shi shi beach

Shutdown

Everything will be be okay in the end.
If it's not okay, it's not the end

John Lennon

With every single passing day, where grim news pervades the constant news-stream, it may seem we are in a hopeless place. While some countries have already started to turn the tide and have started pushing back, the epidemic has plenty of room to grow, and it'll be a long while before the last waves of this pandemic washes on the shores of humanity.

How the nations react, and how the people come together (by going apart) in this time will determine how impacted we become. Separated, we stay united in the fight against this invisible invader. I appreciate the steps the state and the country have taken to encourage social distancing. But, deep in my heart, it pains to have the wilderness separated from humanity.

I hope that this too shall pass.

Olympic National Park
WA USA

The Wild Coast

One of the treasures of the Pacific Northwest is the wild Pacific coast - miles and miles of a windswept driftwood beach, where the cold waters of the swirling Pacific meet the thick lush temperate rainforests, where a few rocky stalwarts stand steadfast against the incoming waves and rhythmic tides, and where sunny sunsets are a photographer's dream.

One of the few places to seek out this unspoilt wonderland is along the protected shoreline of Olympic National Park. Time and again, I retreat to the its wild coasts and seek solace in this enthralling meeting point of water and land, hiking through mossy forests and sandy beaches. This was taken on one such journey to this spiritual coast.

Olympic National Park
WA USA

Life of a driftwood

It was a lonely piece of driftwood that I spotted on the smooth sandy shores of Shi Shi beach a few weeks ago. It's life probably began as a tree deep in the temperate rainforests along the wet coastline of the Pacific Northwest.

The deluge of water from a strong summer storm would have probably yanked away the tree, or probably it's branch, and carried it down its rocky cascades leaving it somewhere in the Pacific. It would have floated for months on the turbulent foamy waters, with time slowly hewing away all the leaves and rough branches, leaving behind a gnarly yet smooth piece of driftwood. It would have taken another storm, or few, for it to finally get deposited on this beach in the high tide, never to be disturbed from its final grave. That is, until humans moved it around for photographic pleasure to this very location.

Olympic National Park

WA USA