The final morning of our NatHab adventure was clear.
After breakfast Joan and I did some walking about before the bus departed. Here is a good look at the pier of Roche Harbor, from one of the floating docks.
Several shops lined the sidewalk leading to the pier, and we were particularly pleased to see this one.
Several of the lime kilns from the last century, the industry that created Roche Harbor in the first place, are still standing.
Roche Harbor began as a company town, and has evolved into a privately-owned resort where you can stay in a hotel or purchase real estate. Signs explain different aspects of the harbor's history, such as this one about the chapel ...
and these about the kilns and the making of lime from limestone. (As always, click on the image to enlarge it.)
Our first destination was the Lime Kiln Lighthouse, which we had seen from the water during our orca-watching excursions. Today we could prowl around it by land. From the parking area we followed a trail through a grove of young madrone trees, noted for their bright reddish-orange peeling bark.
We had sunny glimpses of the lighthouse as we drew closer.
The more adventurous among us clambered around the rocks surrounding the lighthouse, for the view and for photos. I really like this one, looking up.
We continued walking across the spit of land supporting the lighthouse, to investigate the cove on the far side, passing a larger, fallen madrone on the way.
The cliffs on the far side are the nesting site for several dozen guillemots. They flew in and out, dropping precipitously from the cliff to gain speed, and flapping furiously as they headed out to sea. Their ability to fly looks improbable, just as that of puffins, to which they are related. No puffins here, though, it's a guillemot spot. You can't see them in this photo; they are too far away and we did not wish to disturb them.
Then it was time to drive back to Roche Harbor to pick up the members of our group that had preferred to sleep in or engage in some shopping. Joan and I dropped off the bus to briefly inspect a sculpture garden just outside the harbor; the bus would pick us up on its way back out. The "garden" has multiple paths through mowed fields, around ponds, and through the occasional grove of trees.
I shall present just four of the sculptures, to provide an impression of the place.
It was not without wildlife, included this hooded merganser family.
The bus, after picking us up, drove swiftly to Friday Harbor, to claim a place in the queue for the ferry. Missing the ferry would disrupt the schedule for the rest of the day! Once the bus was secure, we shopped and lunched in Friday Harbor. This is a snapshot of part of the town close by the waterfront.
The ferry in the next photograph, one of 22 in the Washington State Ferry System, is a close copy of ours, which was the Elwha. (Elwha is a simple anagram of "whale," which does not signify anything except that I enjoy and notice simple anagrams.) Until I started composing this blog entry I was unaware of the Elwha's star-crossed history during the 90s. Just as well, I think.
Several of us had gathered on the forward deck of the Elwha when a loud departure horn blasted, and we all jumped reflexively. At this point the captain opened one of the bridge windows, and said, "What do you want? They won't let me fire a howitzer." There's a man who enjoys his job.
A sailboat raced in the other direction, but largely parallel to us, as Friday Harbor receded from view.
Our ferry did not return directly to Anacortes; there was an intermediate stop at Lopez Island.
The deck gave us a good vantage point.
This fascinated supervisor preferred to stay behind the windows.
Then the Elwha departed Lopez Island for the main terminal at Anacortes.
From Anacortes our bus headed north to Bellingham. It was instructive to see railroad tracks and million-dollar houses close by each other, in some sections, because close to the water is where they either needed to be or wanted to be.
Melissa had arranged a late afternoon demonstration at our Bellingham hotel (the Chrysalis Inn again) by Ernestine, a Lummi woman who is actively engaged in reviving traditional crafts. This lady had a wonderful smile and a positive approach to life, acknowledging that you cannot fix the past and that it is best to go forward with a heart unburdened by anger. Her sense of humor was always cheerful, even when she was poking fun at her second husband.
Here she and one of her daughters are splitting soaked strips of cedar.
Her hand is quicker than my camera.
She brought a bounty of examples of her work.
Then it was time for our farewell dinner, at the Nimbus Restaurant, way up on the 14th floor of one of the tallest buildings in downtown Bellingham. The olive oil bread dip had been decorated in honor of our group.
The windows on the 14th floor (some say 15th, there is a brief staircase to the restaurant itself) gave us a panoramic view of the sunset, which fascinated us with the many strata of clouds that accumulate above a coastline.
The dinner was excellent, but Melissa confided on our way back that the restaurant would be closing soon, a victim of the economic slowdown and high rent. And, sadly, the Nimbus closed on or about July 4th, but its Facebook page is still active and some "exciting news" was hinted at on August 1st. A reopening of the Nimbus at any location is on the wish list of many in Bellingham. The Facebook page (you must have a Facebook account to see it) is here.
Early the next morning Joan and I flew to Seattle. We connected not to go home, however, but to fly to Pasco/Richland, also in Washington, to visit Lyn and Elisabeth Neely, longtime friends. Our tour of Washington sights will be the subject of another series of posts.
Several of our group started the next day (June 2o) with an early-early morning hike with Melissa to Cascade Falls in Moran State Park. I "slept in," which meant having breakfast at 7:00am. After breakfast we followed Melissa for her big surprise, which was at the Orcas Island Historical Museum.
Outside there was a sculpture, a requirement for any town in the San Juan Islands, or so it seemed.
We arrived well before the regular opening hour of 11 AM, but one of the advantages of traveling in a small group with as enthusiastic a leader as Melissa is her ability to schedule a private showing of a valuable object. We were about to see a 14,000 year old bison skull -- not a replica, but the original -- that had been found on Orcas Island along with 98 bones or bone fragments.
This skull is from the extinct giant bison (Bison antiquus). Some of the 98 bones show marks indicative of butchering with tools, strongly implying human population of the region 800 years before the time of the Clovis culture. We also saw a cast replica of a tibia with probable cutting marks on it.
It is not easy to decipher the history of the islands during this era, with the rising and falling of sea levels with the advance and retreat of the Ice Ages, but this find is a huge clue.
Afterwards Melissa showed us her sea-mammal cord. In the back yard of the museum, she unrolled a long cord which had a tag at different locations marking the size of different sea creatures. Thus, the tag for the harbor porpoise was only a few feet from the beginning of the cord. The tag for the blue whale did not appear until the cord was stretched across the grass, filling the yard on the diagonal. Melissa's tangible demonstration was a warm-up for our combined orca-seeking expedition and transfer to San Juan Island.
While the bus took our gear by ferry, we boarded a whale-watching boat in Deer Harbor. When we first arrived at the harbor, the tide was definitely low.
Some of the boats tied up there did not appear to have moved in recent history.
Our orca-watching boat, the Squito, has both indoor and outdoor seating. (Orcas are not whales, they are the largest member of the dolphin family, so I don't dare call this a whale-watching trip, even if the colloquial name is "killer whale.")
The Squito started motoring down a particular channel, based on the current reports of orca spottings. There are innumerable minor islands in the San Juans, and we passed a group of seals hauled out on a rock in front of one of them.
At one time a wealthy owner of a private island stocked it with exotic animals. Of course, introducing them onto a small island that he later lost interest in did not work out well. Nonetheless a few of the species still survive on the island, which we sailed past.
Then our captain heard a report that orcas had been sighted on the west side of San Juan Island. This was J pod, and the designation requires some explanation: orcas in the Pacific Northwest have (so far) been divided into "resident" groups, "transient" groups, and "open ocean" groups. The resident groups spend much of the year in a particular area, although that area may be a hundred miles long and wide, and they eat fish, primarily salmon. They are organized into familial groups called pods, and individuals within each pod can be identified through their markings. In the San Juans, there are three resident pods, J, K, and L. This year, 2011, K pod blew through quickly, and L pod had not yet been seen.
In contrast to the resident groups, transient groups pass through unpredictably and eat marine mammals (seals, dolphins, porpoises). Needless to say, the local seals can quickly identify whether a pod is resident or transient and get out of the water fast if it's a transient pod.
We changed direction and about forty minutes later arrived in the area where a portion of J pod was swimming north. Orcas can swim and sleep (resting at least half of their brain) at the same time, which is what J pod was doing when we first saw them. They continue to breathe, of course, but they don't dive or engage in any hunting or exploratory behaviors. Here, they have just passed a group of kayaks. The photo is an accidental panorama; I took a picture of the orcas, at far left, and another of the kayaks, at far right, and they by chance overlapped enough to stitch them together.
If you look above and to the right of the orcas, just at the top of the rock face, you will see a white bench (click on the photo to expand it). The human residents of the islands know where the orcas can frequently be seen, and want to observe in comfort.
While the orcas were "just swimming," I accumulated dozens of photos of backs and fins. For all I knew, this might be the best photo opportunity of the trip, and I had plenty of room on the camera's memory card. To see these creatures at all was a privilege. Here is one of my fin photos.
There are rules and regulations for orca-watching that are designed to prevent human activity from interfering with their lives or driving them away from their home area. Recently the keep-away limit for boats was raised from 100 yards to 200 yards; a boat is to approach no closer than that radius. Also, the boat should not park itself in front of the pod's travel to deliberately intercept them. This is yet another example of the rule to always take binoculars with you.
We were not alone in our quest.
The sleeping behavior does not separate the youngest orcas from their mothers; they will swim close enough to maintain physical contact or swim over the mother's back.
After an hour J pod began to wake up, and we saw spy-hopping behavior. The orcas indulge in human-watching behavior just as we watch them.
Then it was time to sail into Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, be reunited with our luggage, and check into our rooms at the Quarryman Hall. Those rooms were definitely top-notch. Joan and I had one with a balcony overlooking the harbor, which by no means fits into just one photo.
We had a snack at the harbor to supplement the snacks on board the Squito, and then headed off to visit the historic site called English Camp.
Most of our time at English Camp was spent on a short hike to Bell Point. This photo looks back at the historic structures of the main encampment area.
The path was level, with both sun and shade and views out onto Garrison Bay.
By this time we were ready for dinner, and we began driving back to Roche Harbor to pick up the non-hikers in our group. But we had an unscheduled stop on our way. There was a cluster of cars pulled over, and pedestrians were sitting in the middle of a side road, favoring the shade. What was going on? Our bus pulled over and we joined the audience. Creatures -- eagles, ravens, and a fox, at least -- were investigating what must have been a kill in a grassy strip beyond the side of the road, and the humans were investigating the creatures. It seemed a very strong coincidence, and perhaps a human had placed the kill in this conspicuous and convenient location.
The ravens were the most aggressive.
When the ravens departed, a fox visited.
The eagles just watched, intrigued but unwilling, for whatever reason, to challenge. They watched from the sky,
and both juveniles and adults watched from the trees.
But the eagles never, as long as we watched, came down.
We picked up the remainder of our group, and by the time we passed the kill site again, everyone and everything had departed. We drove on to the one real town on the island, Friday Harbor, where the ferries dock and shopping abounds.
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Dinner was welcome, and the flowers outside the restaurant provided my final photo for the day.
Tomorrow would be another busy day on San Juan Island, by land and by sea.
