Alpenglow over Puget Sound

A Red Maple tree in early Autumn, with red leaves at the top and still-green leaves on lower branches.

Moonset over Puget Sound; Full moon.

Twenty-three-and-a-half hours at our house. Alpenglow Monday morning, turning maple tree Monday afternoon, moonset this morning early dawn

07.10.2025 14:42 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Sadly? She was 80. Nobody wants to live forever. Kinda the point of Ramses the Damned.

06.10.2025 17:15 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

There seem to be more algae-gnawing sea urchins lately, probably due to the death of almost all the sunflower stars due to wasting disease. Those are vicious predators of urchins.

06.10.2025 16:53 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A sea kayak's bow and rocks covered with eelgrass and molluscs

After some digging, here are photos showing it more as a scene and less as details. Still don't see the pink coralline algae that provides a nice contrast to the green eelgrass. I actually think there was more pink 20 years ago.

06.10.2025 16:53 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

You'll have to figure out what order to read those in. That was one nicely-composed (IMAO) comment before I realized I was about 400 characters over the limit.

06.10.2025 16:37 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Holy shit, I hate being limited by character counts!

It's an obscure location, and one I missed the first few times I paddled across the south side of Lopez Island. If I count the times I passed by without a proper look but within a few hundred meters, I've probably been there around 30 times.

06.10.2025 16:14 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The attraction is that the south side of it on a good minus tide (approaching -1 meter is best) is the second prettiest intertidal zone I've seen anywhere, after Gay Passage located just north of Kyuquot BC, which is WAY, WAY less accessible to me.

06.10.2025 16:13 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

By way of explanation: Swirl Island is my favorite place to visit in my sea kayaks. It's not much of an island. Really more of a big rock south of Lopez Island, WA.

Here are a couple photos from a few years ago, one above and one just below the water on a pretty good minus tide.

06.10.2025 16:13 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0