Today we decided to head north up Hwy 101 toward Depoe Bay. This is of interest because of its Whale Center. Apparently about 200 whales hang around Depoe Bay all year, so there is pretty good odds of seeing one. We knew a bit about whales from our visit to San Diego, but we really didn’t know much about Baleen. Baleen is a whale’s teeth. They suck up sea water including mud and blow out through their Baleen, which catches the krill (a small shrimp) and is then eaten. Baleen is the same type of material as our fingernails and grows continuously; a picture follows.
Depoe Bay is “advertised” as the smallest commercial bay on Oregon’s coast. Only a few commercial fisheries are here. It’s mostly pleasure boats and charter fishing services. We then drove south to Cape Foulweather. It is very scenic, but the coolest thing we saw were a couple of whales. Actually, their water spouts, about 2 miles off shore. The area was very scenic. A couple of pixs follow.
The next stop was Devil’s Punchbowl. This area contains sandstone where the water has hollowed out tunnels and depressions that churn up the incoming waves. The water trapped in this area swirls, crashes, and spits. Although we were at high tide, the ocean was too calm to really make this thing work.
We stopped at Seal Rock SP as it was low tide. The tide was just not low enough to get out far enough and reach the areas we wanted to see. So far the best tide pool area has been Indian Beach in Ecola SP.
Weather-wise, it was a picture perfect day until sundown. It is now foggy with a misty rain. I seems as though you can only string together a day or two of nice weather at a time.
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