October, 2024
Have you ever seen an alligator log? They are dangerous! Really dangerous! They eat boats four times their size, they swallow human beings in one gulp, they show no mercy, and they are amazingly fast, swift turning, diving, then coming straight back up right under your boat, right straight out of the water to smash your boat in half and eat you whole. Wow! Today, I saw one, oh my word!
Ok, I’m pulling your legs again. Ah, I am not an alligator log though, so I’m just pulling your legs and joking around with you. 🙂 But today I did see a log that looked somewhat like an alligator, and it was “swimming” in the water. Let me share this short little tale (tail?) with you folks.
From my campsite, I drove to a small parking lot, still inside this large campground, where I parked and then walked down this lovely path to a beach that was immediately west of the Deception Pass bridge. From the beach, I could look up and see the bridge. The photo above shows the lovely path down to the beach.
And the photo below shows the roof of a picnic shelter in the woods right next to the beach.
It was a small area, and so beautifully wooded.
You’ll see the Deception Pass bridge in a moment, but first here’s a photo looking west from the beach. That’s Deception Island out there. You can see the type of dangerous rock walls here, where a boat can be smashed to bits (really truly, not kidding here). If you take your boat through Deception Pass at the wrong time of tide/current, at a time when that tide/current is so strong, and waves are so big, the power of the water can shove your boat into one of those rocky points or a rock wall. But today, it was so calm, so peaceful, it was hard to imagine water that rough and dangerous.
Here’s the first of a few videos. You’ll see the alligator log right off the bat. But I pan to the right and follow the back-eddy current. The tide is actually going out, heading west (left), but there is a back-eddy right here, just off this beach such that the water swirls around and creates a current of water that heads east (to the right)! In the video, I zoom into the far shore so you can see the majority of the water flowing west (left).
In this second video, below, we explore the activities of the very dangerous alligator log. It seemed to be searching for something, or maybe just cruising around waiting for its prey, waiting for a meal! But watch the water to the left of the alligator log … see what happens at about time stamp :35 seconds. Then again, at about 1:15, something in the water splashed again, right in front of me. Ah ha!, watch the water over by that point of rock wall. As soon as that alligator log gets out of the way, I’ll zoom in for you and show you what all that splashing was about … a harbor seal, with a nice fat salmon in its mouth. 🙂 Depending on your internet connection, you might want to click on “watch on YouTube”. And be sure to enlarge the video so you see the details. Seeing that harbor seal sure was a wonderful surprise!
In the very short video below, that alligator log has finally caught the back-eddy current and is swimming along eastward. Seemed to me that log wanted to get somewhere, either back home to the east, to the forests where it came from … or maybe it wanted to head west, out to the Pacific Ocean to see the world. It felt to me like it did NOT want to be stuck in that little bay at that beach.
There were no other people on this beach while I was here. That’s one of the advantages of going camping during the week, and avoiding weekends. During the week, there are usually fewer people about so it’s quieter, photos/videos can be taken without the worry of other people being in them, etc. And, as you are seeing, the wildlife are more apt to appear. More to come!
So here’s the view of that point of rock again.
And here below is a closer look. Notice that dark black cave/hole.
Here below is a closer look at that dark black cave/hole.
And here, below, is the next video I took. Of course, I had no idea what was to come. I was just standing there taking a video of the water and the light sky and the beauty of it all.
River otters! Three of them. Seemed like mom and two teenagers. The one on the left was chowing down on some good food. Listen to them chirp. And then they all dove back into the water and headed back around that rock point. Wow, how special to get to see them!
AND, besides the otters, to see a fast speedboat coming through the pass just as the otters dove back into the water, that was cool for me. 🙂 If you didn’t notice the boat, it’s right about :37 seconds into the video above. Boy, is that boat moving fast!
On the other hand, when the boat got into the narrow part of Deception Pass, and the current was running outbound, westward, in the opposite direction that the boat was going, then the overall speed of that boat when measured against the land … the speed was greatly reduced! But the main reason I’m including the video below is because I could again hear the chirps of the river otters … they had come back around that rock point and were still here in this little bay. I liked that! 🙂
The video below is the last video for today. I was again just enjoying the views … the bridge, the rocks, the water, the sky, the sounds of the birds (and the otters). I zoomed in for a closer look at the water running through Deception Pass and the birds feeding on the fish there, and I just happened to find … the alligator log! It had caught … after so many tries … oh, at last it had caught the outbound current. Oh that felt good. It spun around, I think to face the woods it had come from to give thanks to them. And then it went on its journey out towards the Pacific Ocean to see the world.
What an amazing afternoon. What an amazing world. Little Towhee (in the photo below) and I simply sat down on a log on the beach (not an alligator log!) and enjoyed the view for a bit longer and gave thanks for the world, our lives, and our loved ones … including harbor seals and otters and humans and towhee birds.
Then Little Towhee and I walked back up the path from that beach, jumped in the big white truck, and drove back to our campsite. Even at 4pm or so that afternoon, looking from the back of my trailer … the sky to the west was glorious.
