Photographs - the road trip to the Olympic Peninsula 


This entry contains a series of photos taken on the ferry coming and going (Seattle to Winslow, Bainbridge Island, and back later in the day). It also contains a series of photographs taken along the stretch of pristine beach at the Dungeness Spit, a natural, five-mile-long, sand, pebble, and driftwood barrier which sticks out from the northern Olympic Peninsula into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and which provides safe harbor in its bays for several unique species of waterfowl and mammals as well as providing a nice stop-over for the thousands of migrating bird species who fly along this route. It was a glorious day for photography along the Strait so there's some pretty nice shots. The ferry rides were notable mostly for the interplay with the light and the fog. 


The city enshrouded in fog and mist as we headed west toward Winslow, Bainbridge Island, at the start of the
journey. That's another ferry from Bainbridge (or maybe Bremerton) heading toward the Colman Dock in
downtown Seattle.



Looking a bit southeast from the port side of the ferry I could see Mt. Rainier still in shadow as the sun began
it's rise over the Sound. That's West Seattle, still asleep, in the foreground. At the center of the West Seattle
mound you can almost make out a squarish shape to the right of the second rise - that's about six blocks from
our house.



A panoramic view looking from the aft of the ferry (aft in the direction we were heading, the ferry boats have identical fronts and
backs and a set of props and motors at each end). That's West Seattle on the right and Magnolia behind the ferry heading
in. Magnolia, Queen Anne, and downtown were all enveloped by the fog, West Seattle, which usually is foggy, wasn't this morning.



This is simply a closer look using the same panoramic photograph above but does show the city blanketed by fog a bit better
than the view above. The Space Needle is a little over 600 feet high so you get some idea of the thickness of the fog bank.



Looking in the southwesterly direction we find Blake Island (left of center) and Vashon Island (far left) and a bit of the Kitsap peninsula
(center and beyond) visible. The low-lying clouds were scattered in the Sound, allowing the sun to peek through on occasion -
as evidenced by the pink-tinged cloud on the right.



In this view we're about half-way across the Sound from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and are beginning our northerly heading. This
view also gives a better look at the scattered nature of the clouds. The sun is rising directly over West Seattle from this angle, the
city proper is behind the boat in this view.



This is a more easterly view and shows the West Seattle peninsula in the center, with the sun rising behind, and the downtown area of
the city to the left, still mostly obscured by fog. If the sun were much higher the cloud bank would have hidden it from view.



Again, a closer look using the same panoramic image from above. You can see from the wake that the ferry has changed its
straight westerly heading to one more northerly to head up the Sound to intersect the harbor at Winslow, Bainbridge Island.
The winds were from the west which may explain why West Seattle was clear and downtown was not as the winds would have
pushed the fog inland towards the city and left West Seattle in a clearing. This was NOT true later that night when we returned
and found West Seattle covered in fog so thick that a half-a-block was the maximum distance visibility we had.



Just a singular shot of the sunrise over the Sound with the waters
providing a golden reflecting surface. Sunrises are golden and
sunsets are golden with apricot and peach and orange mixed in.



360-degree panorama of the Dungeness Spit. That's the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the left and the bay formed by the
spit in the center and the headlands of Sequim on the right. You can see how steep the cliffs from the headlands to
the beach are in this shot. The rise is probably on the order of 200 feet from beach to the top of the headlands. The
whole area is a National Wildlife Refuge-National Recreation Area and is pristine and all naturally formed. The
driftwood comes from fallen trees from the headlands which get ripped in the strong winds of Winter, wind up in
either the bay (center) or on the beach proper and then get eroded by wind and waves. This was at low tide,
during high tide the spit loses up to twenty feet on either side, making some portions of it completely submerged.



This is another 360-degree panorama taken from about two-thirds the length of the spit, which is five miles from headlands to tip.
On the left is the major bay formed by the spit with the headlands and the cliffs on the far side. In the center is the Strait
of Juan de Fuca with Vancouver Island visible across the Strait - it's about 20 miles across at this stretch. On the right, the
spit continues for another two miles to the end of the spit - a fraction of the bay which that portion forms is also visible,
continuing from the view of the left (that's the odd thing about panorama views - they are continuous but can't be shown
that way as photographs unless using the VR approach). As can be seen, it was a glorious day and the bay caught
the cloud and sun reflections perfectly - Sequim is a native word meaning "calm waters."



This is a photograph looking straight north across the Strait at Vancouver Island. The snow-capped mountains on
the southern coast of the island are vislble above the cloud tops. The clouds were hugging the coast of Vancouver
Island. Sequim is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, gets less than a couple of inches a year of rain, and
has over 340 days of sunshine annually. It's a rich and diverse agricultural valley, riddled with streams and rivers
carrying the rain and snowmelt from the Olympics toward the Strait.



These rocks get washed down by the streams and rolled up by the waves and over time get rounded and
smoothed to near perfection. The only color of pebble which I didn't find was blue, there were green, orange, red,
tan, brown, yellow, and all the other shades but no blue ones. Because it's a National Wildlife preserve and a
National Recreation area, picking the pebbles is not allowed. In this sense, these pebbles are, indeed, valuable.



One can only assume that some child lost his or her Duplo block off a boat and that it washed up ashore. There was
no other "trash" along the spit and I'm guessing since no one picked up this Lego-for-smallfry that it was considered
"natural" by all who walked by here. It stood out pretty much in person the way it does in this photo. I, too, left
it alone.



The driftwood was as smooth as the pebbles, with the bark of firs and cedars being washed away by the tides.
The high-tide water mark is just about visible in this view - it's at the area on the right of the image. There are
also tides which go even higher certain times of the year, leaving the spit barely above the water line. Most of
the time the tides cover only about half of the spit, though.


The next series of photos show a single piece of driftwood from a walk-around perspective
starting with a full view of the tree trunk and then a series of paired images.





This was a fascinating piece of tree trunk and each of its sides had a slightly different texture and "feel" to it. Also, because of the
sun's location and the purity of the sky, each side had a different color and glisten. The shaded side having more of a silvery color
and the sunlit side being more tree-like.



Coming back home after a 12-hour day of Olympic Peninsula touring, we arrived to a city which was still fog-covered and even more
mystical than the one we left. If you look to the right side of the image, the harbor lights and cranes are in an even thicker bank of
fog than is the downtown area. When we left the ferry we headed toward that thick bank and by the time we reached West Seattle, the
fog was so thick we could see first one block and then only half-a-block in front of us. Needless to say, we were not moving at the
posted speed limit (which was only 35 mph) and when we got home could barely see our house, from across the street.



A view looking straight at downtown and the Belltown area. Pike Place Market area would be midway from left to right, about the area
where a series of greenish lights illuminates the shoreline. You couldn't even see the top of the skyscrapers the fog was so thick.
Anyway, it's so typical of the city to look like this in Winter that it was a welcome sight. I admit to having a real fondness for fog. 

Posted: Sun - January 2, 2005 at 07:23 PM          

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