We had this weekend free to do some boating on our own so we decided to head south to Bell Harbor down on the Seattle waterfront. The yacht club comes here every year but we have never been able to clear our schedule to go with them. We had no idea what we have been missing out on! Yes, we have lived in the Seattle area our entire lives but we have never been to the marina or seen the town from this perspective. The trip down was a little hazy but we had a good run and arrived about 1:30pm.
After we got tied up and gave Barkley his obligatory walk, we headed down to check out Pike Place Market. It is always amazing to see the number of people there and to see the sites through a tourist's eyes.
When we returned to the boat, we sat up on the upper deck and read for awhile. While we were there, we had visitors. Another couple who just returned from two months on their 32' Nordic Tug, John Forrest, joined us and we compared notes on our tugs and boating experiences. They are June and Bob Henry from Portland, OR. We had a wonderful visit with them. One of the most fun things about boating is meeting other boaters. Everyone is so nice, eager to get acquainted and to share stories. It was a wonderful place to sit, look out at the city and make new friends.
After dinner we watched a little of the Seahawks game then headed down the waterfront to ride the Great Wheel - the West Coast's largest ferris wheel that opened in Seattle in 2012. It is 170' high and gave us a beautiful view of the city and Bell Harbor Marina. It was $15 per person and well worth the money. The ride was about 15 minutes long and included two full rotations plus the time it took to load and unload. Our timing was perfect! We had enough light to get some good pictures but still enjoy watching the sun go down.
After our ride, we returned to the boat to watch the rest of the game against Chicago. If you zoom in on the photo of the stadium, you can see the stands full of Seahawks fans.
Saturday was a pretty lazy day. We walked up the to the main shopping area with Westlake Center and Pacific Place. It is amazing how busy it is downtown compared to years ago when I would go there. And a large number of the people are tourists. There are several cruise ships coming and going so it is a very busy place. One of the things we noticed was a very long line of teenage girls lined up around three sides of the Nordstrom block. We asked an officer what they were waiting for and she said it was for a Meet and Greet with the youngest Kardashian sisters, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, who are launching their first shoe and handbag line. We passed on this one!
We have known for years about the Ride The Duck tours but never thought about taking the tour ourselves. As we watched many groups go down the street blowing their Quackers and listening to the tour guides get the passengers riled up, we realized it actually might be a fun activity, even for us locals. I'm seriously going to consider it for one of our upcoming Jet-Setters (empty-nester) group activities at church.
When we returned to Bell Harbor we got a good view of the cruise ship that was tied up next to us. We are at the top of the far left rows of boats. You can see how the cruise ship dwarfs every boat in the marina. We also saw two other cruise ships tied up at Elliott Bay Marina as we left on Sunday.
Barkley had a great time on the boat but I think he prefers the marinas in rural settings over the concrete jungle of a city. We found a patch of grass across the street from the marina by the railroad tracks that was planted specifically for the pets. He did great, though, and was quite happy to sit and pose for the camera. We left Sunday morning about 9:00 when we saw the fog starting to roll in over the city. We made it back to Everett with no problems and had beautiful weather all the way.
