johnboystravelblog

Wednesday was a travel day as I traversed the short distance between Grayland and Hoquiam, where I would be spending two nights before heading up to the Olympic Peninsula.  I first returned to Westport, which I had spent most of my time in on Tuesday.  It is on a small peninsula at the southern mouth of Grays Harbor, a large body of water about a third of the way up the Washington coast.  The day started out with a heavy overcast and it ended up staying that way all day.

Here is another fishing boat headed out to round up the “catch of the day”

I then drove counter-clockwise around the Harbor through Aberdeen and Hoquiam and went out on the peninsula which stretches down to form the northern mouth of the Harbor entrance.  The southernmost town there is Ocean Shores.  Before reaching Aberdeen I saw another famous Ocean:

I was told when I stayed in Coos Bay, Oregon a while back that as I proceeded north I would start seeing cranberry bogs.  I have seen them in New England, where Ocean Spray is based, but never thought I’d find them on the west coast.  Well, I have seen lots of cranberry bogs, and two cranberry museums!  There was a small Ocean Spray facility down near Grayland but it seemed to be a gathering spot for crews harvesting berries.  This plant, near Aberdeen, was much larger and given it’s proximity to the Harbor is probably for processing and shipping cranberries.

After I visited the Coastal Interpretive Center in Ocean Shores I drove north on the highway which took me there as far north as I could, to the little town of Taholah.  The last 8 miles of that drive was on the Quinault Indian Reservation.  Highway 101, which I have used all the way up the coast from Los Angeles, stays pretty far inland once it gets past Grays Harbor in order to get around the Quinault Reservation which is quite large.

I have noticed that beach access is much more limited in Washington than it was in Oregon, and that the State Parks in this state are much quicker to charge entry fees.  Most of the State Parks in Oregon were free (and ALL beach access is) but the more popular ones tended to have a modest $5 fee.  The beaches I have see so far have been more ordinary (not that there’s anything wrong with that) than the rocky, picturesque beaches further south.  And the highways in Washington are mainly lined with trees so while it is harder to get to the beach is it also more difficult to even see it!  Who knows, when I get north of the Reservation tomorrow I may find more interesting scenery….

After my nice drive I returned to Hoquiam, met and visited with my Airbnb hostess and had a yummy taco dinner in town.

Wednesday I visited this facility in Ocean Shores, Washington.  Here are some interesting things I saw:

This is an Ocean Sunfish:

This particular specimen isn’t very big (the main body was maybe the size of a large frying pan) but according to some photos I have seen online recently these fish can grow to be grotesquely large.

Next, a Green Sea Turtle:

Remember “Crush” in the movie Finding Nemo?

Next, a very ornate Hawksbill Sea Turtle:

And a little bit closer look at it’s shell, head and flipper:

And finally, a red-tailed hawk.  I just love watching these fly….

Unfortunately this guy’s flying days are over.

The Japanese God of Fisherman, God of Luck or the Laughing God.  Take your pick.

I learned about this while I was at the Coastal Interpretive Center in Ocean Shores, Washington on Wednesday.  Back in 2013, Nick Sparagno, his wife, daughter, grandson and their dogs were walking on the beach in Ocean Shores when their dog Annie uncovered something in the surf.  Turns out it was a wooden statue of the Japanese God Edisu which is believed to have been carried out to sea by the massive tsunami which struck Japan in 2011 (they found other debris from Japan on the beach as well).

I tried taking a picture looking straight at it but it is in a glass case and the sliding doors created 2 unattractive lines right down the center!

Here is a photo which appeared in the local newspaper back in 2013.  As you can see, the statue is just as tall as the Sparagno’s two-year old grandson, Noah.

(Photo credit: The Ocean Observer)

And here is a photo Alison Nelson, Noah’s mother, took the day of the discovery:

(Photo credit: Alison Nelson)

As of Tuesday night I have been on the road 14 weeks.  In that time I have put 17,231 miles on my car, compared with 30,686 miles in the first 14 weeks of my “Northwest” trip last year.

 

No photo.

I have been keeping an eye on wildfire activity and there is still no immediate threat to my journey.  In two days I am heading up to the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula and will spend some time there visiting Olympic National Park.  There is a fire there in the southeast part of the Park, but the roads I will be on are in the extreme northern part so while there may be some visibility and air quality issues, I don’t expect any problems.

Tuesday, when I was away from the water, the visibility in southwest Washington was noticeably worse than it was the day before.  There are two fires east of Portland, near the Columbia River and I thought maybe it was coming up from there (they are not very far away from where I am) but a couple visiting the area told me yesterday that they saw on the TV news that this smoke is coming down from Canada, as it did when I visited Oregon last year.

The Carr Fire near Redding California is now at 211,038 acres but is growing very slowly and the city appears to be out of danger.  The Mendocino Complex, down near Ukiah, CA where I spent a few nights, is still growing and is now the largest fire in California history.  Largely rural, there haven’t been nearly as many homes lost as there were with the Carr Fire.

And Yosemite has reopened to visitors.  I looked at their webcams yesterday and while still not ideal, visibility is much better than when that fire first started.

Looking forward, there is a fire in Glacier National Park in northwest Montana but while I will be passing by near there I don’t think it will affect me.  There are lots of smaller fires in northern Idaho and western Montana and while I won’t be there until early September I will continue to keep an eye on things.

Tuesday I drove up and spent a good part of the day in this harbor town a short distance from where I’m staying in Grayland, Washington.  As I determined shortly after I arrived, it is a big fishing port.  This was the part of the harbor I saw first, with almost all the boats docked being fishing boats of various sizes.

One of the largest I saw was the Sea Clipper, which appeared to be unloading it’s bounty.

It appeared that large conveyor belts were moving the fish to a series of red and blue plastic containers:

Of course when I took that the flow of fish had stopped.  There was a guy shoveling huge amounts of ice into the containers to keep the fish cold, and another guy was driving a forklift, moving the, then very heavy, containers to a warehouse.  Here come more fish…

Near where I was watching all this, these guys were putting their private fishing boat back on it’s trailer:

The name of their boat?

And I saw this makeshift sign near the boat ramp:

After spending a little more time watching the activity in that part of the harbor I drove out to the main part of town where there are some small motels and several restaurants.  I learned that that is where personal pleasure boats are docked and the harbor was much bigger than I first thought.  This is from a 3-story tall observation platform located at the end of the main street through town:

That platform also gave me a great view of Grays Harbor, and all the fishing boats coming and going.  There was also a huge cargo ship, the Longview Logger, anchored out in the harbor.  It looked very much like the ship I saw being loaded with logs down in Coos Bay, Oregon.

And I saw this tugboat, pulling a barge:

There is a Maritime Museum in town:

And of course there were shorebirds:

There were a few seagulls in the mix but these were mostly Brandt’s cormorants (with black bills) and Double-Crested cormorants (with yellow bills).

Wednesday I will be driving around to the northeast side of Grays Harbor and will be staying near the town of Hoquiam.

 

Tuesday I drove up towards Westport, Washington and stopped at this lighthouse a short distance south of town.  When it was built in 1898 it was only 400 feet from the ocean but the coastline has been built up as part of a jetty to protect Grays Harbor (one of the few outer-coast harbors in Washington) so it is now about 3,000 feet from the water.  At 107 feet in height it is the tallest lighthouse in the state and the third tallest on the west coast.

In 1992 the original light and lens inside the tower was replaced with another type of light (which you can see at the left, near the top of the tower in the second photo above) which only utilizes a 35 watt bulb but, with magnification, can be seen 19 miles out at sea!  The original lens is still inside the tower and in 2004 the lighthouse ownership was handed over to a local historical society.  They open the facility for tours on weekends.

Monday I drove from where I had spent the weekend in Portland, Oregon north to Astoria, then took the 4-mile long Astoria-Megler bridge over the mighty Columbia River to Washington State.  I then headed west to the little town of Ilwaco.  This was the port there:

Believe me, Ilwaco isn’t a very big town but because it is right next to the mouth of the Columbia River it’s port is a very busy place.

Next I headed into Cape Disappointment State Park to see the lighthouses (see next post).  There is also US Coast Guard base here.

While Coast Guard helicopters and other aircraft are based at the Astoria Coast Guard facility on the Oregon side of the river, this base specializes in water rescue.  It is the home of the elite National Motor Lifeboat School which trains personnel from other bases around the country in rough weather and surf rescue operations.  It has 9 search and rescue boats which can function in the difficult and life-threatening conditions which often exist in this area.

And let me try to explain how Cape Disappointment got it’s name.  In 1775 a Spanish cargo ship was in this area and it’s captain noticed the unusual currents which were affecting his boat.  Much of his crew was ill and he didn’t have time to research it further but made note of it.  In 1788 another ship came to the area to look into this mysterious occurrence but was unable to replicate it and became disenchanted with this huge waste of time.  That captain, of an English vessel, deduced that the “currents” were merely from a sound and not a river, and named the sound “Deception Bay” and the high point on the land “Cape Disappointment” and left in a huff.  It wasn’t until 1792 that an American captain, Robert Gray, successfully crossed the Columbia River Bar and discovered the mighty Columbia River which he named after his ship, the Columbia Rediviva.

And yes, lighthouses plural is correct.  Because of it’s proximity to the treacherous Columbia River Bar this location has two lighthouses within two miles of each other.

The Cape Disappointment lighthouse was built in 1856.  It is 53 feet tall and sits high atop a hill on the north side of the mouth of the Columbia River.

Because of it’s location I could only get pictures from far away (the photo above was taken from the Visitor Center, about a half mile away) or from very close to it.  The building you see next to it is for US Coast Guard personnel to keep a visual watch on the sometimes treacherous Columbia River Bar just offshore.

The problem with this lighthouse was that ships approaching from the north, places like Seattle and Alaska, couldn’t see it.  A decision was made to construct a second lighthouse, called the North Head lighthouse, just two miles north of this one.  It was first illuminated in 1898.  It is 65 feet tall and sits at 190 feet above sea level.  The lighthouses emit different pulses of light so ships can tell them apart.

The North Head lighthouse structure is now under the purview of the Washington State Park Service (both lighthouses are located within Cape Disappointment State Park).  The actual lighthouse operations (both are still in use) are conducted by the Coast Guard, which has a base adjacent to the Park.

Monday I visited this museum, located in Long Beach, Washington.  Long Beach is a very small beach town located in extreme southwestern Washington which has the honor of hosting the Washington State International Kite Festival each year (the 2018 edition is being held for 7 days starting next Monday, August 20).

Before we go up to the second floor to look at the kites, there were several interesting things to see on the ground floor of the museum.

A local stamp collector put together a group of stamps from around the world which had images of kites on them – and there were lots of them.  Stamps from other countries are often very elaborate and very colorful.  I thought this was a very clever idea.  Here are some of my favorites:

Next is a series of posters celebrating festivals from previous years.   First, here is the poster for the upcoming festival, the 38th annual:

(Poster artist: Mimi Noyes)

(Poster artist: Marie Finlay)

(Poster artist: Sara Zaga)

(Poster artist: Patricia Fagerland)

And finally, there was a large video screen running a series of high definition videos of kite flying in action: