Living in an area basically surrounded by water leaves lots of room for “on the water” photos! In response to one of Tina’s photos, this one is a favorite. The Water is the Victoria BC Inner Harbour, and these are three of their cute water taxis that ply their way around the harbor, shuttling tourists around.

There is a whole fleet of these tiny water taxis, and you get a water-level view of the beautiful harbor. Take That, Tina!

Speaking of Victoria BC, this fabulous watercraft was in the harbor that same day. I did some research on it, and it is available for charter. If you look closely, you can see that its home base is Auckland, New Zealand! She is pretty far from home.

A little closer to where I live, the waterfront right here in Everett is just chock full of boats of every size and type. Moorage at local marinas always has a long waiting list for slips. But people still buy and own boats.

Wind-powered, motor-powered, and human-powered!

The State of Washington, with all its waters and islands in Puget Sound, runs a fleet of car ferries, bringing people to work in Seattle and Everett, and taking tourists and locals around the Sound and over to the Kitsap Peninsula and the San Juan Islands, year-round. It is actually a part of the State Highway System. It’s always an adventure taking a ferry, and it never ceases to supply new vistas.

I took the photo above from a restaurant window in Mukilteo, which has its own ferry route over to Clinton on Whidbey Island. Little boat for scale! The trip is very short, only 20 minutes.

You will always find kids on the outside decks of the ferry on the trip from Edmonds to Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula. They yell and watch for boats and wildlife.

British Columbia has its own fleet of big car ferries, serving the big and small Gulf Islands. They make the Washington State Ferries look small by comparison. You can actually book a private cabin for longer journeys.

I took this photo of a big cruise ship leaving Seattle, from a Washington State Ferry. See the tiny boat in the foreground for scale?

Of course, there’s always the little water a short distance from my house, Silver Lake. On most sunny days people are out in their kayaks and on paddle boards.

Nighttime on the water offers its own kind of experience.

Puget Sound has numerous “working waterfronts” where fishing boats and tugs live and do their jobs.

This working boat lives in Anacortes.

This tugboat works San Francisco Bay. Alcatraz in the background. I have to say that I was not favorably impressed by the dirtiness of SF Bay. You can see it from the air when you fly into SFO. You definitely wouldn’t want to fall in.

In 2018, when we cruised to Hawaii and back, we spent a LOT of time on the water. The North Pacific is huge, and it took us nearly a week to get from San Francisco to Hawaii. There were lots of opportunities to get out on deck for some exercise and photography.

These were the ocean and sky on two consecutive days.

This one, however, is my “big catch” of the trip, from the second-to-last day. Just before we arrived in Mexico, I took a walk on deck early in the morning, and saw a brand new bird for me. This Masked Booby is a seabird that rarely returns to land. They are rare and not often seen. I was very fortunate to get him with my camera! My telephoto lens sure did its job that day.

Here’s the link to the Original Post.