nothing to do with christmas

 Scenes from the ballard locks. 

 An eagle. 

spillway at the ballard locks. 

Crisp fall

Some shots from Camano Island this evening. The first, an eclectic American bald eagle. Next your classic grey Heron. Last but not least, a piece of wood, served with a slow shutter speed and shot with a tripod.

         Taken in some random place in Eastern oregon.

                                                     No, I can not fly. Taken near Anacortes atop a cliff.

                                               Near the top of mt. constitution on Orcas island!

                                                                    

                                                                          Ferns

                                                         SUPER INTENSE SUNSET!

Trip to seattle.

A video i made of a trip to seattle on the 52.

Americas West, Beyond the Cascades.

I recently passed St. Louis, The gateway to the west. I decided to post some of my favorite pictures from my time in the west spent away from the coast. The landscapes and diversity are amazing. I got the same feeling being on a dirt road in the middle of the desert as I did being 80 miles off shore. 

 Probably the only cool part of Idaho. Except for the alpaca gas station.

   BFE UTAH

      The following arches and moon rise were taken at Arches national park. It was such a different experience to photograph in the desert, Especially at sun set. The shadows made it challenging but so rewarding when you got them to work in your favor.

   These photos were taken in Canyon lands national park. As you can see, its very aptly named.

  Took the subaru on the white rim trail. It descends into one of the canyons. This road was just over the width of my car at times with a straight drop off into the canyon below on one side! But the subaru got to stretch out its rally legs on more than one occasion this trip.

 

 Bedunky springs, out in the middle of ranchland. This is just outside canyon lands. I decided to take a random dirt road into the desert for about 9 miles.

 Rocky mountains National Park. The crazy thing about the Rockies is that they can seem so unassuming. You just have to remember you are already at the 8-9000 foot level traveling through this section of Colorado.

 I was hiking through a section of marshland when i spotted two moose! I have to admit i was a bit nervous at first, Moose are not known to be the nicest animals when provoked. So i tried not to provoke them. I guess I succeeded.

 At the peak of the 12920 foot mountain i hiked up(i was at the 8000 foot mark at the trailhead). It was still a really fun scramble. I watched a thunder head appear then disappear in a matter of 10 or so minutes. The weather is Amazing at these altitudes.

Directors cut

Some more photos from my trip to seattle. See previous blog post for more.

44 degrees to 48 degrees North

 

The Yaquina head lighthouse with some wake from the victory in the foreground. This was at the start of our trip from Newport to Seattle on the 52' mlb victory. We steamed the boat up to Seattle for the D13 coast guard foundation awards dinner. Admiral Blore wanted a 52' lifeboat there to show off and he chose the victory out of the four. We sailed from Yaquina bay to the Columbia river, from the Columbia up to La Push, from La Push to Port angeles and from Port angeles to Seattle. On the way back we went form Seattle To Port angeles, Port angeles to greys harbor, from greys harbor to Depoe bay. The Victory is going to be taking part in the annual fleet of flowers there today.  The victory is not your standard lifeboat. Built in 1956 the boat is designed for the harshest sea and weather conditions. Up to 35 foot seas and 25 foot breaking surf, this boat will punch through anything. It can tow up to 750 gross tons as well. Only four 52' motor lifeboats were made, they are all stationed in Washington and Oregon due to the weather we get up in the northwest. Usually these boats stay within about 150 miles of their home port, besides the occasional round up(Where all of them get together). So it was quite the honor to get to take The victory all the way up to Seattle.

  This was an amazing sunset coming into greys harbor Washington. 

 Station Depoe Bay's 47' motor lifeboat was out for a low tide standby and came to take a look at the victory. Station Depoe bay is our station to the north.

 Skip ahead a few days(the pictures aren't really chronological on this post) and we come to Tatoosh island right off the western tip of the olympic peninsula.

 Transiting through the puget sound.

 Camano Island on a chart!

 This was an awesome little lighthouse in the sound. Also you can kind of see the skyline of seattle in the background.

 The Victory moored up in seattle with a 41' utility boat(soon to be replaced with the much improved 45' Response boat medium), And some larger coast guard assets like the polar sea and cutter midgett.

 The HH-60 jayhawk that took part in the search and rescue demonstration.

 We lowered the rescue swimmer to the aft deck of the victory(not pictured because the rotor wash of a jayhawk would have drenched my camera).

 The rescue swimmer waiting to jump off the boat.

 The jayhawk going into a hover.

 The patrol boat Adiele and An RBM and RBS from station seattle.

 Another photo of that sunset just off of greys harbor.

 Station greys harbor decided to escort out our 52 with their 52 the next morning. Theirs is the MLB invincible(the 52' lifeboats are the only boats in the coast guard under 65' in length to have names). It was the second 52 built after ours.

 

 The Invincible coming about on the greys harbor bar.

And the final obstacle of the journey was getting the Victory through the Depoe bay hole. Depoe bay claims itself as the smallest harbor in the world. It literally looks like a tide pool. Imagine towing a boat through here with 6-8' breaking waves!