Our first impression of Seattle was the vast amount of water to go exploring on. Soon after arriving Molly took the online test and got her Washington State Boaters Card which allowed us to rent boats via Seattle Boat Share.
It felt like betrayal, as sailors, to and rent a power boat, let a lone a little speed boat, but we gave it shot. Here was Molly’s overall reaction to being on a power boat:
“I’m a stink boater now,” she kept taunting me.
We explored Lake Washington when our friends Lexi and Tate visited. We left Lake Union, battled boating traffic over to Lake Washington, sped southward past Mercer Island and anchored in Andrews Bay. Just like old times, we dropped anchor, cut the engine, cracked open a beer and all put our feet up to relax. The only difference was a bald eagle flew by and landed in the pine trees on shore.
When Molly’s parents visited the next month we rented another boat and explored Bainbridge Island, dropping anchor in a few coves and docking at the public docks to go ashore.
Coming home, we had the opportunity to pass through the Chittenden Locks. We’d spent a few days exploring the area around the locks on foot and, like all sadistic boaters, loved watching the boats struggle through the locks, observing all the failures and mistakes. I was at the helm going through the locks and with Barb, Tom and Molly I was quite lucky to have a perfect crew to guide us through.
Others were not so lucky.
It’s expensive to rent a boat in Seattle but the experience was worth it. The Puget Sound is great to explore, the two lakes are some of the best on-the-water experiences you can have in the world and though a powerboat was odd to get used to for us sailors (well one of us at least), cranking up the engine and doing 40 knots down the coast was pretty awesome.
Adam and Molly Go 