Red sky at night, sailor's delight. This was the sky on Friday night and we decided to take advantage of a beautiful Saturday by sailing over to Seattle and taking in the sights and sounds at the Fremont Oktoberfest. Fremont is a Seattle neighborhood where the residents pride themselves on being unconventional. "De Libertas Quirkus" (Freedom to be Peculiar) is the unofficial motto of the area, borne out at several annual events and festivals, none the least of which is the Summer Solstice Pageant featuring nude cyclists (sorry, no pictures). We had high hopes for a fun event and we were not disappointed.
After a great sail over that required reefed sails due to 20-23 kt. winds, we settled into a slip at Shilshole Bay Marina. Shilshole is the largest facility in Seattle for recreational boats. This is only half of the marina.
That's a lot of masts.
As part of a tribute to the Scandinavian-American community, there is a large statue of Leif Erikson on the the marina grounds. Plaques on upright stones around the base have names of Scandinavian immigrants, their hometowns, and years of immigration.
After a good walk from Ballard, we arrived at the festival.
To start, we checked out the the handiwork of the pumpkin carving contest.
We thought the ones that the children did were, well, cuter.
Several kids were also participating in the zucchini derby with their handmade zucchini cars. We decided we'd like to use some of our zucchini as cars.
Next up was some beer tasting. Dozens of offerings throughout. We stuck with the German style beers. And both East and West German beers were available.
This "keg" was a unique and appropriate way to serve beer.
This fun duo posed for a picture for us. They were really nice and had authentic looking costumes, too.
Later on, a band took the stage. They even had a tuba player.
On our way home, we walked along the Burke-Gilman Trail. We used to ride our bikes here a lot (before we had the boat). It brought back memories.
We were happy to see the boat again after the walk back. Over 6 miles total for the day! It was worth it, we had a great time!
A nice and easy sail back to Poulsbo on Sunday was a great conclusion to the weekend.
