After several weeks, I live for low tides, especially when it is a negative tide. My next stop was South Beach State Park, outside of Newport, Oregon. Beautiful beach just a ½ mile walk from my camp. The first thing I did when I got to camp was take a shower! My previous campground was perfect expect for the lack of showers. After 5 days…I was ready for a shower. I celebrated by making a fire and enjoyed the calm evening. Low tide was at eight o’clock the next morning so I drove 10 miles to Seal Rock. I read that was the best place to go for low tide and it was great. Not to mention there were seals too. I spent several hours on this beach capturing images of sea stars and seals. I even returned the next day. The first day was sunny and the seals were much more active. The second day was cloudy and cool and the seal just slept!

Newport has a beautiful bridge that I photographed last summer so I included that image. My pace has slowed as I relax more and capture images of what interests me and mostly, it’s the tide pools! I spent one afternoon with an old friend, Jeff Cox. He was a volunteer with Arizona Highways Photo Workshops with me for several years and sold his place in Tucson to live south of Newport. Jeff and his wife took me to South Beach Fish Market for lunch and it was excellent! I had a crab sandwich with a ¼ lb fresh crab on it. Eighty percent of the menu includes fried items from crab to oysters, they have it all. Jeff took me to the Hatfield Marine Center where he volunteers and I got to touch sea urchins, anemones and sea stars. My favorite anemone photo came from here. Then we checked out the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and the Newport Harbor. It was a fun afternoon and it was great having a fellow photog to talk to!

Moving to Oregon

Ok, so that heading was just to get your attention. But, I have to admit, I have looked at real estate in Oregon. Let me clarify, I have looked at my realtor app to identify housing costs, I have not toured any homes. I’m not sure it will come of anything, but I could live on this coast. So, would a house on the Oregon coast be a winter home? Because we have a great summer home in Flagstaff.

One thing that is alarming when driving on the coast are the tsunami warning and evacuation route signs. With so many worldwide natural disasters in the past few years, this signs definitely send up a red flag.

For the photogs!

Capturing images at low tide is much easier with cloudy skies. In the images below, the first was captured with sunlight and the second with cloudy skies. Notice how the colors are brighter with cloudy skies and the shadows are not so harsh.

Before the trip, someone told me, “don’t be lazy.” Meaning change the lens, or carry all the gear, whatever it takes to make the shot – do it! Well, I’ve been pretty good about that, but when I visited Seal Rock and took my long Panasonic lens 100-400mm, I did not take my tripod. I knew it was full sun and would be able to shoot with a fast shutter speed. A fast shutter speed still isn’t good enough if the lens is so long I can’t hold it still! So, my favorite image is not as sharp as I would like due to my movement, but I included it above because it shows the seal yawning. The second day, I went back and handheld my 40-150mm lens. Since it was cloudy, I chose to bring the faster lens.

At low tide, I also saw a bunch of white plasticy looking things. After asking about them, I learned they are squid egg sacs. Although the beach was covered with them, there are still plenty more in the sea! Once they are on land for awhile they sacs will not survive.