- not at docks or marinas, but floating free. They live on the hook, out at anchor with no connections to shore and no other homes than their boats. They have no electricity except what they produce themselves, no running water, no telephone. Some are ordinary, some are eccentric, some are plain lunatics. All are fiercely independent. They know themselves and each other as "water rats."

The name of the water rat game was best spoken by the skipper of the scow-schooner OBLIO in Eagle Harbor:

"This is the closest thing to liberty I know. If I knew anything closer, I'd be there instead."

The book MAGIC HARBOR is a memoir of people and events from six years on the Puget Sound waters. Every word is true. Only one person's name and one boat name have been changed. (And believe me, the argument about that among the water rats lasted for two years.)