The cast a crew were in town recently for some local scenes. When that meant boarding the Seattle to Bainbridge Ferry, it was an unexpected treat for passengers.

"Just happened to be on the ferry. It's pretty exciting," said passenger Isabel Gates, who's also a fan of the show.

But the biggest thrill was the Patrick Dempsey sighting.

Dempsey plays Dr. Derek Shepherd on "Grey's," and he's the resident heartthrob. A wave through a window to some teenage girls from Bainbridge Island elicited screams and gushes of, "Great! He's so cool! He's gorgeous! He's such a dolly!"

Isabel Gates had to agree. "Oh, God yeah. He's just delicious," she laughed.

The show web site even dubs him Dr. McDreamy. We asked him about clicking on the Dr. McDreamy box to read more about him.

"Oh, I didn't know that. No, I never look any of that stuff up," he said. "Yeah, that's funny. It could be worse."

A lot of things could be worse.

Dempsey is riding high on the hit show, originally slated for a four episode run that was quickly extended to nine last season.

"We shot everything. We had no idea what was going to happen," Dempsey said. "If the show was going to be any good. We hadn't seen anything. So when it finally came out and started building this momentum, we were all extremely pleased and shocked at the success of it."

That success could translate into more Seattle visits.

Dempsey and director Peter Horton, a Bellevue native, stress how much they want the show to accurately reflect Seattle.

"We were on the waterfront, now we're here. And I think we're doing some street scenes," Dempsey said. "It's good for us as a cast. We were out last night at a restaurant and we're getting a sense of what the community is like, what the restaurants are like, what the people are like and that will help inform us and be much more specific when we're shooting."

Dempsey says he'd like more than a few scenes in Seattle.

He'd like to shoot the whole series here.

"I would love that. I would love nothing more than to shoot the show here. We're lobbying. We'll see if we can do it. If we can shoot more here, we will."