Month: August 2018

Monday afternoon I returned to this State Park, just south “Old Town” Bandon, Oregon.  The views from atop the beachside cliffs are incredible:

Since it was sunny (it was socked in by coastal fog the day before when I was here) I got another photo of “Cosmo,” a larger than life Tufted Puffin made entirely of litter found along the beach.

There is an organization in Bandon which specializes in making these art pieces out of trash from the beach.  Here is another one I saw downtown:

But let’s go back to the nice ocean views:

Here is a rock formation I’m going to be talking about in the next post:

This was an absolutely gorgeous spot to hang out, even if you never set foot on the sand below.  I preferred standing atop the cliffs watching the seagulls soar by above and, more often, below me along the hill.

Monday when I went back to the Face Rock Scenic Viewpoint near Bandon, Oregon the visibility was considerably better than it had been the day before:

Sunday at 220pm:

Monday at 204pm:

I was standing out on a cliff at a point close to the ocean, watching the seagulls fly by close to me as they had the day before.  I noticed a red Coast Guard helicopter flying down the coast, maybe a mile out over the ocean – a fairly common sight.  When it got south of the major rock formations it made a wide turn left, towards the beach.

I presumed it was just turning around to head back north.  I went back to watching the birds but after a minute or so I could still hear it.  I walked north on the hill I was on and saw that it had taken a position low by the water on the opposite side of a big rock formation which had been blocking my view.

The fact that you can see a small part of that formation in this next photo is just due to the alignment of it between me and the helicopter, the heli was probably a quarter mile or more further out over the ocean.

The chopper was hovering “tail-in” in radio control helicopter pilot-speak, meaning the tail would be facing me if this were one of my models and I were controlling it.  I didn’t see any boats in distress (although there were some floating nearby which could have come to the aid of anyone stranded in the water) so I ultimately decided that this was likely just a training exercise.

Shortly after taking the photo above I could see a diver exit the right side of the aircraft and he or she was ultimately lowered down to the ocean.

The helicopter hovered where it was for a while, probably only 40 feet above the water.

After a few minutes the helicopter rose higher and made a slow “orbit” clockwise:

Then it resumed it’s position hovering above the spot where it had dropped the diver:

It sat there for a good 20 minutes more, systematically raising and lowering people to the ocean below:

The entire exercise lasted about 45 minutes, at which point the helicopter raised up high and flew north up the coast.