Bremerton Harbor Love

The first morning in Bremerton started out overcast and windy. Throughout the day, pops of sunshine took place through the clouds. But the wind stayed all day.

Goody.

It didn’t stop me from heading out a few blocks from my hotel to explore some of my favorite spots in town.

Just a few hours later, the sun was shining happily. That was my cue to go grab some lunch!

Oh boy, I love the sound of the ferry horn. It makes me think of good things about to happen! I didn’t head over to Seattle today, but I’ve been over there many a time on the Bremerton Ferry.

It’s lots of fun, and probably the best seven dollars that you can spend for a round-trip ticket!

I didn’t want to go crazy for lunch today, since I knew that dinner was going to be yummy at the Bremerton Bar and Grill. I decided to grab a little sandwich and hot chocolate at Starbucks Coffee just across the street.

The building to the left is the Hampton Inn. It’s where Hubby and I stayed over Labor Day weekend, which was the last time that I was here for work.

That’s way too long, in my opinion. I wish that I had more say over where and when we go!

On a cold, blustery day, I thought that a hot chocolate sounded just right. But you know what? Starbucks hot chocolate is awful! Sometimes I forget that and order one anyway. Once again today, I was bummed with my $4 purchase.

But this panini sandwich was pretty good. It was a caprese sandwich that they stuck on the grill for a few minutes. It meant that the buffalo mozzarella cheese melted all over the pesto sauce, basil, and tomatoes inside.

Ooey gooey goodness. I can’t complain about this at all. And I managed to choke down the gross hot chocolate, too.

We wouldn’t want to get dehydrated, would we?

With a warm and happy belly, it was time to brave the windy cold again by wandering around the harbor. This is the ferry terminal to Seattle. But I’ve shown you this before.

And this is the Bremerton harbor. Over Labor Day, this entire marina was packed with boats of people in town for the weekend festivities. That was such a fun time! I loved having Hubby with me, too.

It’s odd to see this clear of all the people and food vendor tents, which were up five months ago when I last looked upon this view. I like it better without all the people, but that was sure a fun time.

People-watching is always better when there are people around. Weird, huh?

The local sea birds seem to have a favorite perching spot. The dirty little buggers.

This explains in one picture why Hubby and I agree that we will never have any animals in our home!

Especially seagulls.

This is the docking bay where the ferries arrive from Seattle every hour. Can you see the people lined up inside the terminal to board the soon-to-arrive ferry?

And here comes the ferry! If I was here another day, I would definitely head over to the city for an afternoon of heaven. For today, however, I was content to watch everyone else go to Seattle.

Come on, little ferry. Come on home!

What a pretty view. Apparently, they winterize these water fountains. When I was here with Hubby, they exploded with water shots about every minute. It was so neat!

Isn’t he cute? I missed him on this trip. I miss him on every trip.

This is where the cars and bikes and motorcycles exit the ferry. They come up this ramp and are soon on their way to town.

Here is the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. For the first three decades of the last century, this shipyard was the proud owner of the largest dry dock in the world. They’ve turned out many a boat from these buildings. In fact, during the peak of World War II, they were cranking them out two a week.

Can you imagine?! And not just little tugboats, either. We’re talking giant battleships!

Another view of the normally-watery fountains. It’s amazing how long it takes for a ferry to dock, so I just took pictures of everything around me while I waited.

Come on, little guy. It’s cold and windy, and I’m ready to be inside where it’s warm!

Man, someone keeps whining in here! That’s so annoying!

This is the view back towards downtown Bremerton. See how those rain clouds are moving in for another round tonight? I made it back inside before that started to happen.

But man, I love how rain smells. It might be my favorite smell of all.

This is the view looking back towards the other water fountains. Don’t you love how they’ve made them look like the tops of submarines? This whole town is very fishy and shippy.

Finally! This guy is close to docking! Can you see the cars underneath ready to disembark? It would be a cold day to sit outside on the ferry while this guy trucked across the Puget Sound. Luckily, it has a giant indoor seating area, too.

Honk hooooooonk! The ferry is here! I love how they use reverse thrust to get just the right angle to dock.

As you can obviously see, I don’t know a whole lot about boats.

I prefer things that fly, personally.

A few posts from now, we’ll wander through this museum again. I promise that it wasn’t just to get out of the windy cold, though that was a nice thought, too.

Looking back towards downtown, you can see the awaiting cars ready to load up on the ferry to go back to Seattle. It’s only docked for about ten minutes before it toots its horn and heads back east to the city. Halfway, it will pass the other ferry coming towards Bremerton.

I always wave at the other ferry. It probably freaks people out, but it’s hard to hide a smile and immense excitement when ferrying over to Seattle!

More of Bremerton to come!