Aftermath of a Storm

Actually, it wasn't much of a storm, as storms go on this coast.  Blustery and wet for a few days.  But, even relatively minor storms can bring huge waves to the coast and watching these is a favorite local pastime.  And why not?  It's totally mesmerizing, enchanting. 

I first went down the the Port of Brookings mid-morning, because I'd heard high surf warnings on NPR and because the sun peeped out.  I barely got started when my camera battery died and I headed home to regroup. Both the above photos were taken then, along with a bunch of others.  This one is looking south, towards Crescent City. 

By the time I returned the sun had shifted entirely, of course, and the tide was much further out than just a couple of hours previously.  Not as exciting to photograph, but still exhilarating to watch.  This time, I walked down and onto the jetty to get a different point of view, looking south once more.  And, because of the light, my camera insisted upon capturing everything in black and white.  That seems to be its answer to bright light in its face, and I haven't found a way to counteract that. 

From my perch on the jetty.  I actually stayed out there for quite awhile, listening to the roar of the surf, the continual, raucous cries of the gulls, enjoying the wind and fresh air.  I shot a couple of videos -- first time out with this camera for that -- but operator trouble prevents me from posting them, as I don't have editing skills and both end rather unceremoniously.  These waves were not as impressive as the earlier ones, but pretty darned nice, regardless.

As I turned to leave the jetty, I was greeted by the sight of hundreds of gulls swirling over the harbor.  By the time I captured the photo, many of them had already landed on the roof of the Coast Guard station, but it was a really lovely sight.

Tonight's Sunset

I just captured this from the Port of Brookings Webcam (link off to the right), and couldn't resist putting it up here.  I think it's about the prettiest scene I've ever seen this webcam capture. 

Have you missed me?  I've been out of commission for awhile, with my camera in the shop for repair and on seemingly endless 'parts hold'.  Nikon, bless them, decided yesterday to replace it and promptly shipped it overnight and I am now back in business and awaiting another lovely day for photography.  I walked in the redwoods this morning, saw a huge herd of Roosevelt Elk along the highway with the ocean and surf in the background.  Could have killed for my camera, but alas, it had not yet arrived.  Kudos to Nikon, by the way.  They not only replaced the camera with a brand new one, they also gave me a significantly upgraded camera rather than a direct replacement.  Could be they just didn't have any of the other kind left in stock, but I'm sure they could have found something in the same price range to send.  I took the new baby out for a test run and am very pleased with it.  Not quite a DSLR, but nice.

Whalehead Beach to Indian Sands

Whalehead Beach and Whalehead Cape in the distance.

My body and spirit were calling for a good workout this morning. The weather is fabulous -- warm and sunny and perfect. I opted for a hike that's close to home, since I had other things to do today. I'd intended to walk all the way from Whalehead Beach to the Thomas Creek Bridge, which would have been a round trip of a little over 5.5 miles, but once I set out I knew I was too lazy for that one, so I decided to go as far as Indian Sands, a round trip of around 3 miles. Nobody seems to know when the name Whalehead originated, but it has apparently been in use since the pioneer days. Whalehead Island is hollow to seaward and has a hole in the top. At just the right tides, water surges into the cavity and spouts out the top and is said to resemble a whale in those moments.

I never really know what to expect when I head off on the Coast Trail, but I've never been disappointed with what I find. In this instance, the trail led sharply uphill for awhile before reaching a lovely viewpoint, above. There are plenty of long uphill stretches in this first portion of the hike, which William Sullivan says is only a half mile. I'm sure he's correct, but because of all the long up and down stretches, it feels a lot longer! Great to get the body warm and the heart racing, however. At the half mile point the trail reaches and parallels the highway for a short distance, just long enough to bypass a deep, steep chasm. After that, the terrain is comfortable, with gentle ups and downs, passing through a lovely forest and paralleling a small creek for awhile, before reaching Indian Sands.

Views along this section were also lovely. Hidden coves abound along this coast.

This plaque was atop a mass of concrete at the above viewpoint. I love the wording on it. You can click on the photo to enlarge and read, but this is what it says:

Stan the Man
Husband, Dad, Granddad
A
Hard Worker Who
Loved and Cared for
Everyone

6-20-27

Went Flying
5-6-09

I'm guessing this mass of concrete contains his ashes. What a lovely tribute!

Indian Sands is an interesting place. I couldn't find any information regarding the origin of that name, but I'm sure it would be interesting. The Coast Trail skirts the edge of it along the forest, but the sandy bluff is huge and offers expansive views. I hiked around for awhile, following the path of deer and other smaller critters. I gravitated towards this rocky outcropping with the natural bridge on the left. You may need to click on the photo in order to enlarge and see that it really is an opening, not just a small inlet. This bluff is hilly, and walking uphill in loose sand is great for the legs and heart. After satisfying all my curiosity, I headed back to my car. All in all the trip took about two hours -- a perfect start to my day.

An Afternoon's Drive

A photographer friend of mine called this afternoon to see if I wanted to go along for a drive on a backroad he recently discovered.  He wanted to check the light, so off we went.  He called it County Road 500.  I can't find that on a map, but I can tell you more or less how to find it.  Follow the North Bank of the Chetco  River up a few miles until you reach a 'Y' intersection.  The main road to Loeb Park bears to the right.  You'll take the left road, which goes quite a distance and is a very good road with interesting vistas.  At the end it becomes gravel, but good gravel, and we bore to the left when we reached a 'T' intersection here, followed the road downhill for about 3 miles to a river which remains unknown, but lovely.  Here are the photo highlights of the journey.

 

I loved this little shed resting in its thicket of trees and blackberries.  I also liked the way the light was hitting it.

The views to the east up here are terrific, even with all the devastation of past forest fires in the foreground.  This was an unusually clear day here for this kind of distance.

At the end of the County Road there is this wonderful river and parking/turnaround area -- but it's all private property, seriously signed and posted.  We didn't think anybody would mind if we had a quick look, and this is what we found.  It's clearly the underpinnings for some long-forgotten bridge.  I wish I knew the name of the river and the history of this bridge.  I'll ask around and if I find anything interesting, I'll report back.

Loeb State Park

I joined a local group in an annual cleanup of the Chetco River, here in Brookings, a couple of days ago and in the process made a lovely discovery: when it's foggy in town, it's generally clear, sunny and warm in the park, which is only about 7 miles inland, at a higher elevation. One of the local ladies smiled and said, "this is why you come up here"! To test her theory, with yet another foggy day underway, I returned today to do some hiking. The fog stayed with me for the first couple of miles up the road, then fizzled out into bright sunshine. Hurray!

I opted to follow the Chetco Riverview Trail, which leaves from the picnic area in Loeb State Park (above) and connects with the Redwood Trail that is in the adjoining Siskiyou National Forest. According to Bill Sullivan's book on hiking the Oregon Coast, the combined trails total 2.6 miles, with 400 feet of elevation gain. I can only tell you that my pedometer recorded about 8500 footsteps, and at times I felt the elevation gain was much greater as much of it comes in a short span near the top. I'm in pretty good shape, I think, but toward the top I was seriously feeling the hillclimb.

The Riverview Trail, as its name suggests, parallels the Chetco River for most of its length and travels through lush undergrowths of ferns and oxalis, and a varied forest of Oregon Myrtle, Western Hemlock and Red Alder, among others. This was my lunch spot, and very pleasant it was. A Great Blue Heron swooped in and landed on the opposite gravel bar -- a great reward!

According to my Oregon Geographic Names book, the river is named for a small Indian tribe that lived along its lower reaches. Loeb Park is named for a man who donated the 350-odd acres in order to preserve the grove of Oregon Myrtle trees where the picnic area sits.

Since most of the Redwood Trail is either up or down hill, there are not large groves of the big trees and the trees are also not as big as those in other areas, but they are still lovely. Some are larger than these, but none of those photos was usable. This too is a mixed forest, with Tanoak and Douglas Fir, Bigleaf Maple, mixed in with Oregon Myrtle and Red Alder.

Much of the trail is within earshot of one or another of many creeks that feed the Chetco, often crossing them on wood bridges, thus the soothing trill of moving water follows most of your travels over this one-mile loop, and it's dotted with a number of small waterfalls such as this one.

Back at the picnic area in Loeb Park, I walked out on the rocky bar to soak up a little sunshine. Although not shown here, there were a number of autos parked along the river right on the rocks, and plenty of young families with splashing children enjoying the river. I expect that in the winter this scene is considerably different, with the rocks underwater and the river raging. At the moment, it's a lovely river to float down, splash in, or even swim in some the deeper holes, such as the one below.

I absolutely love the clean, clear clarity of this river, from the foreground shallows to the deep green pool beyond. I opted to sit right here on the rocks and read for awhile, soak up some much-needed sunshine before heading back into the fog.

Yep, as I drove down the mountain and neared Brookings -- it's still there!

Southern Oregon Kite Festival

This is the 17th annual version of this festival held at the Port of Brookings and judging from the license plates covering the western states and beyond, it must be a fairly big deal festival of its kind. I arrived right around opening time of 10am, and the crowds were already thick.

Never having been to a kite festival, I really didn't know what to expect. I've seen photos of large balloon-kites, and I'm sure those will be out before the weekend is over, but this morning was a competition of sorts, apparently, with people making kites dance to music. I had no idea kites could be controlled and tweaked such as this, and found it fascinating to watch. Harder to photograph! It's a surprisingly athletic endeavor as well, judging from the two or three that I watched. The young man above was flying what I think they referred to as a quad kite, which has 16 strings to control! As you can see from the photo, it's a two-handed job.

This is his kite -- hard to see in the fog and hard to photograph well using a telephoto, so it's a tad blurry. Too bad this isn't a video, as he literally makes it dance, obedient to his every whim.

When did kites get so fancy? This one was on display in a vendor's booth. I liked it's color and symmetry. I was tempted to buy myself a beginner's kite, but didn't. When one lives on a breezy beach, it could be a good toy to try and master. Addictive, too, undoubtedly.

I'm sure the weekend will bring much excitement and far more visual stimulation than any of this, but I was not of a mood to tarry.

An Early Morning Walk in the Fog

There's something magical about a beach early on a foggy morning. Maybe it's the mystery, maybe the peace. Hard to say. Our weather this summer has been a roller-coaster ride of warm, sunny days followed by cool, foggy days. While I would prefer more of the warm, sunny kind, there is something to be said for the balance. Houses never get hot and we appreciate the sunshine all the more when it finally breaks through. This morning I walked from home around 7am, headed to Harris Beach.

Fascinating how the variety of flowers blooming along the path has changed so completely since my last photo essay of this walk. These are a variety of fuschia. They glow even in the fog.

This early, even the morning glories were still showing themselves, twined amongst all the other greenery.

Too bad there's not something here to show scale. These were tiny flowers massed low on the ground.

These wild roses have been blooming for awhile and look as if they may be on their last legs, but they are still lovely and there are many of them.

Wild sweet peas are showing in all their spreading, glowing, rampant beauty right now, all along the highway and on cliffs. Everywhere!

I find it tough to capture the feel of a foggy beach completely, but somehow this photo works. These houses have never looked so good!

Lots of birds out on the water today, including some very large ones that I couldn't see well enough to identify. These two caught my eye on shore -- particularly that black one with the long red beak. My birdwatching friend tells me he is an American Oystercatcher. A first for me!

Back on the path headed home, the fog had lifted a bit, but still held a little magic. What a wonderful way to begin a day. Thanks for coming along.

Crabbing at Dawn -- and a Walk to Chetco Point

This morning the tides were right for some early-morning crabbing and I was on the dock by 6am. Not surprisingly, the scenery was lovely in the dawn light. Pelicans and seagulls cruised in packs, searching for and occasionally diving for breakfast. I was more interested in this than in the crabbing, but of course, I tossed the trap out first, then played with the camera.


All those reflections are so lovely...

I caught two about this size, both female and thus illegal to keep even if it was the right size, which they were not. As I was trying to free the second one from the net, my bait splashed into the water and sank -- the crab took quite a bit longer to free. The bait holder on this net is small, and the fish head too large to allow it to close, so I knew I was taking a chance. With no more crabbing to be done, I hopped into the car and ended up by happenstance to be near the Chetco Point park area, so thought I might as well go for a walk.

The sun was just coming over the hills. This park is right in town, is in fact behind the sewage plant. I'd visited briefly on my first trip here, but today I walked all the way out to the point and down to a rocky beach where one lone surf fisherman was at work. I didn't disturb him -- decided I'd rather go up on the point.

This lovely dawn view was just to the left of the previous photo, on the other side of the narrow neck of land. The views from the point itself are expansive and lovely, but not very interesting photographically.

So - no crabs for dinner today, and not another good combination of time/tide for a couple of weeks, but that's OK. I thoroughly enjoyed being on the water that early, and also the unplanned walk on the point.

Brookings Harbor

I made my second and still unproductive attempt at crabbing this morning, then somebody on another crabbing pier told me that I was trying at the worst possible time. So much to learn! But, it was a beautiful, calm, sunny morning and my neighbor and I had two happy hours sitting and watching the harbor action. As I watched the folks prepare that sailboat to go out, I found myself itching to go with them.

Lots of critters out and about -- mostly birds, including this and several other brown pelicans. Fun to watch them dive, although I didn't see that they were having any more success at finding breakfast than I was. We also saw some water mammals of some kind -- little round heads poking out of the water and watching us, but not so close that we could figure out what they were. Either a baby harbor seal or an otter, probably. Cute.

The crab dock is right below where I'm standing here, and the big hammock hanging on the sailboat always looks so inviting. Can you make it out? It shows as a thick white line hanging above the center of the boat, but in actuality it's big and comfy looking.

The crab dock is on a long, narrow jetty that separates the Chetco River from the harbor. This is the river and its mouth, taken from almost the end of the jetty. You can see how calm and still and beautiful the water was -- at a minus tide.

So -- no crabs, but lots of fun and now I know when to try again.

Interesting Visitor to our Port

She first appeared earlier this week, caught on the Port of Brookings Web Cam that I haunt, and was quite a surprise. Since then, she's popped in and out of the harbor at various times and piqued my curiosity quite a bit. Last night, I was able to read the name and info on her bow in this photo and I did a little on-line research and found a great article.

She is the US Army Corps of Engineer's hopper-dredge, the Yaquina. At 200' long, 58' wide with a draft of 17', she's much, much larger than anything that generally comes into this harbor, and this is about as far as she can go, I assume. From my observations, she tends to ease into this point, turn around, and head back out. The first day she was here for awhile, perhaps overnight, and then for awhile the next day.

Her configuration, with that deeply open hull, is really interesting. She's built to handle rough seas, but I have to wonder how that open hull handles in such weather. On the other hand, I'm not too familiar with anything that doesn't have sails.

Out she goes again. Hard to tell if she's working (dredging our channel) or just stopping by for some reason, although in a conversation with a crab fisherman on the dock this morning, he said she was working. But then, she leaves the channel and sits out off the coast for long periods of time. But again -- what do I know?

She was here once more, early this morning, then sailed away......

This is where she pulls in and turns around. I went down to the harbor to the Farmer's Market, stopped at the public fishing pier to take this photo. Foggy and wet this morning but all was not lost -- I learned the art of crabbing off our pier!

If you have the time and inclination, read the article. It's really quite interesting.

Azalea Park

Today I went in search of Azalea Park, right here in Brookings. With the Azalea Festival coming up this weekend, I wanted to see if they were in bloom -- and I'm sorry to say I seem to have missed the peak of bloom but still, I found the park to be utterly impressive. While it doesn't rival Hendricks Park in Eugene, for example, it is really quite large, quite beautiful and filled with the Azaleas that are native to this stretch of coast complemented by a fair share of Rhodies, which actually were more impressive overall right at this moment. The salmon beauty above, however, is an Azalea. As a southern girl, I really appreciate these.

This is only one of many nooks and open areas through out the park, which covers about 30 acres and offers picnic tables, a large kids playground plus an ampitheater that is home to the American Music Festival held each summer.

Some of the many Rhodies that are in riotous bloom right now.

Not everything here is Azalea or Rhodie -- lots of bulbs and other small flowering flora plus some big evergreens.

I love these huge, richly-colored Rhodies! Because they're bigger and come in a wider variety of colors, they almost outshadow the smaller, paler and finer Azaleas.

The Azaleas still have their own charm....

I'm looking forward to the Music Festival and other happenings here. Stay tuned!