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The Hero Takes a Fall, and gray whales
Went down to Newport today with the Child in the company of one of her friends and associated family (Mr. & Mrs. B.). Highlights of the trip included a visit to the Hero, a historic Antarctic research vessel, moored there now under the ownership of salmon fisher Bill Wechter. (More on the Hero here and here.) In which I learned that modern applications of sailing vessels (she’s a ketch) include oceanographic acoustic surveys when one does not wish to have engine or propellor noise screwing things up. She’s also ice-worthy. Fascinating ship. Bill had a lot to say about it — she’s clearly his passion. We also got a tour of one of his fishing boats, which utterly fascinated the Child. Saw a sea lion in the harbor, which I initially misidentified as a sea otter. (Duh.)
A bit later we were up at the lighthouse at Yaquina Head when Mr. B and I saw a gray whale in the bay to the north, perhaps half a mile distant. A BLM ranger told us that the migratory pods have all passed by some time ago, but that there’s a resident pod which spends the entire year in that part of the Oregon coast. Apparently we’d just missed a very close sighting of two adults and calf, and the BLM ranger thought this might be that group or an individual from that group returning. Never got a terrifically clear view, but saw spouting perhaps a dozen times in thirty minutes, one good view of flukes clearing the water, and a whole lot of miscellaneous dark bits. It was very cool to see whales there, know they were sounding, feeding, living their whale lives in front of me. There were also plenty of murrs, cormorants, pelicans, oyster catchers, gulls and whatnot.
The other cool bit was a pause at the kite festival in Lincoln City, alongside the D River (world’s shortest!).
Oregon is a fun place to live. Photos of various sorts when I get a chance to offload the camera.
Posted: 8:55 pm Sun June 26 2005 |
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