Photo Essay: Locked in Seattle

I was in Seattle last week for a talk at a conference. The organizers were offering a cruise around the Seattle lakes and locks. I decided to check it out - take a breather from the conference chaos, and heave a sigh of relief after my talk.

At first, I thought "locks" was a mis-spelling of "lochs," but it's not. The Hiram M. Chittenden locks are actually a feat of maritime engineering. Being as lazy as I am, I'll just let them do the explaining:

The locks and associated facilities serve three purposes:

• To maintain the water level of the fresh water Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20–22 feet above sea level[2][3] (Puget Sound's mean low tide).[citation needed]


• To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (saltwater intrusion).[5]


• To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa.[6] [Wikipedia article]
  

I only had my cell phone with me, so I apologize in advance for the small sizes, the consistent wide angles and the occasional graininess.

We went past some houseboats in front of the George Washington Memorial bridge (not to be confused with the George Washington Bridge), before going under the bridge itself.

We also sailed past a past-century oil refinery which has since been cleaned up, aestheticized by a local artist and made into a park by the government.

Did you know that if you want a bridge to be raised in Seattle, you have to give an hour's notice? Here's the number to call (fortunately, we squeaked through below it).

And then we were headed to the famous locks.

I noticed an interesting apparatus on the way. Have no idea what it is or does, other than the fact that it was huge (see the street-lamp to its right for comparison).

Here are a couple of shots of the locks, from the Lake Washington side, looking on to Puget Sound.

Just before we entered the Sound, there were two locals intently watching the entire crossing process.

The post-lock panorama was pretty.

We saw Mt. Rainier in the distance.

And a suburb of Seattle called Magnolia, which has no such trees (but apparently they're working on it).

We started to see downtown in the panorama (McKinley's to the right, a bit of Magnolia to the extreme left).

This little guy seemed more interested in me, than in the view...

Ultimately, it got too cold and windy to stay upstairs, so we went downstairs into the cabin, and got the final shot of Seattle's downtown (with the Space Needle in the left-middle window, if you can make it out).

Then we trundled back to the conference center for more of the chaos and a helluva long day.