After our drive out to Port Townsend and our one day whirlwind tour of the Olympic Peninsula, we were ready for a little less traveling. My friend Bob Polk had set us up in his "guest trailer," and it was perfect. His place is not far from the beach, not far from a small village where you can buy groceries, hardware, do mail etc., and quiet with a nice view. Max liked it; birds liked it; Bob liked it; and we liked it.
During the next week, Dona went off to class and worked on her marquetry. I caught up with Bob, spent time at the Port Townsend boat museums and yards, and explored.
Bob's place has some nice trees and good wildlife cover. He has a couple of bird feeders which the Goldfinches seemed to like.
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| American Goldfinch | ||||
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| Xxx Sparrow | Xxx |
My friend Steve, "Pic," who lives in Seattle and whom I hadn't seen in years came over for a visit. We met down at the docks and spent an hour or two catching up, then decided to put the Hunky Dory in the water and row out to Protection Island. The only problem was, we needed to find a way to launch the boat from the beach on that side of the peninsula where Port Townsend is located.
We followed our noses and worked our way down the coast on the east side of Discovery Bay, looking for a place which had access to the water. There were no public parks where you could get down to the water with a boat, although we found one place where you could scramble down without one. We were in two cars, for some dumb reason; I guess we had each thought if we ended up someplace far away from Port Townsend it would be easier for Pic to get home when the time came.
I pulled off the road on a dirt access road to ask a local utility guy if he knew where we could launch, and he confirmed that there was no access from the east side of the bay. We decided to go down around the bottom of the bay and work our way back up to the top on the west side. That would put us directly opposite Protection Island. I was in the lead, and I pulled out onto the highway and drove about a hundred yards to where the road split. I looked in my rear view mirror to make sure Pic saw which fork I took, and he was nowhere to be seen. Ugh! That seemed pretty weird; I was pretty sure I had been in front and he hadn't passed me. I could see where we had conferred, and he wasn't there. I decided the best thing to do was wait for him to realize he wasn't following me and go back to where we had last been. So I waited... and waited... and waited.
After 15 or 20 minutes, I finally decided we had said where we were going, so I thought maybe he had headed over there figuring we would meet up there. So I wandered around and found the road up to the north end of Discovery Bay on the west. It was a pretty drive, and when you get there there is a public access point for the beach. But there was no Pic. Damn! I waited around for another 15 or 20 minutes, but he never showed up. So I turned around and drove back, looking for him the whole way. Nada. Damn! Now, it just so happens that neither Pic nor I are enamored by cell phones, so that obvious solution wouldn't work. That evening, we connected by phone, and we both said essentially the same thing: "Where did you go, I went out to the end of the peninsula and you weren't there." It turns out I wasn't patient enough; Pic showed up a few minutes after I left. And he was slower than I thought; I'd forgotten about his Virginia heritage. But we both thought we should have passed each other somewhere along the way, as there's essentially only one road all the way up to the end of the peninsula, a distance of about 20 miles. It's easy to see how I could have missed his car on the crowded highway before we turned off, but how the heck did he miss mine -- it had a dang boat on top of it! And once we were on the road up the peninsula, there wasn't any traffic. In any case, I was bummed, and I'm sure he was too.
Later in the week I went back out by myself and rowed out to Protection Island. It was pretty cool, with a bunch of seals hanging out at the west end. Some of them came out to visit me in the dory, but they were pretty shy and didn't pose very long to have their picture taken.
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| Heading out to Protection Island |
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| Seals |
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| Seals |
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| Bald Eagle | Gulls and Harlequin Ducks |
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| Olympic Peninsula from near Protection Island |
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| Olympic Peninsula from near Protection Island |
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| Protection Island |
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| Heading back from Protection Island | Diamond Pt. |
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| Diamond Pt. Shore |
On Thursday evening we took Bob out to dinner and wandered around town. We had some pretty good locally made ice cream! I don't know if the ice cream was particularly slippery, or if the camera just didn't want to stay on the coat on the pile of junk it was balanced on.
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| Bob, Dona and Gary on
Port Townsend waterfront |
After Dona finished her class on Friday, we headed home via the North Cascades highway. (Next)
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
