SNAPSHOTS: Bar Hopping

The entrance from sea into Tillamook Bay is called the bar. Crossing the bar - there's a poem with that title, usually used at funerals. The poem is peaceful. The real bar is not. The Tillamook Bar is quite dangerous - deaths are recorded every year, and the Coast Guard tears out collective hairs trying to keep boaters safe, rescuing the foolhardy and unlucky, and petitioning for funding to keep the north and south jettys, the arms of rock that enclose the bar, built up to withstand the relentless pounding of storm-furious sea.

Bar watching is one of the local entertainments. In the summer, with blue-green sea deceptively tranquil appearing, rich colors of water and sunsets entice lingering tourists to sit for hours with cameras in hand. Winter storms bring out the locals, who also tote cameras, but usually sit in their cars. We're not dumb - it's cold and wet and incredibly windblown out there! But oh, the Kodak moments! It's always worth a venture into the gale.

The north jetty just received an $18-million 200-foot extension and additional 100-foot capping of existing jetty. The stones are big as small houses, being hauled in one at a time on huge flatbed trailers. A towering crane from Manitowoc, Wisconsin (yep, my other home base) was on hand to run on a rail along the top of the jetty, transporting the stone along to the end.
The south jetty, which was completed in 1979, has lost about 900 feet over the years. That is another whole story, the stone had to be brought in and placed by barge.

The south jetty is currently inaccessible by wheels, being at the end of the Bay Ocean spit - a wonderul day hike. There is a road in the works, repairing an old road along the bay side of the spit, which may provide access to rebuild the crucial south jetty structure. The portion of old stone submerged under water and the unsettled current and silt at the mouth of the bar compound with wild weather to make this bar supremely dangerous to cross, in any size craft. As the current and silt stabilize, the projection is for increased depth of water and safer navigation.

In the meantime, bar hopping is great entertainment - as long as you are on dry land.

This particular day was one of those golden coastal moments between fading fall and true winter. The sun was warm, breeze moderate, tourists vacated, and the day after a huge storm that drove in 30-foot waves. That means action on the bar, with monstrous waves breaking at the end of the jetties producing spectacular spray. The only problem is that it is impossible to capture the sound, power, and beauty with a mere camera. But here are a few efforts, to entice you to bar-hop along with the locals:

I'm always amazed when I look at my photos, I never know what might sneak into the lens while I'm not looking - I never saw this gull, being focused on trying to capture breaking waves!

Besides gulls, pelicans, cormorants, seals, and occasional orcas, the little Turnstones love the bar. A flock were working over the barnacles inbetween waves. As the water receded off a rock, they scampered out to pull barnacle innards out of the shells - the barnacles open in the water and expose their feathery parts so a quick bird can snag the little creatures. Tasty, I'm sure. For a Turnstone. I like my seafood in larger bites...

It's fascinating to watch this dance of danger. The birds will seem totally involved with their feasting but their radar is definately on the incoming waves. They will scramble and flutter just out of reach up to the next rock as a wave breaks over the rock they were just on. Then back down they go as the water recedes. What was so intriguing to me was how they could gauge just how high to go to escape the incoming wave - some waves just barely covered the their rock, the next one might crash in over the next three rocks high. The Turnstones were always accurate in their estimate - I spent a lot of time just watching them and marveling at nature's innate safety system.