- How many hours of your life
have you spent waiting for a ferry?
How many times have you crossed Puget Sound?
It is an inevitable truth that eventually there will be a last time.
- I’ve known him since 1980.
- And someday your family and friends will gather to say goodbye.
- We’d go on family vacations with them and so forth, mostly boating.
- Jerry Layton is talking about his friend Larry Weise,
who passed away in February at the age of 81.
A husband and father, Larry, lived so many moments of his life
out on the water, surrounded by those he loved.
- I guess I have to say hello to people.
- Israel Ortiz is married to Larry's youngest daughter, Shelly.
He's brought all these folks
together at the Bremerton Ferry dock for a final voyage
to the place Larry loved the most.
- Larry was a what we call a water man.
So he loved, you know, just part of the country.
He was born and raised in West Seattle.
And the summers he just spent it, you know, out in the water
and stuff like that.
We're doing the burial here at sea.
- They're able to do that
thanks to a unique program on the Washington State Ferries.
Families can apply for a permit to lay a loved one,
to rest on many of the routes that cross the sound.
There are about 200 ceremonies every year.
Zale Noah helps coordinate them.
- Ferries serve communities and our community members are just
the lifeblood of the ferry system.
So being able to offer services for people that feel so connected
to the ferries in the Puget Sound is, you know, the least we could do.
Offering these sort of programs keeps our customer base coming back
to us, trusting us, and knowing that,
you know, they're connected to the ferry systems from start to finish.
- There is a $150 administrative fee.
Noah says it's standardizes a process.
Some private companies were offering.
- People send messages after the fact just thanking for the service
being offered, and I really enjoyed connecting
and talking to people about why it's special to them in the first place.
- Back with the Ortiz and Wiese family.
The group approaches West
Seattle, sharing memories with Larry's wife Diana along the way.
- Oh, tremendous.
You know, and everybody that care for him and you, they're all here.
You think about it.
- Just off Alki Point.
The noise of the engines fades, and it's time a crew member removes
the rope at the back of the boat, and everyone gathers for some final words.
Then Larry is returned to the waters he loved by his daughter, Shelly.
- The idea is to place him in his place of birth,
and he grew up and spent, you know, his adult life.
And he's back to resting in that location.
- Bye dad!
- Bon voyage Larry.
- Sinking beneath
the waves of Puget Sound one last time.
- Yeah, he went out with a splash.
And that's how he used to joke about that, because he was he was a big guy.
And every time he jump in the water, he made a big splash.
- You know, the horn in the ferry boat blew.
I think he really would have loved that.
He would have loved that a lot.
- With that, the engines rumble back to life and it's on to Seattle.
- They're establishing a wonderful job position.
And, the ferry was supposed to be, it happens that when we dropped him off,
that it's exactly the era that he used to hang out in the boat when he was a kid.
So that was just splendid.
You know. - A brief sailing that arrives with one last soul on board.
But a family at peace.
This is the
day Larry's family and friends gather to say goodbye,
though it is also the start of a deeper connection
to this place. - We know that he always going to be here with us
every time we visit Alki and you know West Seattle area.
We're going to have you know him in mind.
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