North to Bellingham

 

Last Week, Sarah and I visited Water World, also known as northwest Washington. It's a land of lakes, bays, straights, and sounds.

 

We drove through rain and gray skies on Wednesday to reach Bellingham in time for our reading at Village Books, a gem of a bookstore in the Fairhaven neighborhood.

 

The bookstore employees were wonderful hosts. They gave us hot tea and a cozy space that was perfect for sharing photos and stories of our favorite birds.

A few days later we boarded the Snow Goose, an education vessel that takes folks of all ages on cruises in Washington and Alaska. Our friends at Timber Press and the North Cascades Institute arranged for us to serve as co-naturalists on a birding-by-boat excursion (thanks, Besse and Christian!).

We boated through Bellingham Bay, cruised around Lummi Island, and hugged the edge of the Chuckanut Mountains. I can't imagine a better way to spend a Saturday: the water was calm, the sky mostly sunny, and we saw some birds too.

We helped passengers identify the cormorants, gulls, and ducks that were perched on rocky islands. Rafts of sharp-plumaged Surf Scoters and Pacific Loons were crowd pleasers as well.

As we returned to the harbor, we enjoyed one heck of a view of Mount Baker.
We had to return to Portland for a Sunday night event, but we are already thinking of a future trip to the northwest corner of Washington to enjoy the birds, beers, and bakeries we missed this time around.