Today was the first day we had a full day of photographing. We had blue skies and and pleasant temperatures all day.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Our first stop was to shoot the Yaquina Head Lighthouse near Newport. We even found parking in the lot closest to the lighthouse. That saved walking in from the Visitor Center. As we neared the lighthouse, some people standing near the sidewalk pointed out a bald eagle in a nearby tree. The lighting wasn't very good, but it was still cool to see the eagle.

The lighting was good for the lighthouse, and we shot it from every angle. We were a little late to join all the people checking out the tide pools below the lighthouse at the very low tides today. We may try to return for the tide pools tomorrow. It will be the last day with negative low tides during daylight hours.

Thor's Well

We continued south to the Cape Perpetua area, which is an especially wild area with a high ridge, deep valleys, and a rocky coast. Thor's Well is a very popular place for photographers; especially at high tide. A sea cave has collapsed, so waves rolling in appear to crash over a ledge and then into a round hole to disappear back into the sea.

The coast has a series of channels carved into the basalt by the crashing waves. At the head of one of the channels is a blowhole. When the waves are funneled up the channel, they grow in height until they reach a "pipe" in the basalt that shoots off like a geyser. The water erupts in a very fine mist up to 20 or 30 feet high. The higher the wave is, the larger the explosion of water out of the blowhole. At high tide, the blowhole was going off ever couple of minutes.

Not to be outdone, the channel in the basalt slightly to the north also funneled the waves, but here the waves smashed against the rocks sending huge plumes of water into the air. The remaining water created a curtain over the basalt ledge and then slowly formed rivulets over the side of the rocks.

Cape Perpetua Overlook

After high tide, we drove to the top of the ridge overlooking Cape Perpetua to photograph the coast where we had just photographed. This has always been one of my favorite views along Highway 101 since I saw it with Mark Johnson way back in the mid-70's.

Newport Harbor

We drove around Newport Harbor on our way back to camp looking for a good place to photograph the bridge with the harbor in the foreground. The road along the north side of the harbor was lined with seafood companies and fishing fleets. This is the largest fishing fleet we saw along the Oregon Coast. We were disappointed with our options for photographing the bridge because they are doing construction on the bridge and sections of it were wrapped in something white that looks like plastic wrap. It definitely didn't add anything positive to the images. While photographing along the harbor, a local fisherman walked up and told me about the history of one of the houses above the harbor that I was photographing. A wealthy fisherman bought the historic house and began renovating it. But before it was completed, he would either change his design plans or run into issues like rats that forced him to start over. This went on for years until he ran out of money to finish the house.

Boiler Bay Sunset

The sun was in its final minutes before sunset when we reached Boiler Bay. We pulled into the viewpoint just in time to photograph the sun as it neared the horizon. Yes, the sun was intercepted by clouds just before it set, but it was still a nice sunset.