Port Angeles – Page 7 – Sequim Daily Photo

Paperclip Nirvana

Maybe it’s because of where I’ve lived but there seems to be a shortage of good old fashioned stationery stores these days. Not big box megastores. You know, the kind where you can buy a single roll of scotch tape or mailing envelope and a good quality mechanical pencil. Olympic Stationers in Port Angeles is such a place.

It’s a tossup for me which I love more: a good stationery store or a good hardware store. I can usually look at things in a stationery store and figure out how to use them. That’s not always the case in hardware stores. I’ve always found what I’ve needed at Olympic Stationers. And because they stock so much, including home decor and such, I usually find plenty of other temptations, too.

Puget Sound Cooperative Colony

This is the second of two Ennis Creek murals painted by Corey Ench on the building that houses the Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles. This one, set in 1889, portrays a group of early Port Angeles settlers, a utopian group called the Puget Sound Cooperative Colony. Hoping to improve their world, its founders were responsible for many Port Angeles firsts. They built the first Port Angeles opera house, many of the first local Christian churches and the first schoolhouse. The steam shipyard and lumber mill depicted in this mural were also the work of the Cooperative.

Although the Cooperative disbanded after ten years many of its members remained in Port Angeles and contributed to its development.

Both murals are nicely done. Here is a closer look at some of the detail work. The murals were completed in 1997.

The S’Klallam of Ennis Creek

There are two “Ennis Creek” murals outside the Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles that portray scenes of local history. Created by Corey Ench, the first mural portrays the Native American history of the Ennis Creek area. The scene is of a S’Klallam village in 1750, an era “before contact” with white men. The traditional canoes shown here are an historic design still used today. Each carved from a single cedar log, the boats are both seaworthy and beautiful.

Because of the mural’s location it was impossible to back up far enough to get it into one frame. I know it can be stitched together in Photoshop but, regrettably, I don’t have the time and climbing gear to tackle that learning curve right now. I also haven’t cropped these shots. Above the diagonal of the roof line I was taken with how well the mural’s sky color caught the color of the day I was there.

What’s a nudibranch?

The Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles has a tank devoted to nudibranchs, also known as sea slugs. These are tiny invertebrates. For me, the closer you get the more beautiful they are. This little creature was only about an inch long.

I’m not an underwater photographer. Hopefully you can see the delicate form of this tiny and beautiful animal.

Here’s a more common sea star. I’ve added this one to the mix because it looks to me like a human on Superbowl Sunday after a few too many beers.

Indoor tidepooling

The Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles allows visitors to take a close look at tidepool creatures without the hazards of slippery rocks and crashing waves. And the closer look an aquarium offers allows a glimpse at the stunning beauty and diversity of underwater life. For me anemones are a case in point.This one is aptly called an elegant anemone.

This is a giant green anemone.

And I think this is a fish eating anemone. They’re not as benign as they may appear.

Click here if you’d like more information about tidepool life and where to tidepool on the Olympic Peninsula.

Feiro Marine Life Center

I explored the Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles recently. It is a small educational center with aquariums as well as several tanks that allow visitors to touch sea life. The Center offers a representation of the more typical marine life of our region: nudebranchs, echinoderms, and cnidarians. Tomorrow I’ll show you examples of some of these critters.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Two Dutch Shell oil drilling platforms are being readied to leave the Port of Port Angeles soon. This rig, Noble Discoverer, has been loaded onto the semi-submersible MV Blue Marlin for transport and will be the first to leave.

Polar Pioneer, which has been here longer, will be loaded onto its transport and is scheduled to depart next week. These rigs are enormous. I wasn’t able to get a clear shot but you may make out two rather large boats to the left of the rig.

Dockwise Vanguard is the semi-submersible transport ship onto which the Polar Pioneer will be loaded. Both rigs are destined for the North Sea. Their routes haven’t been announced but these rigs are too large to transverse the Panama Canal so they’ll probably take the long way round…Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego in South America.

I don’t know if this support vessel will be part of the entourage. I titled this post “Parting is such sweet sorrow” because Port Angeles has been grateful for the business these rigs has brought to town.