a thing for ferry boats

Seattle from the ferry to Bainbridge Island

The great thing about travelling alone is that you don't always have to be alone. I've found it a lot easier to travel solo and find company when I want it rather than travel with company and find alone time. A German guy called Ralf posted on the Vancouver CS group that he was going to Seattle from Wednesday to Friday if anyone wanted to join him. I was leaving and returning a day earlier, but I offered to catch up if he wanted a travel buddy for a day. He accepted so on my second day in Seattle I went back to the Greyhound bus station and waited for a strange guy to come say hello.

Ralf is living in Vancouver at the moment, but about to move to Banff for the ski season. He's finished school and on a bit of a 'what do I want to do with my life' mission. He caught the early bus and was in need of food so we headed to Pike Place Market. We walked around for a bit before heading to the waterfront. When I sent out some couchrequests for Seattle, one host replied that he couldn't host me but suggested I go to Bainbridge Island and have lunch at a place called the Public House. I've travelled enough to know that a suggestion from a local is a lot more valuable than a guidebook.

Mount Rainer in the distance

The ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island is 35-minutes and is quite cheap at $7 for the return journey. It was another gorgeous day in Seattle so Ralf and I had good views of the city as the ferry headed to the island. Seattle is a lot more hilly than I realised, but its centre is also quite compact. Sitting at the back of the ferry we had the Space Needle on our left and the port area and Mount Rainer to our right.

View from the Harbour Public House

Once we docked it was about a 15-minute walk along the waterfront to the Harbour Public House. It was a 21-and-over venue, and Ralf isn't 21, but I figured who's going to check at 2.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Luckily, I was right. We took a seat on the deck and if it wasn't for the masts of the boats in the marina, we would have had a great view of Seattle. Seattle is big on its seafood so I order a grilled salmon burger. I'm still coming to terms with the price of salmon in Vancouver. It's not pretty.






Grilled Salmon Burger...yum

After lunch, Ralf headed back to the ferry to meet his host. I ventured into town. Bainbridge Island is a bit of a tourist destination but it doesn't feel like it. It has a great collection of boutiques, galleries, bookshops and cafes. When I walked into one gallery, the owner immediately introduced himself and asked my name. Although I warned him I was the worst customer he could hope for because I had no intention of buying anything, Jack was happy to chat to me for a while, which was nice. Close to the gallery is a store that specialises in tea and knitting products - the wife is into knitting, the husband loves tea.

I headed back to the terminal in time for the 5.30pm ferry back and made my way back to John's house. Waiting there was one of the most amazing people I've ever met - Jamie, the girl John is dating at the moment. Jamie currently has a business advising credit unions on poverty-reduction schemes, but her resume includes running a newspaper and producing television shows, among a host of other adventures. She was the type of person I need to meet at the moment. Someone who has just pursued anything she felt like and not let things get in her way. Over dinner, John basically had to listen to Jamie and I talk all night. But it really was great to meet someone so inspiring.

Dinner was a place called Barrio, a restaurant John had always wanted to check out and that we'd walked past the night before. It features a wall of candles, which the server said were lit by the busser every night. The feat takes more than an hour. We left a special tip at the end of our meal and made sure the server knew who it was for.

The cyclists get ready to disembark