Seattle Seafair - Big Boats, Little Boats, Boats Galore!

OH MY GOSH! I have never seen so many boats, in so many sizes, all in the water, racing to the same destination. It was incredible and scary at the same time!

After arriving at Seattle and checking the Internet for boat launches, we ended up launching at Bellevue 40th Street Boat Launch. Even on a Thursday night at 9:30 we had to get in line and it was chaos (very nice boat launch though!). It's run by Seattle Parks and Rec and they have a slight flaw in their system of charging fees. It seems that you can only buy a one day parking pass, no ifs, ands, or butts. :-)
We know this because on Friday night there were Parks and Rec officials at the launch, directing traffic, and they told us there was no other way to pay, but by day-to-day, since the date and time are on each ticket. It really stinks because it makes it impossible to go out the Ballard Locks and into the Puget Sound area. We wouldn't have any time to look around before we would have to head back and pay for another day. I sent them an e-mail about that!
Here's Craig checking our boat Friday morning at the Kirkland Marina. We pulled in at midnight and tied up toward the end of the dock because that was the only vacant area we could find. The next morning we found out the other boats closer in were going to be towed if they didn't move soon, because they had big charter boats coming in. We were ok though, being so far out. Lucky!
We walked right off the docks into downtown Kirkland that morning. It's a very cute little town with lots of shops and restaurants. We had a great breakfast at George's Place, a Greek restaurant that Mike, the Kirkland Marina manager told us about.
Next we headed out to see the Blue Angels perform over Lake Washington. As you can see behind Craig, we weren't alone. As you will see in coming pictures, we were NEVER alone. I thought Lake Shasta was bad for so many boaters. They don't hold a candle to Lake Union or Lake Washington during Seafair! The weird thing is that they have very few marinas with gas and supplies on either of these lakes. Most of the shoreline is privately owned and it makes the lake seem very inhospitable to visistors.
Here it's a race to the get under the 520 bridge, heading for the north side of the I-90 bridge, where the Blue Angels supposedly center their performance. The reason I say supposedly is because they always seemed to be doing the really cool stunts on the south side of the I-90. Since Friday and Saturday were just practice from 1:30 to 2:30, we had to stay Sunday to see the actual performance of not just the Blue Angels, but of the hydroplane races too. Check out the next posting to see all the boats we've seen. And though we haven't taken our wonderful MacGregor Motorsailor to the ocean, it sure felt like we were on one most of the time.....you'll see why!