Day Trip – Page 40 – Sequim Daily Photo

Spring adventure

I’ve wanted to go back to the San Juan Islands, arguably one of the most beautiful areas of Washington State, since the first time I visited by ferry decades ago. It was there that I fell in love with Washington.

A while back I heard about a San Juan Island cruise offered by Puget Sound Express in partnership with Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society. The three day birdwatching and wildlife cruise sounded spectacular. From Sequim our voyage was just across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The photo above is of the MV Glacier Spirit, the family owned cruiser we traveled on.

Inside was comfortable and warm with snacks, lunch, coffee, and good cheer.

This is a chart of our travels over three days through the San Juans, shown in yellow. Vancouver Island is the large land mass on the upper left; to the far right is northern Washington and the city of Bellingham. The thin pink and red lines show our route as we looked for whales, dolphins, birds, and other sealife through the large and small islands of the San Juan archipelago. I’ll show you what we saw over the coming days.

Theme Day: Wet

You don’t have to look far on the Olympic Peninsula to find today’s theme of “Wet.” The Hoh Rainforest, part of Olympic National Park, is one of the wettest places in the U.S. with an average rainfall of 12-14 feet (3.5 to 4.25 meters). In places, as along this stream, it’s hard to see where the water ends and foliage begins. And if you’re visiting when it’s raining, water is everywhere. It’s impossible to not be wet.

To see other interpretations of today’s City Daily Photo theme, click here.

Creation story

This plaque is set into the pavement at Waterfront Park in Port Angeles. Entitled “Klallam Creation Story,” it is about one of our local Native American tribe and reads as follows:

“The Klallam tell us how the tribes of the region were created at a place on the Elwha River where there are two big holes in the rock called “coiled baskets.” It is there that the creator bathed and blessed the people.”

Art on the town

This is another piece of kinesthetic street art in Port Angeles, part of the city’s “Art on the Town” organized by the Port Angeles Downtown Merchants Association. This one is called “Bernard 2” by Craig Walker of White Salmon, WA, a town in southern Washington on the Columbia River. The top part of this piece rotates in the wind.

Wind music

Port Angeles, Sequim’s westerly neighbor, has an interesting selection of street art. This wind chime must be about 12 feet high. I imagine it must put on quite a concert on a windy day.

More whales

These steel whales are not far from the whale bone sculpture I showed you yesterday at Valley Creek Estuary Park in Port Angeles. It was one of those days when I failed to note any information. You’d think I’d know better by now. And I can’t find information about it online.

The whale bone

This unnamed sculpture by Alex Anderson is installed at Valley Creek Estuary Park in Port Angeles. If you’re not familiar with whale physiology it’s styled after a whale vertebrae. The scale of the piece is substantial. It weighs seven tons and is 12 feet tall and four feet thick. It was a $65,000 gift to Port Angeles by an anonymous donor.