Walk Along Dungeness Spit

Yesterday we drove to Sequim, a town we stayed in 4 summers ago, to visit the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge and walk out on the Spit, a 5 1/2 mile long spit where the New Dungeness Light Station sits at the end.  Visiting the Spit was on our bucket list to do while here in Port Angeles.  We have been watching the weather - last couple of days was quite fogged in, but we decided to go for it anyway.  I look at live webcams of the area to see the conditions and we had hoped that the fog would lift by afternoon.  And when we got to Dungeness it was very fogged in, looked like sheets of fine rain.  But, decided to walk out along the shore for some distance.

Hard to see but about 10 feet up was heavy fog.  Plop, plop.

As we walked the 1/2 mile trail to the top of the ramp that leads down to the water, we were rained on.  Not really rain but condensation from the fog that dropped like rain on us.  Plunk.  Plunk.  We could hear the fog horn sounding, sort of was our monitor as to how close we were coming to the waterfront.

The Spit grows about 13 feet every year.

It's 5 1/2 miles one way to go to the Light Station. Dave thinks he made it
to where the Spit bends to the right.

Fog was rolling through, visibility about 500 feet.

Tide out, tracks for the ATV which runs to Light Station at low tide
can still be seen.  On walk back - the tracks were under water.

Low tide was around 6:30 am so the water was still quite far out, high tide was predicted at 2:30pm.  We had enough time to walk quite a distance, have lunch, then get back before the beach had disappeared behind the breaking waves.  The last time we walked the spit we got caught by high tide coming in and walking on big stones and dodging the driftwood - and at that time I did not realize that my foot had 2 broken bones in it and I had remembered crying in pain by the time we had gotten back.  This time we were hoping for a better experience.

Dave continued on

Fog lifted, our lunch spot, looking over driftwood towards
New Dungeness Light Station, Mt. Baker looming overhead.

So dreamy.  Could hear the rumble of a freighter's engines out in the fog,  and the fog horn going off, felt really close, could not see it.  Continued walking for a bit, I stopped and Dave continued walking on.  The fog started to raise and I could begin to see land behind me, the tops of the Olympic Mountains above the rise of land, and could start to make out Mt. Baker to the north east, looking over the driftwood of the spit.

Through binoculars we could see where this ship stopped at
Port Angeles and picked up a pilot to go into Puget Sound.
This ship needs some TLC!

Container ship almost at Light Station

And it continues on towards Seattle

I decided to continue walk along on the spit even though Dave had gone way ahead, made it enough 3/4 mile or so, stopped and saw Dave coming back.  We had our lunch with a beautiful view of the Strait in front. The waves were getting closer, the tide beginning to come in, so we started walking back.  And the fog had lifted so you could see Canada across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

By the time we left, the fog could be seen out on the waters, had lifted
by us entirely.

In all Dave thinks he walked about 4 1/2 miles, I did a little over 2 miles.  I did not wear the boot, instead had my walking boots on which gave my foot the support.  No problems.  We fulfilled another goal by walking out on the spit for a distance.  Just a gorgeous day.