Arch Cape, near Cannon Beach, North Oregon coast.

Dr Ted, my friendly neighbourhood torturer chiropractor, has insisted that I give him a credit for suggesting that we come here in the first place.  Which I am doing because he’s not someone you want to get on the wrong side of.  I  think perhaps he needs to update his blog…

Or how to make any readers in the UK REALLY hate you…

When we were despairing of ever seeing the sun again as it poured with rain throughout the winter, I would call Seattle a ‘godforsaken land’ and people would nod their heads sagely and say ‘just wait until summer – that’s the reason we’re all here’. 

And I would look all these Californians in the eye (Seattle is full of Californians) and wonder if they were indeed stark, staring mad.

Gig Harbor

But now I know the truth, in summer the Pacific North West really is God’s own country.  Temperatures around 27 degrees, gentle cooling breezes, no humidity, sunshine sparkling on the water and mountains glistening in all directions. 

In particular Mt Rainier, the symbol of Washington State, and its very own huge volcano, can be seen towering above the landscape wherever you go.  In winter it is mostly completely invisible behind a thick pall of grey cloud – I didn’t see it at all for the first two months I was here – and there’s always a frisson of excitement whenever ‘the Mountain’ is ‘out’ (as they say round these parts). 

It’s just so enormous and so very beautiful.

  Tacoma Narrows Bridge

From the I-5

And here’s a pic I took from the Space Needle in February so you can get a bit of a sense of scale.

Apologies for recent lack of bloggery.  Shockingly life just gets in the way sometimes.

We’ve mostly been playing in the sun. Had a great time with our friends from New Jersey, and our Fourth of July party was a ton of work but a huge amount of fun in the end and cemented some rather tenuous relationships.  I’m just trying to catch up now before we head for the Oregon coast on Friday for a long weekend.  Life is tough sometimes.

Friends are visiting from New Jersey, so off we went to the San Juan Islands just off the coast here in search of killer whales (which sounds so much more daring than orca-spotting).

People have raved to us about the San Juans ever since arrived, but it’s the first time we’ve been.  It was an absolutely glorious day as we drove to Anacortes, jumped on the ferry to Friday Harbor in San Juan Island (a beautiful trip in and of itself) and then finally onto the whale watching boat. The islands themselves reminded me very much of the Greek islands – the water was the same dark blue as the Aegean and the islands are quite craggy and loom high out of the sea. 

The only differences were the fir trees clinging to the sides and the fact that the water was apparently only 45 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you could swim in the sea in this place I would definitely never go back home to the UK.

 

The Minx had a whale of a time (all puns intended) careering round the boat.

 

And bald eagles and seals were observed (I definitely need a telephoto lens).

The black blob is a seal’s nose

You may have noticed that the only things missing were the orcas themselves.  Apparently three pods of whales live in and around the islands and on the whale watching trips you have about a 90% chance of seeing them.  But yesterday they eluded us, even though we zoomed right out into Canadian waters. 

Unfortunately, that just means we’ll have to go again.