Day Two in Seattle: Aquarium, Caching and Science Center

My second day in Seattle started with a trip to the aquarium (there's a photo of it from the harbour cruise in the previous posting below). That is an actual working/research aquarium, with some very interesting displays. In the entrance area, there is a huge tank with a depiction of the fish life from the Puget Sound (Seattle is on Elliot Bay, which opens up into Puget Sound). Just after I arrived they had an interactive "show" with two divers who were in the tank for cleaning and feeding and had headphones and microphones so that they could talk to the presenter on the dry side of the glass and the audience — very well done (you can make some of it out in the photo here, although there is a lot of reflection from the glass, actually more than 12 inches of acrylic). I had some lunch at the aquarium restaurant (but resisted the seafood options — it seems wrong to be eating their relatives in front of the tanks!).

From there I walked up into town through the Pike Place Market again to visit a small computer company who run the web-based systems on which geocaching works. They're bigger than I thought (35 employees and growing) and have a very nice set of offices in downtown Seattle (the servers are off-site, but nearby apparently). They do "official" tours on Friday afternoons, but very graciously allowed me to pop in briefly during normal office hours as I would be leaving on Friday morning. In the photo here you can see me standing below the company logo holding a HUGE geocoin and with the biggest geocache I have ever seen open in front of the desk!

From there I walked up to the Seattle Center again and visited the Pacific Science Center. That was what had triggered the visit to Seattle, as they were hosting a special exhibit on geocaching, GPS technology, etc. That was good fun (and a great way to introduce the uninitiated to geocaching). After completing the "maze" I wandered around the rest of the science centre and also saw an excellent IMAX movie on beavers (incredible creatures!).

Keeping in the geocaching spirit of the day I then did a few more caches (both the visit to the headquarters and the special exhibition also counted as caches), finding a couple in the vicinity of the Science Center (including one with the stunning fountain and view of the Space Needle that you see here).

After another ride back into the shopping area downtown, I walked through Pike Place (again!) to the waterfront and back to the hotel (with one more cache find en route!) as the sun was setting over the bay.