Cheryl and I spent the weekend at Quilcene Bay on the Olympic Peninsula. The weather forecast wasn't entirely promising, but it turned out to be beautiful. We arrived after dark Friday evening, then spent most of Saturday exploring nearby sights. We visited the Quilcene river, near the town of Quilcene, where I had my first view of salmon heading upstream to spawn (modulo the fish ladder at the Hiram M. Chittenden water locks in Seattle). The river was pretty full of fish... and fishermen. There was a fish farm on the river, and a barrier that seemed intended to keep the salmon from heading further upstream - it was working, not that it kept the salmon from trying, as a couple of the photos below show. Then we hit a cool pair of mountain viewpoints; one reveals just a bit of Quilcene Bay and north while the other has a view of distant Seattle and south. On the way back to the cabin, we stopped at a viewpoint over some waterfalls, and did a small bit of hiking around there.

On Sunday we went kayaking in the bay. I took my camera and lenses out in the kayak, which made me rather nervous, but fortunately I didn't flip the boat or anything, and I was able to get a few nice photos of some of the seals occupying the bay. We also saw a couple of bald eagles while we were out on the water. We had dinner in Port Townsend before heading back to Seattle.