The dress was supposed to be casual for President Clinton's island retreat with Pacific Rim leaders, but each leader had a different idea about what casual meant.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin was perhaps the most nattily attired, with shiny black shoes, a dark blazer and light blue shirt. He did, at least, forgo a necktie, in keeping with the other leaders.Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa wore a tweedy gray crew-neck sweater. South Korean President Kim Young Sam wore a red cardigan.
And Clinton was the most casual of all. On the ferry ride to Blake Island he wore a leather bomber's jacket, then shed it once inside the island's rustic lodge to reveal a maroon-and-yellow plaid shirt.
With loose slacks and a pair of clunky brown shoes completing the outfit, the president looked like an Arkansas farm boy - or perhaps more appropriate to the locale, a logger just out of the woods.
The leaders met in the cedar-paneled warmth of Blake Island's Tillicum Village lodge, modeled after a traditional Northwest Indian longhouse.
Reporters, meanwhile, huddled in a drafty tent 200 yards down a muddy path.
The sky was leaden and the temperature was in the 40s, with a gusty wind that lifted tent flaps and made the day seem colder. Ice crystals floated in the orange juice, and chilled reporters crowded around forced-air heaters to thaw feet and hands.
Technical needs were well met - noisy generators kept seven TV monitors, six fax machines and more than 100 telephones operating - but creature comforts were few.
Coffee was popular. "It's the only thing that's hot around here," one reporter said.
Crowd-control police outnumbered the crowd outside the Coast Guard station in Seattle where Clinton and other leaders boarded the ferry to Blake Island.
Fewer than 30 people gathered to wave at the passing motorcades.
"It's a preposterous hour," said Mary Bernson, who arrived before 7 a.m. with her husband and two children. "But we figured it was the best time to see a motorcade. I wanted them to have a sense of history."
The Bernson children - Miya, 9, and Alex, 5 - have been getting into the APEC spirit all week. One afternoon, they slid around their home's hallway on cushions, carrying a trade basket of toys and pretending they were cruising the Pacific from one APEC country to the next.
"We left off at Australia," Miya said. "We had to go to dinner."
The Tyee, the 240-passenger ferry that took Clinton and the other leaders to Blake Island, has not always had smooth sailing.
The catamaran, purchased for $2.6 million in 1986, is one of three passenger-only state ferries that carry a combined 500,000 people a year.
Bought to test demand for passenger-only service, the Tyee quickly became popular but often was out of service because of engine failure and broken propellers. A $1 million overhaul was completed in May.