The entire coast of Oregon is so very special. It is far more dramatic than California in so many ways. Although we didn’t visit the northern coast of California beyond just north of San Fransisco, I can’t imagine it could hold the beauty we found in Oregon’s coast. These beaches are not for swimming, or surfing. They are there for your meditative spirit. They are there to make you say “Ahhh.”

Our first encounter with the coast was in Port Orford, the westernmost port of the United States (before Alaska and Hawaii) and home to the Port Orford Cedar, the wood from which our two boats were made. Just south of the port is Humbug State Park that has mountains and cliffs that meet the ocean.

Looking at Humbug State Park from Highway 101 (Oregon’s Rt.1)

Close up of the tall mountain that meets the ocean at Humbug

The turquoise waters of the beach looking north from Humbug Park

The port of Port Orford is very interesting because there are no actual docks for the boats. There are boat lifts and all the fishing fleet are “docked” on either their cradles or trailers once they are back at port. This solves the problem of high tides and strong winds affecting the fleet adversely.

Here is a photo of a fishing boat out in the bay of Port Orford.

There’s a prominent lighthouse just to the north of Port Orford, warning mariners of the westernmost promintory strewn with rocky out croppings. It’s Cape Blanco, and it’s a beautiful lighthouse that is still important today.

This is one view of the coast nearby to the lighthouse to give you an idea of why this coast is tricky to navigate. These out croppings appear everywhere!

After our multi-day stay in Port Orford, we drove north up the coast to a town named Florence, also a seaside destination. We spent our next four days here, including July 4th. We used this as a base to explore other areas of this part of the coast, such as Yachats (listed as a must visit place in all of the guides). Just to the south of Florence are the famous sand dunes of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. In this photo you can see the dunes to the south and the rocky shore to the north.

This photo was taken from high above on the route 101 turnoff

A short drive north of Florence was Heceta Head lighthouse. This is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the USA. It also guards a very rocky coastline. It works in the same group as Cape Blanco.

Heceta at a distance

Here’s some of the coastline to the north of Florence between Heceta Light and Yachats.

Near Yachats

Yachats beach

Family time at the beach in Yachats

From Florence, our final destination in coastal Oregon was to Seaside as our base in order to visit Astoria to the north and Cannon Beach to the south. Both of these locations are on everyone’s “must see” list in Oregon. They are much different places.

Cannon Beach is absolutely gorgeous. The coastline is beautiful with large outcroppings that seem to be placed in just the right places for a picture perfect photograph. The shops in town all resemble shops that might be in Nantucket, either in weathered gray wood boards or light tan ones.

In one of the shops, I even found a ceramic coaster that had a drawing of a schooner that looked just like Woodwind. I bought two of them to send to Jen.

Coaster with Woodwind drawing

Standing in the Ecola State Park in Cannon Beach, I photographed these rugged coast photos:

A color original made into a B&W

The “haystack” outcrop in the distance in both the photos above appear below at beach level. Compare it to Morro Rock in California!

Is it bigger than Morro rock???

Our next “port of call” was Astoria, where the mighty Columbia River meets the Pacific! We only had one day to spend here and decided that the much praised Maritime Museum would be a must see. It did not disappoint! We learned so much about all the shipwrecks on those moving sandbars at the mouth of the river. This area is the most dangerous in the entire U.S. due to the strong currents that cause the shifting sand. The museum was dedicated to showing how all the pieces fit together to perform warnings to mariners, and life saving when those warnings no longer work. It covered early recovery boats, the original Columbia Lightship, early weather forecasting through to modern day methods and modern electronic aids in search and rescue.

Recovery Life Boat

Forward looking infrared, Ken and Ellen

Columbia Lightship

We ate lunch at a very different place: A Bosnian restaurant named Drina Daisy. Ken had a stuffed cabbage dish (not your typical tomato based type) and I had a goulash. As you can see, they were both presented well and were also very tasty!

Ken’s dish

Ellen’s dish

We also learned how the city had to move itself up the hill from the river. There are still underground tunnels connecting to the old river level.

From here, we travel east to Portland and to the Columbia Gorge. That will be another blog post.