The Seattle waterfront is a boisterous place. You can almost imagine early settlers here, lumberjacks and Gold Rush guys — such is the energy of the ferries and buskers and tourists and water taxis. 

There was a pier you could walk on to be more at one with the water and the waves. The guy sitting at the end of it yelled down to me. “How big do you think that fishing boat is? I think about 40, 50 feet,” he said. I said yes, having absolutely no reason to disagree with him. 

I wanted to move beyond all of this, though, to a place where water met land. So I kept walking north, toward Alaska (as the sign said), to the Olympic Sculpture Garden and a little cove where driftwood and drifters gathered. I could have walked all day, but I had a train to catch.