Morning Morning

The sun rose a little while ago, about 90 degrees around to the right behind clouds and behind the lot with the trees. The ferry just sailed, I could hear its horn when I went out on the deck to take a photo. Straight out, my bit of water horizon. The Strait, San Juan Island (US); off to the left of this image would be downtown Victoria on Vancouver Island (CA). As always, camera zoomed as my attention does, focussed on the water.

Strait of Juan de Fuca, December 30, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The soundtrack at the moment is Richie Havens, singing, "Morning morning". And a verbal one (*googles*, good heavens it's Longfellow). It's about the other end of the day, but feeling exactly right. "Darkness settles on roofs and walls,/ But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls."

Indeed the sea calls. Heading west to the outer coast, soon as I can. The tide and the weather aren't right, but this is the day, here I go.

Nu?

Update on the Japanese dock that washed up on the outer coast.

Update on the Elwha River. Sediment outflow is building sandbars at the river mouth. The present 'fish window' ends January 1, and the work crews will be lowering the remaining face of Glines Canyon Dam again. Given the amount of sediment which has been coming down the river even without the addition of what demolition might have stirred up, it seems silly that they even bothered to stop... but anyway, we should be seeing cranes and tractors and guys doing stuff in view of the DamCams again, beginning next week.

The Watcher of Ships Watches Some Ships

Light mostly gone. Thank heavens the sunsets are going to be later now, I am done with darkness. Went out on Ediz Hook (map).

Vancouver Island on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, December 23, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The submarine escorts (technically, offshore supply vessels) HOS Arrowhead and HOS Eagleview came in off the Strait. They always travel in pairs. It used to be Silverstar and Gemstone, but those two are no longer listed. Where have you gone, Silverstar?

HOS Arrowhead (Click for larger image.)

There were three big ships at anchor out in the harbor, the tankers Polar Discovery and Alaskan Frontier—the Polars and the Alaskans are often here, either just anchored and waiting for a day or two, or tied up at one of the piers sometimes for weeks, getting service done—and something more unusual that I couldn't get an angle on to photograph. The shiptracker sites say she is Prabhu Jivesh, an Indian ship. I can only think of one other time there was a ship from India...

Polar Discovery in Port Angeles Harbor (Click for larger image.)

There were three boat trailers parked by the small boat docks when I got out there, and a woman from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife sitting in her pickup waiting. All three came in while I was hanging around; only one of the boats had caught anything. "A small blackmouth," said the fisherman. The WDFW lady took her clipboard out on the dock and measured the fish. Blackmouth is a winter Chinook salmon, not yet mature to begin its spawning run.

Alaskan Frontier, and a small recreational fishing boat (Click for larger image.)

The Olympic Mountains emerge briefly (Click for larger image.)

Being Here

While I was gone, and preoccupied, I kept setting aside links to stories from home.

The log yard is nearly empty. At least one logship loaded while I was gone, according to David Sellars' December 15th 'On the Waterfront' column. He says (near the bottom of the story) POS Jade was the 13th log ship of the year to sail from our harbor.

A big dock washed ashore down the wilderness Olympic National Park coast, somewhere nonspecified between Toleak Point and Hoh Head. Is it tsunami debris? Unknown but likely. Japanese writing found on it.

The elk herd in Sequim were hanging out by the highway. Motorists were warned to watch out since they seemed to intend to cross...

Discovered there is a weather station down on the harbor. Who knew? Apparently it's associated with the tide gauge. (1)(2)

'Tis the season to watch for high tide and heavy surf warnings. We had a king tide while I was gone, water splashing ashore in West Seattle, lots of debris and fresh erosion out on the Hook. With all these storms, there will surely be a Mavericks this year. My twitter stream brings me news of events in the rarified realm of big wave surfing, in this case a near-fatal wipeout on Cortes Bank; and I have resumed my not-so-secret winter habit of watching surf videos on youtube. I have watched Mike Parsons ride this wave very many times, and it is still breathtaking...

A Sunrise

I'm in Florida doing family stuff, and thinking about home. It's hard to blog from the iPad, but here is a pinky-gold sunrise I found in the camera. December 5. Olympic Mountains to the south, Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north. Eventually I'll be back there.

**TOTALLY BOOKSTORE**

Went to Portland for the monthly medical adventure. The big west coast storms had discouraged any AngelFlight pilots from signing up for my mission, so I flew down via Kenmore Air and Alaska Air. (AngelFlight, determined to take care of me anyway, arranged for the AlaskaAir flight to be free. Thank you to AngelFlight and to Alaska Air.) Had a nice sunbreak for the flight out of Port Angeles...

December 2, 2012. Heading East Over Port Angeles Harbor (Click for larger image.)

The Olympics Peeked Out As We Flew By (Click for larger image.)

Not Many Passengers, So Kenmore Flew Us In a Piper Chieftain. (Click for larger image.)

This trip was all about urban delights. There I was in Portland, riding on the MAX (the light rail), and on the streetcar, arriving early enough in the evening to look around me. There are tall buildings and Powell's City of Books, and light rail and streetcars and buses, and restaurants and density, and people on bicycles zipping along the rainy dark streets with blinky lights on their helmets; brick buildings and pedestrians everywhere even on a rainy Sunday night. At the motel by the PSU campus, skyscraper out the window, sound of the MAX train's bell. I held my umbrella over a Portland State student at the streetcar stop; she was watching its expected arrival time at our stop via an app on her phone. Other stops have proper shelters and digital readouts, tick tick, the next car will arrive in 4 minutes, 3 minutes...

Motel Window at Dusk, 5th and Montgomery, Portland. Church of St. Michael the Archangel (Click for larger image.)

Motel Window at Dusk. The Portland Plaza and the Wells Fargo Center (Click for larger image.)

I got to Powell's after a quick supper in a noodle shop. Being there for the first time, wow, I was so excited I could hardly breathe. I mean, it wasn't just-a-bookstore-so-who-cares (which is what I expected and why I hadn't bothered to make it to Powell's on the previous eight medical visits to Portland) but TOTALLY BOOKSTORE, pulsing with energy the way midtown Manhattan does if you just stand there on the street. It was full of people buying armloads and even whole shopping baskets of books. It had shelves and shelves of Loeb Classical Library. No pix, I was too dumbstruck to fire up the camera. I had to close my eyes and leave altogether when I got to the natural history section. The store was so intoxicating I was about to forget that I am a lifelong public library user and only buy books sometimes, as much as possible buying via Port Book and News to help keep them in business...

All the time I was wandering through Powell's, I was thinking of a poem by Miriam Sagan (my co-editor in the once-was Santa Fe Poetry Broadside).

Miriam Sagan:
"Library", from Inadvertent Altar:
            Standing in the stacks of Widener Library
            For the first time, I could have found
            The Federalist Papers in Urdu
            If I'd looked hard enough
            Narrow space between the shelves, beneath a catwalk
            Scholars walked over my head, or graduate
            Students hugging tight cold Cambridge streets
            Avoiding deportation to some terrible regime back home.

            Level A, B, C
            Translucent floors are other ceilings
            Down at the bottom, books
            In languages obscure by the time
            Alexandria burned
            What Scythians spoke, or Assyrians
            Down here, I'm seized
            Not by a desire for knowledge
            But by desire
            Surrounded by the smell of paper
            Pages curling upward, I want to make love
            To anyone, myself, some old boyfriend
            Or current one
            For I'm alone.

            I told this story
            Twenty-five years later
            To a Buddhist scholar, who said:
            "Oh yes, that's bodhichitta,
            The thought of enlightenment."
            A nexus point
            In a diamond web.
            I'd always thought
            Bodhichitta was the smell
            Of the incense stick
            At the funeral
            Some wake up to impermanence
            Not this lovely sensation
            Of too much to read.

I've lived so long in smaller places (by choice) that I forget really what a city is, what it does, how it feels. It was great sparky fun. In the morning: streetcar to the medical center, appointment, then streetcar to light rail to airport to home.

This post is for CF and AO, with whom I have been talking about 'urban'; and for IJ, who claims, "I am immune, immune I say to any blandishment offered up in any book store. But just on the tiniest off chance that I don't know myself all that well, I don't darken the doors of the places. Well, not very often, anyway." And of course for the Other Miriam.

Double Rainbow on Saturday

It keeps raining. Not a whole lot of precipitation, here; but it keeps happening; and not a whole lot of sun breaks and horizon clearings in between. But sometimes...

Double rainbow over the alley. December 1, 2012. (Click for larger image.)

Precipitation, yes, all up and down the west coast, and across the Northwest. Look at all that blue, yeah?

Basin Precipitation Map, December 4, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

But on the whole, it's too warm for the snowpack to be building. The Olympics and the Sierras are doing ok for snow-pack (after a couple of bad seasons for the Sierras), but the Cascades are looking scary.

Basin Snow Water Content, December 4, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Fresh Drought Monitor maps(1)(2) will come out on December 6. So we don't have to look at that bad news right this minute.

(Quiet) West End Rhapsody

The tide was receding, and the swell seeming to be diminishing at the same time. What started out quite a lively ocean had begun to settle into peaceable by the time I left. An overcast began to move toward the already lowering sun. What started out an improbably crisp blue horizon became softer.

Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, November 25, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The days are so short and the sun so all-afternoon-low-in-the-south, not a single photo taken into the glare to the south, towards James Island. Other than a few gulls, no birds.

... (Click for larger image.)

Accidental Self-Portrait, Rialto Beach. (Click for larger image.)

There were a fair lot of people wandering the beach, in family groups and pairs and solo. Many were picking up pebbles. The beach was mostly swept clean of wrack, a smooth slope right up to the drift way back under the ghost trees, so not likely they were picking up anything else.

... (Click for larger image.)

Soundscape for Cee Soundscape Number 2

On the way home there were elk on Beaver Prairie, to the west side of the highway. It was already getting dusky, because of the overcast moving in; and I was in a hurry to press the shutter because I was trespassing. But here is the blurry proof:

Elk on Beaver Prairie, November 25, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

PS for @vcmcguire: No, you can't call it exercise, other than the exercise of last minute will that got me on the road when the day was nearly already gone to waste. I only stepped up the pace to a brisk walk when I doubled back to rescue my forgotten wooly hat. But I got out there, sauntering along with all the other extremely contented beach walkers. It must count for something.

It's Not That There Haven't Been Sun Breaks

On the whole, it's been dull and gray and/or rainy for weeks. This is a good thing, oh yes water so glad you're here yes.

Precip numbers in the Northwest are good so far in this new water year, November 24, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Certainly the situation in the rest of the country is frightening.

U. S. Seasonal Drought Outlook (Click for larger image.)

So not complaining. But every time a bit of blue appeared in the sky or out the window, my life happened to be organized wrong to take advantage. And no sooner were the prayer flags disentangled again than along came more wind, more rain.

Days like this. November 23, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The log ship Astoria Bay is loading down at the T-pier. Yesterday afternoon they were working hard, two loaders, four cranes, two trucks at once on the pier, longshoreman waving and shouting in the dull gray light.

Loading Astoria Bay. November 23, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Today it's blue out. Cue the tambourines and joyful dancing, oh yeah.

Tiny slice of the Strait of Juan de Fuca out my window. San Juan Island ghostly out there. November 24, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Except For the Ducks

AO needed to look at the Lodge at Lake Crescent, as a possible venue for a group event she is helping to plan for next May. Alas, the Lodge is closed for the winter, so no elegant Lodge-y lunch; the road was only unblocked because there is one small group of cabins available on winter weekends. But oh my... We had the lake and the grounds and the leaves all over the ground to ourselves, except for the ducks.

Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic National Park, November 11, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Absolutely couldn't be a quieter and more beautiful setting for her event; only, on next Memorial Day weekend the place will be stuffed full of people, life, cars, boats, noise. Not my problem. Her folks want to stay in the National Park, but they are probably not going to get to the Outer Coast, or Sol Duc Falls, or Hurricane Ridge. Also not my problem (though it's hard to let go of my tour-guide persona in service of these people I'll never meet...)

We took a very short walk along the Marymere Falls Trail, which is right there near the Lodge; but it was rainy and AO was cold, so we turned back before we were barely into Barnes Creek's impressive forest. (There was one especially big douglas fir. "You are officially a Big Dude," I told it.) Later we had a very late lunch at one of the tourist restaurants overlooking Port Angeles harbor. The next day she flew home.

At Fairchild International Airport, Port Angeles, 11/12/12 (Click for larger image.)

Glorious Day, With Sea Voyage

Saturday morning early, AO and I were on our way to Victoria. It was a glorious morning.

November 10, 2012, waiting at the ferry terminal. (The Olympic Mountains on the horizon.) (Click for larger image.)

The log yard as seen from Port Angeles Harbor (Click for larger image.)

Port Angeles, with the mountains to the south (Click for larger image.)

First we went to the Royal BC Museum. I don't get lost in there any more (fourth visit with a guest this year), but you know, there's not enough light nor enough air circulation in that museum. Probably good for the artifacts, but we people were ready to be out of there at about the one hour point, as usual. After a determined sweep through the giftshop (cards! bookmarks!), we ambled around the side of the museum to Thunderbird Park, as one does.

Thunderbird Park, Royal BC Museum, Victoria. November 10, 2012. (Click for larger image.)

And then shuffled through the sunny leaves-falling streets behind the Parliament Building, admiring fountains and buildings and the wonderful peaceable ambiance of Victoria; even just two blocks from the tourist ground zero of the Inner Harbour there were no parking meters, no traffic; just houses, apartments, buildings now occupied by Parliament-related offices... We rendezvoused with WC and PW at the James Bay Tea Room for a long long talky lunch. With tartlets for dessert. Me and PW staked out the lemon tartlets, AO had to try a Nanaimo bar and a butter tart.

In the James Bay Tea Room. (Click for larger image.)

WC drove us to the art museum (actually, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria). I wanted to see the Emily Carr exhibit. WC stayed in the Emily Carr exhibit, but Emily clearly did not float AO's boat; other parts of the gallery did, and the garden, and the beautiful afternoon. And the gift shop (cards! bookmarks!). We had to keep one eye on the time, missing the afternoon ferry was NOT an option.

Sorry, can't show you paintings (Click for larger image.)

The days are so short. The advantage is how much of a day has gorgeous low sun angles (when there's sun). By the time the ferry sailed it was already golden evening.

... (Click for larger image.)

Was very sad not to see the harbour taxis flitting around, they are not running this winter. Had to make do with float planes and bridges for entertainment while we sat on the upper deck waiting for the ferry to sail. I think that was good enough to show AO why I love hanging out in Victoria Harbour.

Then home.

Portland Again

Last week, WC came over on the noon ferry to go to Portland with me for the monthly medical adventure. We headed south.

Hanging around, taking pictures of the harbor, waiting for WC to arrive. November 7, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The Coho appears. (Click for larger image.)

It was a beautiful day, but we did not linger to take photos of golden light on blue water along Hood Canal. We wanted to try to make Portland and find our motel before dark. Almost made it.

In the morning, lab stuff and the appointment with the doctor running my clinical trial. Hanging out by the windows on the seventh floor and looking out at Portland's south waterfront has become very familiar. The windows also overlook Ziddell Marine down on the Willamette River; they appear to have begun laying down another ship of some sort. Couldn't get a picture that showed anything, but will probably have months or years of watching the ship grow down there...

Marquam Bridge, new construction, Mount Saint Helens not visible, Portland, November 8, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

The aerial tram which runs between OHSU's two campuses sails right past the window. (Click for larger image.)

It was dark before we made it home. WC stayed over. Then I took him to the early morning ferry (frost on the car; HEAVY frost), and made up the guest room again. AO arrived in the evening.