8/17 - Newport - Devil's Punch Bowl and Yaquina Head Lighthouse

After the fog lifted this morning it turned into a beautiful day. Once again the wind was really strong (and cold) along the water, but slightly inland it was just breezy and very comfortable.  We learned from some locals that this is pretty normal. The people we talked to said this was their first summer on the coast after living in the Willamette Valley (Portland and south, but east of the Coast Range) and they really love it. Portland and the valley are expected to be in the upper-90's to 100 for the next several days, so being on the coast from 25 to 38 degrees cooler is fantastic. 

The Devil's Punch Bowl is close to Newport so we went to it twice today, both at mid-tide and at high-tide to see what the difference was. It's a picturesque area but the punch bowl wasn't serving much punch even at the tide's peak. It probably takes a really high tide along with a storm to put on a show.

There are two openings to the bowl so water rushes in from one side and slithers out the other.  The bowl was formed from a cave when its roof collapsed. 

A better view of the punch bowl is on the outside of it. The bowl is the dark area to the right.  The outer rocks get a lot more action.

Our second destination was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, part of the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area which extends a mile out into the ocean. This is Oregon's tallest lighthouse at 93 feet, still guiding and warning ships after 143 years of service. 

Yaquina Head was originally called Cape Foul Weather which gives a good idea of what the lighthouse keepers had to put up with. It was a desolate, lonely and difficult place to work. Being a lighthouse keeper was a lot harder than most people would think, what with having to tend the light from dusk to dawn every night, keep everything spit-shined to pass the never-ending surprise inspections of supervisors which could happen at any time of day or night, and be on duty to receive visitors all day long six days a week. The video on this lighthouse said neither of the two keepers were able to get more than five hours sleep per day. 

This small inlet on the north side of Yaquina Head is surrounded by guano-covered rocks, a sure-fire sign of cormorants.  

Close-up of the cormorant colony which is on the right side of the inlet in the previous picture.  Cormorants are by far the most numerous birds we've seen.....many more cormorants than gulls.

The south side of Yaquina Head with the outskirts of Newport in the background. The town seems bigger than its population of slightly more than 10,000.  Maybe it's because there's just one main road through town (Hwy 101) so everyone is on it at once..... residents, tourists and passers-through.

Tomorrow we're moving 125 miles south to Bandon, a much smaller town (3,000+ population) on the southern Oregon coast.