Hey folks......

Being a low time pilot (65 TT), I have a question about float operations,
and I suppose it may carry over to land planes as well.

Anyway, yesterday I took a fellow up on a scenic flight around Seattle.
What a perfect day for it too.....I never realized how pretty urban areas
are from the air. They seem so peaceful from altitude...LOL. Anyway, as I
flew from west to east north of Seattle, I was monitoring 122.9, and made a
few blind calls as to my altitude and location as Kenmore air has a lot of
float traffic coming in and out of Seattle. My plan was to fly east to Lake
Sammamish, and then turn south and head on back down to Puyallup. As I
neared Lake Sammamish, I heard a call that an aircraft was departing
Sammamish........I looked at my chart, and saw no airport, or anything there
indicating any airfield at the Lake, and thought that maybe I didn't hear
the call correctly. A few moments later, I heard the call that "float plane
XXXX is leaving the water eastbound, Sammamish". I looked down at the lake,
and sure enough, there was a floater climbing out. I was at 2000 ft, so no
issue, and I had made a blind call about 3 minutes earlier announcing my
position, altitude, and direction of flight, but I guess I didn't think that
there would be traffic landing or departing the lake.

I guess my point is, is that I learned something yesterday. It didn't occur
to me that there could be float traffic over or around many of the lakes in
our area, and to listen a bit closer to the radio. After seeing the plane
below me, it occurred to me that the aircraft had called his intentions, and
asked for any traffic any the vicinity to let him know, but when he called
out "Sammamish" and I looked at the chart and didn't see any airport or
seaport identification at Sammamish, I guessed I was hearing communication
from a more distant airport, and it didn't click.

It is important to know the names of lakes you are flying over or around, as
well as small towns that may have fields that pilots may use for landing
strips, even if they are not shown on the chart. I kind of felt that maybe
the pilot of the float plane should have said a bit more to clarify what he
was doing. That maybe something that they do there all the time, but not
flying that area very often, I wasn't aware of the "local calls" that might
be made for it, so it confused me slightly.

Anybody else ever had a similar experience?

Fred C.