We joined the Navy to see the world! What did we see? We saw the sea.

Today we had the lovely opportunity of hosting our good friends, the Andruses, before they went on their cruise to Alaska! We had such a fun time catching up and visiting together. After they left for the ship, we went on our own boat excursion: Seafair Fleet Week!

We've been listening to the roar of the Blue Angels as they practiced all week for their shows today and tomorrow, and we even got a few sightings in today! They fly so close together--and so fast! But the highlight of Fleet Week came for us this afternoon when we got to tour the USS Bunker Hill, Sword of the Fleet. We met many Navy People (I keep getting corrected when I call them officers and they're really not!) :D

We learned about the missles and the big guns and the machine guns and the little but faster guns. (I had no idea!) We also learned about the navigation, the helicopter landing pad, the emergency boats and their cool system of getting supplies from another ship in open water. They use a pulley-type system that is mounted on the ship to haul supplies from the other ship, which can be up to 100 feet away!

An unexpected tidbit came when I asked about the floating orange perimeter around the entire fleet about 20 feet from the ships on all sides. I figured it was some kind of security measure. Actually, the Navy Man (I didn't ever catch on when they were flinging titles around) said it was in case of an oil spill, it would contain the oil until it could be cleaned up. Michael said that would take a lot of towels! :)

We didn't have our camera with us (now I know how you felt, Margaret! This picture is from the website.), just trust me--these boats were big. I mean, ships. Well, not nearly as big as the Norweigian Star, but we'll see about cruise ships in November.

p.s. I looked through an observation site on board the Bunker Hill and even though it was all the way over by Magnolia, I could still see people walking around on the Star--clear over at Pier 66, on Bell Street! (For you non-Seattle-ites, first of all, come and see what a wonderful place this is! Secondly, we were a long ways away. The point is, it was a powerful set of mounted binoculars!) :D