Of Fogs and Ferries and Fries

Today, after a good night's sleep for a change, we woke with a little more energy. Our plan was to walk down to the ferry terminal and take one of the Washington State ferries across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island. We did do this, but we woke to the city thickly shrouded in a heavy fog, the clouds deciding that that they didn't want to be up there, they wanted to be down with us.

The ferry terminal is large and purpose built. We waited inside with a couple of hundred others to board once the passengers, bikes and cars had disembarked from the previous vogage back over from the Island.

We boarded the MV Puyallup, a 460 feet Jumbo Class vessel built right here in Seattle. It has multiple decks and can carry 2500 passengers and 202 cars, so it's not little in any way.

The entire ship was covered in fog as was the terminal as was Puget Sound. As we set off, we headed outside to stand against the bracing winds. And bracing they were. It was fffffreeezing standing directly in the wind so we didn't do that for too long understandably. The crossing was as smooth as silk, punctuated only by the vessel's stupendoulsy loud foghorn which was sounded at regular intervals over the whole crossing. As we neared the destination, we could hear the horn echo back to us.

It was other-worldly and felt surreal for both of us. Visibility on the way over was mere metres. And there were other eqaully large ferries and almost as large crusie vessels, not to mention any cargo ships that might happen to be entering the port; not that you'd see them.

I was reminded of the extraordinary feats of nautical derring-do that I read about in David Grann's book The Wager which gave me fresh admiration for sailing skills of yesteryear in challenging waters. I assumed today's radar was up to the task. I won't forget today's crosssing. It was very special.

The little island of Bainbridge hosts tourists coming off the ferries all day long. There was plenty of accommodation there, but most of the folk I think were day-trippers like us. We found a nice cafe and actually enjoyed a decent latte for a change.

We then took a comfortable stroll around the waterfront on timber walkways in and around and through the various marinas. That was nice. The marinas at home are all locked up and the public can't really walk them. Not so here. It was a lovely feeling to be out and about on the water on a freezing day looking at the mountains, the hills, the island architecture, the boats, and occasionally tinly little glimpses of the tops of skyscrapers poking out of the fog back in Seattle across the water.

All this wandering left us thirsty so we found a nice little diner/bar/pub perched on the side of a hill overlooking the whole wonderful vista where we had a beer and a plate of fries served in a rectangular metal 'bowl'. Cute huh. A bit of check-in with each other here too was a good thing.

Back to the ferry terminal just in time to catch a departing ferry, the same one we came over on. Only this time, there was some blue sky and we got to see the majesty of Mt Rainier overlooking the city as well as the city scape itself, which looked pretty amazing. A nice day indeed.Читать далее