Puffins

Picture of James Island outside entrance to La Push

We are currently in La Push Washington. Probably one of the more interesting entrances we have had to manoeover. It is a very shallow bar and can only be entered on a slack pretty much. La Push ,Washington is home to the Quileute Tribe. According to legend, the tribe was created from wolves by a supernatural transformer. The tribe's lineage stretches back thousands of years to the Ice Age, making them possibly the oldest inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.

The US Coast Guard has a station here so we visit it to inquire about the next few days weather report and information about the next few bar crossings. The way we read the report is that the weather is changing to a low for about 2 days and that we probably should wait it out. We will get up at 0500 hrs tomorrow and check it out. We also found out that our next bar crossing, Grays Harbor is a deep bar so there should be no problems. However one of the bars we are to cross we should ask for a coast guard assist to show us the way as it is very tricky and shallow. We will see when we get to it. I will ask if need be, no use being a foolish boater. US Coast Guard provides this service for all boaters to ensure safe crossings.

Since leaving Anacortes we moored in Port Angeles and visited the city. We stopped off at a nice Italian restaurant to have a glass of wine and notice many women and young adults wearing similar shirts. They went from one table to another introducing themselves. They were from all over the states and other parts of the world. They were taking pictures and laughing alot. Curiosity took the better of me. A simple glass of wine got us into a cult. A book reading cult. This restaurant was mentioned in this series along with many places we will be visiting. What the heck I need reading material. We bought the 4 books in the series and I will let you know if I should have had dinner instead of the books. The girls said that this series is better than Harry Potter.

We next anchored in Neah Bay. Neah Bay is located at the northwest tip of the in Olympic Peninsula , and is home to the Makah Indian Nation. Overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the town of 900 people is situated on one of the most remote and breathtaking coastlines of Washington. It is the jumping off point for boats heading south. The Makah tribe is the tribe that still lays claim to their traditional whale hunting. They created a stir by the Green Peace and Save the Whales and pretty much all who would like to see the whales. ( By the way we saw a humpback and a puffin today)

Horned Puffins are so-named for the hardened flesh that rises above the eyes in a thin vertical line toward the skull crown. Horned Puffins share very similar appearance and life-history traits with the Atlantic Puffin, however Horned Puffins have a larger bill, yellow towards the base and red towards the tip. Horned Puffins are widespread across the Pacific, breeding in summer along the coasts of Siberia and the eastern edges of the Bering Peninsula, across to southwestern Alaska and the Aleutian Archipelago. They winter at sea south of this breeding range. It took everything for them to get out of the way of the boat. They are awesome looking and have a colony on James Island heading into La Push. They fly about as well as penguins.

Until the next blog..... always thinking safety first.