I was in Seattle last week, and I took a ferry from there to Bremerton, about an hour’s boat ride across Elliott Bay.* From the boat, the water is surrounded on four sides by land, since Puget Sound is all twisty and you can’t see where the bay meets Admiralty Inlet, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and later the Pacific. It was great to be out on the water, and from some viewpoints, any land in view was a long way off.
The views of downtown Seattle and Mt. Rainer were spectacular and I was sorry I’d left my good camera back in Portland. The gulls followed us, and fought the wind by being still in the air just a few feet over the deck. The public dock in Bremerton had nice benches where you could stare at the water to your heart’s content.
But it was not the ocean. And it seems it really is the ocean I’m looking for, not just a big body of water. Because I didn’t get the same feeling I got in Lincoln City three weeks ago, or here in Brookings today.
Here is the land I’m standing on, there is the water, and then there is nothing. The waves are constant, ever-changing and never-ending. Maybe it’s hot, maybe it’s cold, maybe it’s windy, but the water goes on forever.
*the ferry is only $8 for passengers. EIGHT DOLLARS! For a two hour boat ride, and the ride back is free.
There is nothing like looking out into an endless sea to calm the soul and make us feel alive.
Love the seals pic!
It is not just the view of the ocean. It is also the sounds. Whether I am reading, cooking sleeping or – whatever, it is the sound of the ocean that is constant and constantly changing that calms and excites my being.