Brad Hanson on the Whale Trail

On November 10th, Wednesday, Dad and I took his Corolla down to the Duwamish Longhouse in west Seattle for another one of the Whale Trail's presentations, this one on "Welcome the Orcas" . The last time we went to a Whale Trail convention, we managed to take a wrong turn on the intersection on the way (an easy thing to do on that particular intersection). But this time we came prepared, with our keen eyes and Dad's Droid Motorola with built-in G.P.S., and made the turn with no mishaps this time. On arrival we went to right to work, setting up the sound system, turning on the microphones, and connecting the computer to the projector, and making very sure to deactivate the screen saver (unlike last time). The speaker was Brad Hanson who's a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and researches orcas by collecting samples of their scat, mucus, and regurgitation for analysis. His presentation was on the new findings about the resident orca's diet, complete with a power-point slide show. Brad also had placed a critter-cam on one orca in hopes that he would be able to observe its food choices and displayed it for us to see.Unfortunately the orca didn't actually go foraging, instead it went to the kelp beds and socialized with its pod.

Speed run to Whidbey Island

We made a speed run up to Whidbey Island on Saturday. Gail, Grandma Bev, and all but Cian and Jack, went to a 50th wedding anniversary for Denny and Marci Zylstra in Oak Harbor as well. While the others visited with relatives, Cian and Jack were busy making sea otter and bald eagle sightings. Here is an image of Rilla and Cian on the beach.

Goodbeach October 2009

We took advantage of the Adobe shutdown this week and headed up to Whidbey Island to spend three days at Goodbeach. Here are the kid's video blogs taken on the ferry on the way home (including Cian who had no comment).

Goodbeach July 2008

We spent three days and two nights up at Goodbeach; Gail’s family’s beach front house on Whidbey Island (See April 07 for more Goodbeach blogging). Gail’s Grandparents, Allan and Arlie Ostling, built the house in the early 70’s and Gail has fond memories of Summers spent on the island (don’t ask her about berry picking though).

Some of the things we did included, hiking to the point, and two extended hikes:

1. Hiked from Ebey’s Landing up along Perego’s bluff. It was pretty foggy out and we couldn’t see Port Townsend let alone any shipping traffic when we started out. Had a small lunch at a ‘Whale Bone’ looking fallen tree. Gail was able to find where the trail that they used to take across the island from Goodbeach came out – now it is fairly overgrown.

Continuing the hike we dropped down to the beach and came back that way. The sun had come out by then and was actually getting warm! The kids were excellent hikers and the two littles only needed a relatively small amount of carrying.

On the way back we stopped at Prairie Center and then in town at Kapaw’s ice cream for essentials. They do great ice cream and are definitely worth the stop! Interestingly, the building Kapaw’s is in had once been owned by Luther Weedin, Gail’s Great Uncle (Arlie’s Uncle) who was the Island County Sheriff and later U.S. Immigration Commissioner in Seattle in the Twenties. We slurped our ice cream as we walked the wharf to the red barn to look at real whale bones.

2. The second hike was the next day where we stopped off Highway 20 and hiked in Kettles Park across to Fort Ebey State Park. Kettles is named appropriately due to the many glacial indentations in the area (check out the topo). Without a map and numerous enticing trails scattered through the area we took a round about way finally ending up in the park. Jack trek’d back to fetch the van; needing Gail’s guidance over the talk-a-bout to sort out the marked and unmarked trails. Everyone was worn out and the vote was to return to Goodbeach. There folks swam, laid out on the beach, and even had s’mores after dinner!

Overall it was a jam-packed three days! Here are images for Cian, Rilla, Colin, Emma, Caleb, Gail, & Jack. See more at our Photobucket site.

Perego's Bluff 7.1.08