October, 2017
“We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you these important announcements.”
Remember those words? In other words, here are some other newsy items that might be of interest. 🙂
I’ve shown you how dangerous and scary Deception Pass can be, so I thought I would also show you how benign it can be when the current is slack. The water in Deception Pass can be very calm.
I took the photo above from my boat (the 1940 Matthews, Pied Piper) during a cruise on the boat, with friends also along on their boats, to the Deception Pass area in late September, 2010. The boats you see in the photo above are not transiting the pass; they are idling and slowly moving about, back and forth, right in the middle of the pass while fishing. In 30 minutes or so, the current will start running again and those boats will leave. Slack current happens usually four times a day, so there are windows of calm for fishing, kayaking, paddle-boarding, and transiting the pass even in a slow power boat or sailboat. With some judicious chart reading, you can be perfectly safe.
For you readers who are interested in fishing, the boats above are just off of North Beach on the Whidbey side of the bridge and are likely fishing for Coho (Silver) Salmon which ordinarily run from August through October. Pink (Humpy) Salmon also have runs through Deception Pass, also usually on the North Beach side of the pass, but those runs are usually only on odd numbered years. Besides fishing from boats, lots of folks fish right from North Beach near the bridge.
And, in addition to that information, I have two reports to make! One stems from a comment from reader GingerD and my subsequent reply wherein I voiced my thought that the Deception Pass area and the bridge might be the most visited area in the State of Washington.
Well, I cannot confirm or deny that. What I do find online is that the Deception Pass State Park is the most visited state park in the State of Washington. And that is noteworthy! But I can’t find information about where the Deception Pass area (or the bridge) ranks in the list of all of the popularly visited areas or destinations in the State of Washington. Cranberry Lake on a hot summer day.
My second report is about the “Count the Rings” contest from my blog post “Deception Pass State Park, day 3 afternoon“. It’s pretty exciting isn’t it? 🙂 I know all of you have been waiting with bated breath to hear who won and what the prize was. Get ready to shout hurrah! The winner is ….. it was a tie!
Reader Tim guessed 115 rings. Reader Jan guessed 246.5 rings. One might wonder how two guesses which were obviously the result of exacting measurements taken using laborious methods could be so wildly different. I really don’t have a clue and I kind of wonder right along with the rest of you. 🙂
Nevertheless, the CORRECT answer is … 180.75 rings … exactly in between the two answers. How amazing! The prize (remember the prize?) … well, the prize WAS going to be a brand new Tesla Roadster (photo below). But I really can’t imagine cutting this car in half, can you? Sigh. So I guess I’ll just keep this car and keep using it for grocery runs and wait for our next contest here.
Zoom, zoom!
