Going through the Ballard Locks and touring Lake Washington
Scott and I have never toured Lake Washington on our boat. Last year, this same weekend Scott and I went through the Ballard Locks for the first time. It was a cool experience, but not that fun of a day as Seattle was engulfed in smoke and ash.
One of the things I wanted to do this summer was go back through the locks and enjoy Lake Washington. So this past weekend, we invited our friends Dave & Kathy to join us. The weather was great and not too hot. The Ballard Locks are about 30 minutes from Elliott Bay and the entire round trip, including lunch took about 7 hours as we only traveled 7 knots the entire time.
We left Elliott Bay Marina around 10:45am and as we approached the entrance to the locks, we had a red light, which meant we had to wait. The locks are made up of two locks: Large and Small. Last year we went through the large locks and we were tied up with two boats and there were about twenty boats in the locks with us.
Going through the Locks Again
We only waited about twenty minutes to get into the small locks. We entered with one sail boat and we were the only boats inside the locks. Unlike the large locks, where you need 50′ lines that you throw up to the handlers, the small locks have moving walls. You simply wrap your bow and stern line around the cleat number they assign you and tie it off back at your own cleat.
Once everyone is secured to the wall, they close the gates and begin to fill up the locks. The wall moves up with your boat and you want to keep all hands and fingers away from the wall. Be sure to make sure your bumpers are at the widest point of your boat to protect it (not dock level).
The small locks fill up in about ten minutes and then the handlers will instruct everyone on who can leave first. Since there were only two boats, we all quickly exited and began going towards Lake Union through the Fremont cut.
Going through the Fremont & Montlake Cuts
The speed is limited to a no wake zone through the Fremont Cut, Lake Union and the Montlake Cut. This actually made it a very pleasant trip.
It was fun to see everything on Lake Union from the water (versus our apartment). There is so much activity on the lake ranging from Pirate Ship tours, to electric boat rentals and party boats. Lake Union is lined with yachts on all sides too.
Each time a sailboat with a tall mast (like the boat above) goes under a bridge, they sound their fog horn to have them raise the bridge. Most of the footage I took of our trip to Lake Washington was video, which you can watch on our next YouTube episode at the end of this post.
Lunch in Kirkland
The four of us decided to cruise the north end of Lake Washington around Hunts Point and check out the beautiful homes.
Now it was around 1:45pm, so we decided to head to the Kirkland City Dock to tie up and have lunch. Luckily, there were only a few boats on the dock, so there was plenty of space.
We had a great lunch at Cactus and I had an awesome watermelon froze’.
Time to head back
After lunch, we headed back through the Montlake Cut to the locks. Since it was Labor Day weekend, we were not sure if we would have a long wait to get back out. There was a lot of traffic in the cut and as we came around the bend into Lake Union, a giant old ferry was headed right for us! Turns out this boat, Hiyu, is available for rent! How it fit through the Montlake Cut I don’t know!
Just as we passed the ferry boat, we also passed by my new office! Drum roll……I’m so excited to be joining Lake Union Sea Ray as their Marketing Manager. I get to combine my two passions – boating and marketing and I couldn’t be happier!
We arrived to the locks around 4:30pm and just as we arrived, so did the Argosy “Good Times” tour boat. They get first dibs on the small locks, so we had to wait for them to go through first. This took about a half hour. We went in with two other boats and it was a piece of cake!
What a great day!
Scott and I couldn’t have asked for a better day! Great weather, great company and our boat Kokomo did awesome!
This is what boating in the PNW is all about. The beauty of our surroundings and the magical scenery makes everything worthwhile.
As many of you know, our boat Kokomo is for sale and we do have a tentative offer on it. We will be doing a sea trial with the buyers. So stay tuned on our next chapter! (I have to save something for the next blog! LOL)
Here’s Episode #20 of our trip through the locks:
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