Waterworld

Here's what I love about Seattle: Water.

There's the water of the sprawling, placid blue lakes. There's the water of the wild grey expanse of the Puget Sound. There are dock yards with giant red cranes and rows of multi-colored shipping containers; steep city streets that dead-end into ferry terminals; real beaches looking out to distant rough-hewn mountains. There are boats on water and houses on water and planes on water and - best of all - sparkling lights reflected on water. Seattle is all about the water.

Sunset in Seattle

There is one particular form of water that is universally and instinctively recognized as high entertainment: boat locks. I have a happy Parisian memory of the mini-locks along the St. Martin canal, of a sunny Saturday morning in May when little children and bicyclists and middle-aged French men out for a stroll all stopped to watch the heavy gates swing shut and swirling white currents of water lift a little boat as though by magic.

Locks in Paris

Seattle has its own set of locks, a scaled-down version of the model used for the Panama Canal. On a recent sunny Saturday, the weather was decidedly crisper, but children, bicyclists and grown men alike still paused to watch as the gates swung shut and the water started to rise. 

Yet despite the inherent appeal of water works and boats, here's what really tickled my inner child on our recent excursion to the Ballard Locks: Seamoor Safety, the Water Safety Sea Serpent.

Coloring courtesy of yours truly.

Seamoor's red bear friend is called "Corker," and his blue bear friend is named "Sinker." Guess which one is used to illustrate what not to do around open water.

I'm not sure which impresses me more: that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publishes coloring books, or that they devised a triple pun to name an imaginary sea creature of ambiguous sexuality who demonstrates how to wear a jet ski engine stop lanyard with flair. You might consider visiting www.Bobber.info to print out copies of Corker and Sinker's adventures for your own coloring pleasure.