Thar she blows — oh, wait, nope. Not an orca. This week, a submarine was spotted off the shores of Seattle. Almost as cool.

With naval shipyards, heavily-used marine routes, and military bases around the Puget Sound, it’s fairly common to spot subs peeking their little metal heads above the waves around here. This particular one was headed northbound and appeared in Elliott Bay around 9:22 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9.

If this floats your boat and you want to learn more, head to the US Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport (about a half-hour ferry ride from Bainbridge). You can also use the rad Marine Traffic map to track all the vessels — military or otherwise — floating around our waters. And don’t forget that the Seattle Boat Show is still going on through tomorrow, Feb. 11.

With all this seafaring action, we gotta find ourselves a cool captain’s hat.