Thursday, April 27, 2006

Derelict Boat, La Push Harbor, WA

We woke up on Saturday morning to a glorious day, the wind had died out, the clouds had all disappeared and we were left with only sparkling sun and surf. Quickly we made a pot of coffee and took our cups out to the beach.
OMG, the first thing we noticed was that it was full of surfers, and they were all camped at the other end of the beach, so that is what the folks meant by quiet. But what really excited us, was there were whales about a 100 yards out, feeding, playing, blowing.. and when I looked at my guide book it said that this was an area where folks came to whale watch. Here we thought we would see nothing worth writing about, and we find whales. We counted about 3 of them, but water spouts were everywhere so there may have been more.
After breakfast, we walked along the beach to the town of La Push, and came first to the harbor where we found this delelict boat. There was just something beautiful and sad about her and Roy dreamed of restoration. The town itself was pretty small, maybe 100 or so homes, but it does have a Coast Guard Station and restaurant and a small school.
As we walked around I just happened to notice an eagle sitting in the top of an old pine tree. We stopped to take some pictures and met a local gentleman who told us the eagle had a nest in the tree but the winter storms had knocked it out.
He also told us about the Fisherman's Memorial, a Coast Guard boat went out to rescue a sailboat and a huge wave picked it up and tossed it on the rocks of James Island, killing all on board. The sailboat was also lost. He told us about 80 MPH winds and how the surf has killer logs that folks have to be so careful of. We weren't surprized, there are tons of logs littering the beach.

Another cool thing is we have now visited our second Indian Nation. This area is mostly Quileute country.
We continued to walk around, enjoying the sun, the surf and more whales. As it turned out Saturday was the warmest day of the year, Sunday would be even more beautiful. Posted by Picasa

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