October, 2022
My last full day here, camping at Illahee State Park, near Bremerton. My friends had hitched up their trailer this morning and were headed home, but I still had this one more day to find something to explore before I would need to leave tomorrow morning. So I did! I found stuff to go see. 🙂
When we were in the Puget Sound Navy Museum the other day, I noticed signs to a waterfront park, and I could see just a bit of the fountains in that park from the windows inside the museum. So today, I drove back into downtown Bremerton and headed to that waterfront park. Easy parking on side streets.
As I walked into the waterfront park, I saw these curved signs, many of them.
And there were fountains, and places to sit or just stand and eat your lunch as you enjoy the surroundings.
The park was larger than I initially thought, much larger. It wound around down through trees, with a delightful waterway that flowed down the steps right beside the steps for us humans.
There were more of those curved signs on the way down to the waterfront. But here’s the first sign I came upon as I first walked into the park.
Here below is a close-up of the lower image in that sign above. Margaret Christenson was a welder, building/repairing US Navy ships. Ruth Hefta stood by on fire watch. Lots of women did lots of these professional jobs, and many others.
Another of the curved signs showed a photograph of Esther Bielmeier (below) doing her job as a rivet heater, passer, and catcher. Another dangerous job if you didn’t adjust the gas that fed the fire properly.
Besides the photo in that curved sign above … there was this life-size statue of Esther there too.
Imagine that entire metal bin of rocks RED hot! And the rivet red hot as well. And you need to pull out a rivet at the moment when it was the proper temperature and TOSS it, accurately, to someone so they catch it and then hammer it into the ship’s walls.
That was interesting, but I also enjoyed walking down those stairs, along the water-course, past a few small fountains, into peace and quiet and trees and birds.
Eventually the view below appeared. Hmmm, a walkway for people above (on the left), and a walkway down and around these rather large black round things with water pouring out of them. Interesting.
As I was taking photos, I saw the ferry arrive (below). Engines were saying rumble, rumble, and the Captain signaled a toot, toot. It was coming into the ferry terminal that was immediately to the left of this park.
So I stood and watched. The ferry docked. And then I walked closer to that first big round black thing and just stood and watched everything … a few people up above on the left, the trees, the rocks, the birds, the green grass, the blue sky, the water pouring out of those “things”. It was rather enchanting, and calming. But … keep your eyes peeled in the video below (turn your sound on) for a surprise. Enjoy the view for sure, relax, but watch what eventually happens to that big black thing. Truly, just listen to the water and enjoy the scene and relax.
Whoop! I had no idea it was going to do that!!
Then I zoomed in on the next three big black things. I guess I timed it right. One of them did the same thing! And you can hear, in the video below (turn the sound up), the people cheering when it did it.
That’s when I realized these round things weren’t round at all. They were shaped more like a submarine’s conning tower or “sail”. Indeed, the signs I then found said that that is exactly what they are supposed to be … partly a sub’s conning tower … but also partly an Orca’s large back fin and their blow of water when they breathe! I like that. I’ve seen lots of Orcas in my boating days on Puget Sound, spectacular.
And so now I was really interested in this park. I walked up to that platform on the left and looked out over the lower portion of the park. I think there were five of those fountain/towers in all. The photo below shows the two that were closest to the water, the salt water of Sinclair Inlet.
I walked down onto that lower area, and out to the rock sculpture. Then turned and looked back at those fountains. Now, with the sun behind me, the towers weren’t black anymore, they were gorgeous green and copper-colored.
Even with rainbows. 🙂
Here’s a video below showing how the water comes out of the top of each tower.
And here’s a video (below) of that same tower just a few second later. Zounds!
Signs in the area said these towers aren’t timed to “blow”, it’s all luck of the draw if you can get a photo or not. I seemed to have the luck. 🙂
Look at this photo below. Perfect timing. Not one drop of water had yet landed back on the tower. It could have been a Chihuly glass piece! But indeed, it was water. Whoosh!
Here’s the last video I took (below). I’d gone back up onto the viewing platform, had been standing there awhile, then decided to shoot one last video.
Two of them!! I am part Irish, that’s for sure, and I sure had the luck of the Irish today.
As many times as I’ve moored my boat right next door in the public marina, or driven through Bremerton, or visited the museum also right next door, I’d never heard of this waterfront park. Absolutely I’ll be back to enjoy it again.