Hood Canal
Oct. 19th, 2022 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Back in July, when we booked a diving weekend to the Hood Canal (fjord) in mid October, we said, "At least the water should be clearer by then. The weather will be hit and miss, though, could be lovely, could be storms."
Well, we got the lovely part. It was 80F/27C both days. Shorts and T-shirts, wine-tasting, dining outdoors on a balcony overlooking the fjord. And the water did what it was supposed to as well. We dived Flagpole back in May, and I wrote in my logbook, 'Great site. Would be awesome in better vis.' So I was delighted to go back there last weekend and find you could see for 30 feet or so, rather than 10-15. We couldn't have timed anything better, honestly.
The dive video is still being edited, but this was the Lake Cushman overlook mid afternoon.
And back at the same spot at sunset.
In between the diving and the dining and the wine-tasting, I also managed to squeeze in a visit to the High Steel Bridge. Built in 1929 as a railroad bridge for logging, it was later converted to a road. At 420 feet above the Skykomish river gorge, it's the highest bridge in Washington state, and the 12th highest in the US. You bump along gravel forest roads to get there, so while it does have visitors, it's not exactly crowded.
And the gorge below it is precipitous!
Photos looking downwards rarely show scale well, but you can get the idea of how high you are above some very tall trees.
The weather is cooler by the ocean, so when I got back home on Sunday, the temperature here was 85F/29C. On October 16th. Not exactly typical. I'm still going out with the hosepipe in the evenings, because it hasn't rained since early July (I don't count the one hour of light drizzle one day, that didn't do anything for the soil.)
It's been an odd year for the garden, and not one that's encouraged plant growth. Spring and autumn seem to have been basically non-existent. March continued well into June, with daily highs around 55F/13C, until suddenly it was hot and dry. And now, having been 29C three days ago, the forecast is 54F/12C on Friday. That kind of thing might be normal in Colorado, but not here. And from Friday on, the forecast is showers and low to mid 50s F until the end of the month.
Both spring and autumn seem to have been compressed into barely a week this year, and that period when the weather is a mix of sunny days and rain and 67F/19C which is great for the plants to grow just didn't happen. A lot of the new plants I put in back in the spring are sitting there much the same size as before.
Well, we got the lovely part. It was 80F/27C both days. Shorts and T-shirts, wine-tasting, dining outdoors on a balcony overlooking the fjord. And the water did what it was supposed to as well. We dived Flagpole back in May, and I wrote in my logbook, 'Great site. Would be awesome in better vis.' So I was delighted to go back there last weekend and find you could see for 30 feet or so, rather than 10-15. We couldn't have timed anything better, honestly.
The dive video is still being edited, but this was the Lake Cushman overlook mid afternoon.
And back at the same spot at sunset.
In between the diving and the dining and the wine-tasting, I also managed to squeeze in a visit to the High Steel Bridge. Built in 1929 as a railroad bridge for logging, it was later converted to a road. At 420 feet above the Skykomish river gorge, it's the highest bridge in Washington state, and the 12th highest in the US. You bump along gravel forest roads to get there, so while it does have visitors, it's not exactly crowded.
And the gorge below it is precipitous!
Photos looking downwards rarely show scale well, but you can get the idea of how high you are above some very tall trees.
The weather is cooler by the ocean, so when I got back home on Sunday, the temperature here was 85F/29C. On October 16th. Not exactly typical. I'm still going out with the hosepipe in the evenings, because it hasn't rained since early July (I don't count the one hour of light drizzle one day, that didn't do anything for the soil.)
It's been an odd year for the garden, and not one that's encouraged plant growth. Spring and autumn seem to have been basically non-existent. March continued well into June, with daily highs around 55F/13C, until suddenly it was hot and dry. And now, having been 29C three days ago, the forecast is 54F/12C on Friday. That kind of thing might be normal in Colorado, but not here. And from Friday on, the forecast is showers and low to mid 50s F until the end of the month.
Both spring and autumn seem to have been compressed into barely a week this year, and that period when the weather is a mix of sunny days and rain and 67F/19C which is great for the plants to grow just didn't happen. A lot of the new plants I put in back in the spring are sitting there much the same size as before.
