SHELTON -- Hammersley Inlet is the narrowest of the glacially carved waterways that curl around south Puget Sound like the gnarled fingers of a witch, funneling and propelling the tides to create what local kayakers call the "Shelton shuttle."
You can ride the rippling currents from Shelton seven miles out to the Sound, past forested green bluffs through seal-rich eddies and otter-visited coves. Then wait for the tide to turn and you can catch the briny currents of the flood back.
By Greg Johnston | July 13, 2006
VICTORIA, B.C. -- We glide past a great blue heron, which stands regally motionless on a tidal rock less than 10 feet away. A few moments later a harbor seal pops his head up and studies us with great, brown, limpid eyes. Meanwhile, cormorants call overheard as they struggle to take flight.
It's hard to believe we are just off downtown Victoria. But a few hundred yards from the city's Inner Harbour, the pleasures that come from a near-wilderness experience abound -- if you are in an ocean kayak.
By Anne Mullens | March 24, 2005
CAPE JOHNSON -- You expect a winter hike on the Olympic National Park's jumbled and jagged ocean coast to be wet, cold and magnificently miserable. But sitting here on a crescent bay, as a flaming winter sun screams pinks and reds across the sky as it sets behind sharp-angled sea stacks, it almost feels as if you're in a South Seas paradise.
By Greg Johnston | March 3, 2005
For young children, any journey through Carkeek Park is a treasure hunt: They might unearth starfish and geoducks while walking on the beach at low tide; or find salmon fry in the river as they hike on a forested trail; or shriek with excitement as trains roar under the overpass where they cross from beach to playground.
Imagine, though, how much more they could discover with a guide.
That's the role naturalist Brian Gay is taking on for his "tyke hikes" at 1:30 p.m. Tuesdays, when he leads young children through outdoor activities at the North Seattle park.
By Rebekah Denn | February 3, 2005
"There is a plume of moisture entrained in the system."
What to most might be bewildering weather-speak from an official government forecast is poetry to author David Laskin's ears. A self-professed rain nut, Laskin lives for the Northwest's famed drippiness.
By Kathryn True | December 23, 2004
PORT ANGELES For a warm-up or postmortem to a tide-pooling trip, visit the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary's new Olympic Discovery Center here, next to the Victoria Ferry terminal.
The $430,000 center designed by Bainbridge Island-based BIOS, an aquarium and exhibit designer whose other projects include the Seattle Aquarium and the Oregon Coast Aquarium, is likely the slickest 800 square feet in Port Angeles. It opened last month.
By Jim Downing | August 26, 2004
JOYCE, Clallam County On a cloudy summer morning, a gray whale and her calf cruise around the small bay to the west of Tongue Point, spouting every few minutes, just a few dozen yards offshore. Two instructors with the Olympic Park Institute are at the Tongue Point tide pools with three families on the last day of a weeklong field course.
By Jim Downing | August 26, 2004
ToursFor guided tours of the pools, you can contact Port Angeles-based Olympic Park Institute, which runs weekend and weeklong courses for school groups and families. Olympic Park Institute site or 800-775-3720.
Field guides
A good tide-pool field guide can help you figure out what you're looking at. These three get excellent reviews:
"The Beachcomber's Guide to Seashore Life in the Pacific Northwest" by J. Duane Sept. Harbour Publishing, 1999
August 26, 2004
CYPRESS ISLAND We're just about to enter the shadow of a craggy rock promontory called Eagle Cliff when a bald eagle as if on cue soars in from who knows where. After a few awkward slow-down flaps of its 6½-foot wingspan, it settles high above us on the top rung of an island-edge fir snag. The eagle looks down on us and our four kayaks, its I-gotta-see-this visage implying that we're its amusement for the next little while.
By Mike McQuaide | August 19, 2004
NIMMO BAY, B.C. -- Dancing over islands, skimming above the surf, hovering toward snow-capped peaks, hidden lakes and waterfalls in a bright red whirlybird is my idea of heaven.
Especially when Louis Armstrong's deep raspy voice singing "What a Wonderful World" comes over the headphones. Making a gentle bank to the right, Peter our pilot swoops over the red rooftops of Nimmo Bay Resort, putting down lightly on the helipad. Not only is this paradise in the wild, but we have just discovered that "to fly is human ... to hover, divine."
By Dannielle Hayes | July 8, 2004
