The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

I was not sure where I was heading, I just knew I needed to cross the Puget Sound and head west. After catching a boat to Bremerton, I headed north on 3, caught the 104 to the 101 and eventually cruised along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the 112. Five hours later the Explorer pulled into a campsite in Ozette, WA. For the next few days this secluded plot would serve as our base camp as Caitlin, Sharat, Emily and I explored the very western edge of the United States. Above is Emily jump standing on the coast of the Pacific at the Dungeness Spit.

After a luxurious night sleeping on cushy inflatable mattress in a rented four person REI Hobitat, I woke up before my fellow campers and noticed a spider spinning a web in our camp. I hauled the Manfrotto, set up an external flash and took a few shots of the little guy.

Later in the afternoon a deer wandered near our F-Noc game (AKA Friz Knock AKA Polish). As there are hardly any people in Ozette, this creature didn’t seem too scared of our troupe.

I did a little photo sesh with Sharat and Caitlin on top of a huge rock on the Pacific Coast. Emily kindly volunteered to be my VAL and held a SB-600 flash outfitted with a LumiQuest Softbox II. I triggered the flash remotely using Nikon’s CLS. Sure, I took some pictures of them looking serious (you can see them on Flickr); but I like this one the best.

The rock we climbed dropped off about 160′ into the ocean. A plethora of flora grew along the edge of the cliff. I crawled around on my belly with a wireless SB-600 and took a handful of shots as the sun set. There is no doubt that I looked very bizarre to the hill billy kids fooling around several feet away.

The Pacific Northwest coast is characterized by big sea stack rocks. Explosion 5K readers will remember a similar geologic feature that I encountered in Oregon.

I’m not sure how this whole Zen rock stacking thing got started, but I see it a lot now that I live on the West Coast. I found this particular stack while we wandered up the spit, a long sliver of sand that extends out into the ocean, in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.

Sharat the flower child on the spit.

On our way back to Seattle, we timed the Edmonds-Kingston ferry so that we caught the sun set over the Olympics. This shot is looking southeast at a passing ferry with Mount Rainier and Seattle catching the last red rays of the day.

Check out these pictures and more on Flickr, or watch the slideshow below (be sure to go full screen).