Never too cold for a Sunday Ice Cream Cruise on Lake Union

The captain with the chocolate-root-beer-float sales pitch and a 50-foot vessel is eternally optimistic. How else to explain a man with a Phil Donahue-white mane standing on deck, pitching a Sunday Ice Cream Cruise on a 48-degree day? And drizzling no less.

Yet moments later, there Larry Kezner stood, behind the wheel, after convincing an extended family of five and a grandmother-daughter pair to take his offbeat 45-minute tour of Seattle via Lake Union.

On passing Dale Chihuly's studio, where a bathtub sits visible through a second-story window: "One day, Dale Chihuly will step out of that bathtub with nothing but his eyepatch. It will be quite a sight," he tells passengers.

On passing the floating home filmed in "Sleepless in Seattle:" "One July day, they were filming, and they took down hanging baskets and potted plants and put up Christmas decorations ... A little boy (a few houses down) woke up and thought he slept through summer."

Let's not give away his whole spiel, though. He's got to save some yarns and punch lines to get folks to pay his $11 fare.

The 63-year-old Seattle native grew up by the water, but spent 18 years behind a desk as a service manager for an electronics company. About 10 years ago, Kezner figured life was too short. He needed to be by his love, the water.

That's how Kezner ended up buying a refurbished 30-ton passenger ship, trucked in pieces from Cleveland in 1999.

He started recalling his own childhood stories and brushed up on the city's history, with an eye for the "backroom dealings and funny stuff" to share with passengers.

Every Sunday, his boat takes off from a spot near South Lake Union Park; the captain points out iconic sites as he heads north toward Ivar's Salmon House and passes Gas Works Park and the Aurora Bridge on the way back. Kezner weaves together pop-culture references, history and his life story.

OK. One more tour story.

"In '62, I was a Sea Scout, a Boy Scout with a boat," he tells folks over the intercom as he passes the floating homes on a charcoal-sky afternoon. "One floating home was just $600."

Oh, how he wished he had purchased that house because "since then, they've added three more zeros to the (price of that) houseboat, two more zeros to what I've been making. I'm always a zero behind."

Kezner estimates he has taken 34,000 passengers and sold 4,000 chocolate root-beer floats. He also serves hot chocolate and tomato soup with French bread. But darn if the passengers don't still go for the ice-cream float, even on an I-can-see-my-breath winter day.

"The chocolate brings out the tartness in the root beer," he said, explaining why they may be popular.

Many cruise tours will take this holiday weekend off, but not the ever-optimistic Kezner. Family holidays just mean more potential passengers, he said.

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com