Another cruise picture — this time of a boat coming out to our ship, to take the Puget Sound harbor pilot home:

Harbor pilots (a.k.a., maritime pilots) are specialists used to help get large ships in and out of dangerous or busy ports — not steering the ship, but essentially acting as a senior adviser to the ship’s captain. Since our cruise started in Seattle, the first harbor pilot was onboard when we left — and this pilot boat came out to retrieve him or her once we were out of the busy Puget Sound.
This image is also up on Flickr.