View from the Right Seat of an Otter

Each time I travel on business or pleasure, I seem to always try and find something to do for fun that involves airplanes. A 2007 trip to Seattle on business would have been the perfect time to tour Boeing's factory, but with just two days in town to play before an agency presentation on Monday, it looked like airplanes would be replaced by flying fish at Pike Place Public Market, shopping, eating and enjoying the Seattle area for the first time since my teens.

But all that changed instantly on Saturday afternoon. As I stood on the Marriott Residence Inn's balcony overlooking scenic Lake Union, a unmistakable sound began reverberating across the marinas below, past the zillion-dollar motoryachts before bouncing off the high-rise condos encircling the lake and arriving at my smiling face. What made me grin widely was the wonderful sound of a large radial engine pulling a beautiful yellow and white De Havilland Beaver seaplane off the lake. To me, it was like going to the symphony.

As I watched the Beaver lumber off across the lake, it dawned on me that I had never been in a seaplane. I remembered seeing a rack card down in the lobby offering seaplane sightseeing flights, and when Julie said I should make that my "recreation" for this trip, without hesitation, my Sunday plans were made. Or so I thought...

The seaplane airline - Kenmore Air - offers one of the finest views of Seattle, Victoria and the San Juans you can find. Their sightseeing flights fill up, so when I called, I told them I was a pilot and was eager to take my first seaplane ride and then post about the experience here. As if determined not to disappoint, Kenmore's Lake Union Supervisor, Brandon Freeman, found a way to accommodate me by slipping me into the right seat of their afternoon multi-stop run from their busy Lake Union Terminal to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island and then on to Deer Harbor and West Sound on Orcas Island. It was one of the most awesome trips I have made by air ever...a "media ridealong" I will never, ever forget.