Visitors to the Coos Bay City Docks will have a unique opportunity to experience the Bay Area this summer.

Not from sea.

Nor by air.

From both sea and air.

Owner Stan Jefferies began offering seaplane rides last month, and will be taking passengers on tours of Coos Bay until November.

Jefferies takes off from the surface of the bay near downtown. He flies customers up Coos Bay, around North Bend, down Horsfall Beach and then over Charleston and Libby Lane to complete a 20-minute loop.

“You can see the whole area — all of Coos Bay, North Bend,” Jefferies said.

The pilot is quite familiar with the bay from the water side since he lives aboard a sailboat part time at the City Docks.

“It’s a different perspective when you’re looking down on it,” he said.

This week, the plane attracted curious passers-by. Coquille resident Jordi Lindegren and her father James, 86, of Ypsilanti, N.D., showed up on the dock to see the first seaplane to offer rides locally in several years. Jordi said her father, a paratrooper and glider infantryman in World War II, has been a passenger on all but a couple types of aircraft.

This week’s ride was a new experience.

“He’d never been on a seaplane,” she said after landing.

“The price is right, and the experience is great. The landing was incredible — like dropping a feather on the water. It was a hoot,” she said.

Jefferies purchased the Cessna 172 earlier this year and prepared it for summer tourists, but surprisingly, he said, the majority of customers have been local.

“Many of them know there’s something special about taking off from the water, and virtually all of them plan on doing it again,” he said. “A lot of them say they’re going to go get their mom and dad and get them to go up.”

Jefferies said that some of his customers are interested in viewing their homes or for-sale property, or running a different route, but the majority just want to enjoy the experience.

“Taking off and landing on the water is something a lot of people don’t get a chance to do — including pilots,” he said. “That’s what most people want to do.”