Results tagged “beaches”

Seal Pupping Season Begins, Babysitters Needed

Seal pupping season has begun, which means those cute widdle furry seal pups will soon enough start popping up on West Seattle beaches. And when they do--watch the seal cam!--the Seal Sitters, an all-volunteer seal superhero group will be on the lookout. This year the group needs more trained helpers on the beaches, protecting the resting seal pups from curious dogs and the "I want to pet it!" type of people.

                

Once the site of a posh country club with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Meadowdale Beach Park in Lynnwood is now one of the few publicly accessible Puget Sound beaches in the Greater Seattle area. Accessible, that is, via a sometimes-steep 1.25 mile hike from the parking lot through a forest path. This isn't the place to bring your massive inflatables or your rolling BBQ. Yet the hike isn't so strenuous that you can't bring the little ones. (One note--the parking lot is small and fills up fast, so if you go on weekends, go early.)

Given that the forecast called for (relatively) insane temperatures (for Seattle) this past weekend and given NBC's furious masturbation over Michael Phelps these last few days, we decided we needed to go somewhere else and cool off. Thus, we ended up in the always tasteful and serene seaside hamlet of Ocean Shores.

I work for a newspaper in Campbell River, B.C. on Vancouver Island. Another foot was found here this morning at Tyee Spit (the second this week!).
What is up, Canada? Even if it is just some strange current from the middle of the ocean that brings your beaches severed feet...you have to admit, this is all very very strange. Time to create CSI:Canada.

Another human foot has been found floating in British Columbia. And, unlike the four before it, this one is a left foot.

First it was severed feet washing ashore, now it is empty bottles of rat poison. The bottles, which have thus far been empty, have been washing up on Washington shores since last fall. That spring trip to the coast is sounding less appealing every day.

Today is "BC Day" in Canada, commemorating the moment of victory when Canadians finally liberated themselves from the Indians. Because of this unfair "three day weekend" tactical advantage, Canadian surfer and skateboard punks swarmed Westport to such a degree that the Seattle contingent was pitifully outnumbered and forced to surrender their beaches like Germans on D-Day.

Mariner big leaguers are feeling good with the team at 13 games over .500, but if they belonged to an M's farm team, they'd be expecting a pink slip.

Seattlest just got back from a road trip through some of the hottest places in the country. Our partner's mother's souped-up SUV clocked the temperature at Lake Mead, NV, to be 130 degrees on July 5th, so we had to chuckle when we arrived home to a rash of weather that makes our fellow Seattleites whine and head to the Homo Depot for a new window-unit a/c.

Not far from Niagara Falls, a single traffic light allows measured momentum through the farming township of Wainfleet, Ontario. Head a little further down the road and you're at the white sand beaches of Lake Erie. Having grown up in such winsome surroundings, it's no wonder singer/songwriter Tony Dekker's musical project Great Lake Swimmers sounds like a journey through the heart of Canada's stunning landscapes.

Seattlest has a vision of our coming fall. We need to get away. We need some sun, some beaches and some babes. We need a cruise with our affably fat buddy. Man, everyone's so friendly on this cruise. Seems like every guy wants to get close to us - And we were worried about how we'd fit in with the cruising set. Pshaw! Wait, where are all the babes. We saw that bikini team out by the pool, but there seems to be an awful lot of man on this boat. Is this a gay cruise? Were we seriously duped into going on a gay cruise because we were rude to a travel agent? Yep. Gay cruise. Whoa is us. Oh, well, we'll just have to expand our social consciousness, embrace a little inner gay and eventually hook up with the hot (female) social director. Can't hold us down. Not in this terrible Cuba Gooding Jr. vehicle of life, anyway.

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it a few more times, just for fun? For example, SFist is sure the San Francisco Chronicle wishes they could blame server problems for this error. But this San Francisco man that appeared on "The Daily Show" is, sadly, no glitch in the system.

Governor Gregoire, apparently unaware that her job could be taken from her in two and a half years, is leaving it up the state's National Guardsmen whether they want to patrol the US-Mexico border. President Bush is sending 6,000 National Guard members to the Southern border to end the problem of people entering the country illegally.

Ok, this is a friendly interview, yes, and pretty straightforward. The People's Waterfront Coalition has a pretty straightforward approach to our problems downtown, though, and we wanted to give them an opportunity to talk.

The snorkling adventures that Manuel Wanskasmith has been documenting over at his Buffoonery site have Seattlest an even darker shade of green with envy. Manuel and friends have been diving at various Lake Washington beaches and marinas in search of... In search of what we don't exactly know, but that's exactly why we're so interested in what's down there.

Alright, yesterday when we mentioned the abundant life occupying the waters at area beaches we didn't mean to come off as wildlife-phobes. Herons, sturgeon, hell, harbor seals: we'd love to come across that kind of beach life. Even jellyfish are fun to spot in the shallow water as long as you can avoid stepping on them. Anything with "fecal" in its name we're not that into, though, and ditto that for random floating corpses in the water.

That hot weather we've all been clamouring for finally hit Seattle over the weekend, but not before two area beachs could slam their doors in your face. Gene Coulon Memorial Beach and Matthews Beach tested a little too positive for fecal coliform and both been closed to swimmers.

There are plenty of options begging for your attention this coming weekend. It might rain, it might not, but honestly could you care less? Seattlest found these little lovelies tucked up in the cliffs on the Palisades/Ranger Creek trail near Mt. Rainier this past weekend. We couldn't appreciate the typical staggering view, hunkered up in the clouds as we were, but lo and behold spring had sprung right in between our toes! Take a look around yourselves this weekend, there's plenty afoot (OK, no more podiatric references):

After two weeks of continuous rain, it seems as though summer is suddenly upon us. Time for the beach!

Seattleites looking forward to one of the region's great eats might be disappointed this spring as razor clam season on the peninsula is in jeopardy. The Oregon coast has already waved the white flag in the northern, central and southern regions due to high levels of domoic acid found in the shellfish there.

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