Seabirds, pumpkins and Phoebe

Our friends Dave and Mandy Hewitt visited us this past weekend with their 7 month old daughter, Phoebe. They made the trek up from Klamath Falls, where they’ve lived since May. (Side note – what are the odds that the four of us, who all met in graduate school in Raleigh, would now live in the same state on the opposite coast; it’s all due to the small world of fisheries work…).

The Hewitt clan arrived around dinner time on Friday night. After oogling over Phoebe for a little while and then putting her to bed, we ate some dinner and the guys got prepared for an off-shore birding trip out of Newport the following day. They were up and out of the house by 5:15am.

Mandy, Phoebe and I had a very relaxing Saturday and I learned the schedule of a 7 month old, namely: sleep, play, eat, repeat. After Phoebe woke up from her mid-morning nap, we jumped into their van and headed downtown to the Farmers Market, where we took in the sights for a while and I purchased some chanterelle mushrooms (yum!) and some end-of-the-season tomatoes. We grabbed lunch at a local bakery and were home in time to get Phoebe back down for her afternoon nap. When the guys returned home that night, they seemed pretty battered, and after hearing about their day, I can see why….Here’s Nate’s report from their trip –

“Dave Hewitt and I braved the ominous offshore forecast on Saturday and took a pelagic trip out of Newport, Oregon. Within a mile from the beach we were cresting 15' rolling swell from the west, but very little wind and thus small chop early on. Within a mile from the beach we saw all three scoters, common murres, pelagic and brandt's cormorants, and western, california, and heerman's gulls. A couple hours later and further offshore, the wind freshened from the north (to 25-30 knots), and soon we were battling 8' waves from the north (on top of the 15' swell from the west). Given our primarily east-west motoring all day, we were broadside to these steep, fierce, and cold waves all day. I was suddenly in the worst offshore conditions I've ever dealt with. Multiple times I thought the boat was going to roll over sideways.

The surprising thing was that only 1 person – Dave - was noticeably sick on board. I was feeling off, which almost never happens, at least not in Atlantic seas. We eventually made our way about 30 miles offshore, where we saw pink-footed, sooty, buller's, and flesh-footed shearwaters, northern fulmar, cassin's auklets, ancient murrelets, black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-winged gulls, and finally black-footed albatross. This crew had found a wandering albatross in these waters 5 weeks earlier, but we didn't have that kind of luck, unfortunately. I took my camera out for 5 tense minutes or so, until a wave smashed over the back of the boat, drenching those poor suckers and their camera equipment back there (I was luckily at the front when that happened). Attached are my quick attempts at pelagic avian photography in 8' seas (mostly of albatross, except for 1 fulmar).

We also saw some likely Baird's Beaked Whales, some distant Humpbacks, a Northern Elephant Seal, Steller's Sea Lions, and Dall's Porpoise.”

Poor Dave learned that even a Scopolamine patch couldn’t save him from sea-sickness…

On Sunday, we headed to a local farm, where we rode the “Pumpkin Express” tractor out to a 5-acre pumpkin patch to select our Halloween carving specimens. After a photo-shoot for Phoebe (which was only partially successful, since she was way more interested in the pumpkin vines within reach at her feet than she was in our waving hands and attempts to distract her to look up), we all selected our pumpkins. Nate picked the biggest, lumpiest, green pumpkin he could find and will no-doubt turn it into some sort of grotesque face. I found a cute short and squat pumpkin. Mandy and Dave took home a picture-perfect big one. Phoebe gummed it during our return tractor ride with her toothless mouth.

We’ll introduce our friend Kjell to the art of pumpkin carving and to the tradition of kids trick-or-treating on Friday night. He knows of a similar tradition in Norway, but tells me that it’s adults going door-to-door, asking for beer. Interesting. I’ll be sure to post our finished works-of-art…As for the foliage shot, I've watched this small maple tree turn color from our upstairs office window for the past few weeks.

Happy Halloween everyone!