The Waters of Seattle

View of the Seattle skyline from Puget Sound.

          We had to get up early today to get on the first Argosy harbor tour of the day as the CityPass recommends.  After slightly regretting last night's gluttony we made it to Pike's Market for a cinnamon roll and sticky bun to go.  With just a few minutes to spare we boarded the Goodtime III and grabbed one of the many empty starboard side benches.  Arriving for the first cruise certainly paid off!

I still have no idea what this is.

This hotel was built for the World's Fair but it was completed too late.  The Beetles enjoyed fishing from the windows.

          The wind on Puget Sound was nice and chilly while the sun, yes we had sun this morning, was warm.  We enjoyed our breakfast as the tour guide told us about the history of the docks, the seven neighborhoods, islands, industry, sports, and local wildlife.  The skyline from the water was gorgeous.

The dinosaurs of the shore.

          After our tour we took the very short walk to the aquarium and spent a good many hours exploring all the fish and mammals on display.  We are both very impressed with the Seattle Aquarium.  The Shedd Aquarium has larger mammals and loads of fish in tanks, but Seattle has the largest touch tank we've ever seen with the largest variety of animals to touch.

Sea stars, sea cucumbers, anemone, urchin, fluffy looking creatures and so much more!

          We were first greeted by a tank talk at the large tank in the entrance with many salmon, a wolf eel (actually a fish), and many other fish swimming around the diver who was telling us about the animals as she fed the fish.  After taking some 4k quality video (heck yeah!) of the talk we moved on to the next area.

Katie is surrounded by silvery salmon.

          There was a schedule of events for the day on a screen and we saw that the octopus feeding was beginning in ten minutes.  We headed over to the tank and realized that this is the octopus that was famous a couple months ago for trying to escape the tank.  Now Ink is much larger and happy to stay inside and wait to be fed herring and sardines on a stick.

          Next we explored the touch tank and various other tanks in the building.  Another bonus to this aquarium is how well lit so many of the tanks are.  I got such better quality pictures thanks to both a new camera and better lighting.

          A few rehabilitated birds including adorable puffins led us to the next part of the aquarium housing the dome tank.  We took a seat and listened to the next talk as another diver fed the fish swimming around us.  Large orange rock fish, more wolf eels, huge halibut, sturgeon, and so many silvery salmon.

A male wolf eel, his face has jowls that the women's don't.

          The last talk of the day was showing us how they do daily check-ups and training with their harbor seals.  The seal got many fish as a reward for taking directions and finally she got fishcicles: fish frozen in ice, as a treat.  The trainer said she's smart enough to wait for the ice to melt to get the treats out.

          Both sea and river otters were looking sleepy and adorable as we headed toward the gift shop.  If there was no glass between us I could have felt how soft their fur appears.  I grabbed a magnet and t-shirt and we were off for lunch after a quick check-in at the conference center for the convention.

          After such a busy and successful morning we treated ourselves to some gyros, or as they spell it out here: Yeeros.  They had some truly amazing tzatziki sauce and the lamb was very tasty, too.  D downed his and played some video games as I slowly enjoyed mine and surfed the Internet.  We decided after looking at the menu to cancel our reservations to the SkyCity Restaurant in the Space Needle.  We already have passes to go to the observation deck twice to there isn't any need to spend almost $100 on food that doesn't sound that appealing.  We have very simple food needs.  Instead we'll spend that money on fondu when we get back.

          Last on our schedule today was the Exhibitor Reception for ICRA 2015.  We enjoyed a few hors d'oeuvres as we explored the various booths set up by the sponsors.  It is always fun to watch the future being invented in front of us.  I feel like the odd one out being a chemist rather than an engineer.  That doesn't mean I can't appreciate what I see, and what I don't understand D is very good at explaining.

          Since the food didn't completely fill us up we took the extra walk to Molly Moon's for some ice cream.  Oh boy.  This ice cream is dangerously rich.  I got the saffron honey caramel sundae which is vanilla bean ice cream topped with melted chocolate ice cream (that wasn't melted), topped with caramel, topped with whipped cream, topped with saffron honey stuff that is so dang flavorful I had to eat it at a snail's pace.  I mean a snail's pace.  I still have over half of the sundae left as I type, if that is any indication of how slow I have to eat this treat.  D got Molly's Favorite which had lots of chocolate, amazing fudge topping, overly rich salted caramel ice cream, and candied hazelnuts.

One of the touch tank red anemone that eat fish.

          As we ate we watched the bike polo going on across the street, a homeless man root through the garbage and finish someone else's thrown-out ice cream, how they make homemade waffle cones, and many interesting people walk by the store front.  Seattle is a very interesting city and tonight I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all.  I am happy to be back in the hotel room, shutting out the world.