Afternoon At The Water's Edge

One of the things we wanted to do before our time was up here in Sequim was to spend it at the water's edge at Port Angeles.  Just watching the traffic, ferries, people, whatever.  We stopped at Safeway Grocery Store and bought sandwiches to take and made our way to the city proper of PA, about a 12 mile drive west of Sequim, driving along the south side of the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  As you come into the city you are on a cliff and you drop down to water level, and while dropping down you can see the activity of the harbor and all the way across to Victoria, British Columbia across the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  Every, every time we come through this city I am glued watching out the window at this pretty scene. We have driven through PA a number of times and there is always people walking around, one particular restaurant we always note is doing a booming business - just jammed.

Ferry Leaving for Victoria

Had to drive through the Nippon Paper Company again, deja vu with driving in the steel mill in Cleveland, and on out towards Ediz Point and to where you cannot go any farther due to the Coast Guard Station's secured zone.  But that's okay - you have a beautiful view of the harbor looking across back to land.  The Point is shaped like a huge hooked finger, forming out 45 degrees from land and out, way out, into the Strait.  The fog was just coming in and it was dreamy.  We could hear a couple of freighters out on the Strait, blowing their horns every now and then, tracking them by hearing only.  We could not see them until the last minute.  The Black Ball Coho Ferry was in port loading up cars and people to take to Victoria, small boats out doing their thing.

Fog lifted enough to see one of the freighters - looked really close! Watched the ferry take off.  We were watching two pilot boats tied up at the dock near the Coast Guard station, thinking that they were going to bring in the two freighters.  But they did not leave the dock until we left, bad timing, there was a third freighter coming along as we left.  It went out to the ship but returned without it, the ship going on to Seattle.

Ghost Ship (Coast Guard Supply Vessel)

Two of the ghost ships (that I coined them) that were blowing their horns and we couldn't see, came into the harbor and we managed to find our way much closer when we came back into town to see that they were large Coast Guard supply ships, both were loaded, and lots of people moving around on deck.

Sea Plane - pretty common sight

Amazing the amount of people that use this Ediz Point area - trucks with boat trailers (obviously they were out boating), joggers, walkers, people with their dogs playing fetch in the water, folks just sitting watching the world, sea planes overhead.  Pretty evening, a tidge cool - 57 degrees - sunny and breezy, could see the snow on the Olympic Mountains just above Port Angeles.  Life is good.