The rocky shore of the Thea Foss Waterway isn’t exactly Omaha Beach, but that didn’t stop 47-year-old Lon Hudson from dreaming a little bit.

“I’ll admit it: I was kind of thinking it was like Normandy when we were getting off,” the DuPont resident said after departing from an LCM-8 landing craft.

But the boat, usually called a Mike Boat, has its roots in the Vietnam War, not World War II. The 175th Transportation Company was offering rides on the 74-foot landing crafts as part of a goodwill gesture, said Sgt. Randy Ichiyama.

The rides, which usually last about 30 minutes, ferry passengers past most of the tall ships on display. And to offload, it backs up to the shore in Thea’s Park, plops down its ramp and allows the passengers to just walk off.

“It’s something that’s fun and free,” Tacoma’s Linda Cooper said. “And it just looks so cool.”