West Seattle, Washington
02 Monday
(2016 photo by David Hutchinson)
One more warning – tomorrow’s the day to “keep a weather eye on the horizon” as the Seafair Pirates are expected to storm the shore at Alki Beach in early afternoon. Come early/stay late for general revelry including kids’ activities, vendors around the Bathhouse, and music. Seafair estimates the pirates will arrive between 1 and 2 pm, but the time can vary – last year it was around 1:40 pm. Current forecast, partly sunny. No road closures associated with the event but be ready for crowds, and if you will need to park, get there early.
Thanks to Jim Spraker for the photo of sea stars under the Fauntleroy ferry dock, seen on this low-low-tide day, with summer’s lowest tides this week (as previewed here). Tomorrow will be mega-low, too – out to -3.0 feet at 1:31 pm Friday.
(WSB file photo from Duwamish Head during a minus-three-foot low-low tide)
The lowest low tides of summer are coming up this week. It’ll be out to -3.0 feet at 11:14 am Tuesday, -3.4 at 11:58 am Wednesday and at 12:43 pm Thursday, and -3.0 at 1:31 pm Friday. Expert advice will be available for your (careful!) exploration, with Seattle Aquarium volunteer beach naturalists at Constellation and Lincoln Parks each day – see those times here. (The only other chance this year that you’ll get to visit the shore during a minus-three-feet-or-more low tide is August 1st.)
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The weekend began with a big volunteer show of support at Alki Beach. If only the trash they picked up hadn’t been left behind in the first place! The photos and report are from David Hutchinson with Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network:
The “Sentinels of the Sound” Alki Beach cleanup Saturday morning was a great success. Over 80 volunteers showed up at the Alki Statue of Liberty before spreading out to remove litter from the beach and Park. When they returned, the material they collected was weighed and bagged for disposal. Seal Sitters would like to thank Seattle Parks & Recreation and Puget Soundkeeper Alliance for providing the cleanup supplies.
Seattle Parks and concerned Alki residents always work hard to keep the area clean but a good amount of litter was removed during the 2½ hour event. This included over 100 pounds of trash and hundreds of cigarette butts as well as a discarded insulin syringe.
Volunteers from the sponsoring groups, Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network, SR3 and Sno-King Marine Mammal Response, staffed display tables, talked with and answered questions from passersby.
Just a quick reminder, harbor seal pupping season is now underway in our area, so if you come across a vulnerable pup (or any marine mammal) on a West Seattle beach, please call Seal Sitters’ Hotline at 206-905-7325.
Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network and friends hope you will join them on Saturday:
This coming Saturday morning, June 29th, from 9:30 AM – noon, Seal Sitters, along with Sno-King Marine Mammal Response and SR3, will be sponsoring our annual beach cleanup at Alki. We will be meeting at the Alki Statue of Liberty (61st Ave SW & Alki Ave SW) [ Map ]. There will be a brief introduction by Kate Melges, highlighting her work with Greenpeace on ocean plastics and microfibers.
Supplies will be provided by Seattle Parks & Recreation and Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. For additional details, check this announcement on Seal Sitters’ Blubberblog: Sentinels of the Sound beach cleanup.
While we are requesting an RSVP to ensure we have enough supplies, please feel free to drop by to visit our display tables and help out. RSVP to SealSitters.Outreach (at) msn (dot) com
(WSB photo from 2018 Seafair Pirates Landing)
Two weeks from today – on Saturday, July 6th – the Seafair Pirates land on Alki Beach. As usual, they’re expected ashore in the early afternoon. And that’s just one of the big event dates Seafair has officially announced for this summer. Here are a few others with West Seattle impacts:
Monday, July 29th – Parade of Ships, with U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and Royal Canadian Navy ships sailing past West Seattle on their way to the downtown waterfront
Thursday-Sunday, August 1st-4th – U.S. Navy Blue Angels, rehearsing and then performing, taking off from and landing at nearby Boeing Field
Lots of other Seafair events elsewhere, of course – the full calendar is here (including local events that are sanctioned, and in some cases participated in, but not presented, by Seafair).
(Photo courtesy Seal Sitters)
Space is still available in Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network‘s June 15th volunteer training. Here’s the announcement:
Interested in protecting seals and other marine mammals? Seal Sitters’ first training of the year will be held on Saturday, June 15th, in the front meeting room of the Alki UCC from 10 AM – Noon. If you would like to volunteer, this training qualifies you for on-the-beach duty in our territory from Brace Point through the Duwamish River including Harbor Island. As a member of NOAA’s West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network, we respond to reports of any marine mammal on the beaches in those areas. Harbor Seal “pupping season” is now underway in Washington and runs from late June – September in our area.
An RSVP is required to attend. Please use this link for more details including instructions on how to RSVP.
As noted in our daily highlight list, it’s an excellent week for beach exploring – low-low tides at midday. Our photos show two views from Lowman Beach Park, looking south (above) and north, just before the -2.3-foot low-low tide at 11:37 am:
The tide’s out even further at the lowest point each of the next four days – -2.8 at 12:17 pm tomorrow, -3 at 1 pm Wednesday, -2.9 at 1:46 pm Thursday, and -2.4 at 2:45 pm Friday. If you’d like expert advice for your (careful) exploration, Seattle Aquarium volunteer beach naturalists are at Constellation and Lincoln Parks today and daily through Thursday – see the times here.
Thanks to David Hutchinson for the photo – instead of the sunset from Alki, this time it’s a view of who’s on Alki at sunset. Busy night, as he observed. With the temperature expected to be in the 70s tomorrow, Memorial Day evening is likely to bring a crowd too.
(Photo by Kersti Muul)
Two reports of reddish-orange water in Puget Sound along West Seattle shores mean it’s time for the annual reminder of what this is: An algae bloom, usually Noctiluca. Though it’s nontoxic, and it’s not a new phenomenon, it’s not benign, as the state Department of Ecology noted in this post last year – “An increase in the abundance of Noctiluca is an indication of an unbalanced system, and while the plankton is not toxic itself, their presence creates a cascade of effects in the marine food web.” Excess nutrients are a big part of the imbalance; here’s more on that.
Summer-like weather has already started to bring summer-like crowds to Alki. We noticed the Seattle Police mobile precinct there yesterday evening, and now have word that police are planning more noise-enforcement patrols. SPD says the next one is planned tomorrow night (Friday, May 10th) and has other dates planned this spring and summer. The police reminder: “If your vehicle can be heard from over 75 feet away you could receive a $135 citation.” (Here’s the law, if you want to read it for yourself.)
(WSB photo from minus-3-foot low-low tide in 2018)
This week marks the start of low-low tide season on our shores – the time of year when the lowest tides dip to minus 2 feet and beyond, during daylight hours so you can explore without a flashlight! Highlights from the chart: Today at 12:41 pm, the low tide bottoms out at -1.6 feet; tomorrow, it’s -1.9 at 1:21 pm; Wednesday, it’s -2.0 at 2:05 pm, and that’s the lowest tide of the week. These are the new-moon low tides; later this month the full moon takes them out even further, including -2.2 at noon on Sunday, May 19th (hang around after the West Seattle 5K!) and -2.3 at 12:38 pm on Monday, May 20th. Looking beyond, June’s lowest tide is -3.0 at 1 pm on Wednesday, June 5th. In July, the lowest tide of the summer arrives: -3.4 on the 4th (and the day before!). If you go exploring during low tides, please tread lightly! Expert guidance will be available at Constellation and Lincoln Parks when Seattle Aquarium volunteer beach naturalists visit on certain dates in June, July, and August (see the dates and times here).
Thanks to David for the photo and alert about that beached pallet on Alki. He writes, “Thought you might want to know a very large, approximately 4×6 ft pallet is along our shoreline … I especially wanted to reach out and let the swimming community know about this. It’s a hidden hazard to many, regardless; I estimate it weighs just under 200 lbs.” This gives us a reason to remind you about something we learned about while covering the creosote removal from Fauntleroy two months ago – the MyCoast app, which even has a specific reporting category “large marine debris.”
If you were among the many people walking, running, riding, driving on Alki late this morning – you might have seen the signs for the Alki Beach restroom-replacement open house. Maybe you even stopped to find out more.
If you didn’t – Seattle Parks promises the graphics shown today will be online Monday. As we reported earlier this month, the project replacing the little brick “comfort station” at 57th/Alki is planned for next year. Restroom renovations geared toward accessibility are also planned elsewhere in the city, including Lincoln Park.
Imagine Lowman Beach Park with a stretch of currently undergrounded Pelly Creek running through it to meet the Sound. That’s part of the preliminary-design plan shown at last week’s community meeting about the park’s seawall-free future. In case you couldn’t be there, we recorded video:
David Graves from Seattle Parks led the meeting – as he did back in June 2017 – with members of the design team from Environmental Science Associates. Here’s the slide deck they used.
They recapped the problem – the remaining seawall on the north side of Lowman Beach Park is sliding; it started failing in 2015. The south seawall failed in the mid-’90s. At the 2017 meeting, three possibilities for the beach’s future were detailed, and they are moving ahead with the one that involves removing the remaining seawall and restoring the beach to more of a natural state.
More controversial is the plan to also remove the asphalt tennis court that’s just behind the seawall. Graves acknowledged that it’s much-loved and well-used. He said they’re looking at the possibility of “restoring the tennis function” elsewhere in the park, perhaps its open area toward the southeast side – the top right of this rendering:
Or, suggested one team member, pieces of the old court could be repurposed as a memorial of sorts.
They won’t have more details until the plan reaches the 60-percent-design milestone. But Graves and the designers/consultants stressed how rare this is, to have a stretch of beach that is eligible for this type of restoration: “There’s a unique opportunity here, nowhere else in West Seattle … when this is done, you’ll be able to put a blanket on the grass and watch your kids play on the sand.” One attendee later wondered aloud whether driftwood was likely to eventually get in the way of that, as had happened on the south side of the beach, and Graves acknowledged that was possible. Still, the project team rhapsodized about how good this could be for salmon habitat – connecting that to endangered orca whales’ need for more food – and how it would even position the shoreline to be able to better handle future expected sea-level rise.
This area was identified as a priority for restoration more than a decade ago, Graves added, so it’s likely to get the grant funding that will be needed for the project.
Other questions and concerns beyond the tennis court involved the absence of a restroom in the plan – talking about families coming to picnic, it was suggested, made no sense if there wasn’t going to be one – plus fears that removing the seawall would lead to further compromising of the bulkheads protecting waterfront homes to the north, as also aired at the 2017 meeting.
One person asked about the park’s swing set. It’s staying, said Graves, and they’re also mulling whether the play area could be expanded.
WHAT’S NEXT: The 60-percent-design milestone is expected as soon as next month, and 100 percent design by year’s end. Project construction would happen next year, assuming the funding is found, and would last three to six months.
(WSB photo from February)
Two weeks ago, we reported on a state Department of Natural Resources-contracted crew removing creosote-contaminated logs from the Fauntleroy shore, one of many cleanups they do on shorelines around the state each year, with hopes of doing more. Resident Mike Dey (who also leads the Fauntleroy Commmunity Association) shares word of the final total – “45,960 pounds of contaminated logs from Fauntleroy Cove and another 16,580 pounds from Lincoln Park for a total of 62,540 pounds of creosote laden logs from the beach. (The DNR) said this may be the largest collection they have ever had from a continuous private beach. Quite a haul.”
2:07 PM: Delayed two weeks by snow, the Special Olympics of Washington “Big Plunge” on Alki was greeted by a bit of ice. Just as the first wave of plungers was set to venture into the chilly waters of Puget Sound, the light rain turned to hail/graupel/sleet/ice pellets.
The hardy plungers were undaunted. This is a signature event for Special Olympics support from law enforcement, and they have to weather challenging conditions day in and day out anyway.
We even spotted Seattle’s top cop, Chief Carmen Best, apparently on shore-support detail:
Providing support offshore, vessels including this one from the King County Sheriff’s Office:
Though the plunging’s over, the event is also a midwinter festival of sorts, with a dozen or so food trucks parked near the Alki Bathhouse.
They’re scheduled to be here until about 3 pm, same end time for a benefit beer garden. Supporting Special Olympics of Washington, by the way, supports a wide variety of programs – including the Unified Sports with which local schools are involved.
3:11 PM: Wrapping up – we’ll watch for word on the fundraising total. Participants came from far and wide, including this group from Edmonds:
Almost time! The South County Copsicles are about the take #TheBigPlunge for @SO_Washington! The wind is chilly, the water colder but we are on fire to raise $$$ for Special Olympics! pic.twitter.com/2rxDkYtAr7
— Edmonds Police (@EdmondsPolice) February 23, 2019
This was the first Special Olympics-benefiting plunge at Alki since 2011 – the organization has continued hosting plunges, but at other beaches.
ADDED LATE SATURDAY NIGHT: Thanks for sharing photos! This one’s from Mike Livdahl:
And three from Andrew Malinak, taken from a boat:
(WSB photos by Patrick Sand)
A crew working for the state Department of Natural Resources is back out on West Seattle beaches this week, cleaning up creosote – a toxic threat you might not even recognize as you walk along beaches strewn with old pilings containing literally tons of the substance long used as a wood preservative.
We were invited to photograph a cleanup site just north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock on Wednesday when state Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz was visiting the crew. While the beachfront property there is privately owned, part of the tidelands belong to the state, which obtained access agreements with dozens of property owners to facilitate this part of the cleanup.
Crew members are cutting up creosote-contaminated wood and loading it on board this vessel:
From there it’s taken across Puget Sound to Manchester in Kitsap County, and transported from there to a landfill. Before our visit, they had already removed 20 tons of contaminated wood – DNR’s aquatics restoration manager Christopher Robertson explained that every linear foot of a log like this could contain a gallon of liquid creosote, which he described as “very nasty stuff.”
You’ve heard that toxins in the water is one of the biggest threats to Puget Sound orcas. That makes this removal a boon to them, as well as to the salmon they need to survive. Part of Commissioner Franz’s reason for visiting is to highlight her budget request for the coming year, to better fund this and other projects vital to protecting the state’s environment.
Franz would like to double the amount of creosote that the state can remove. Right now, this project only has access to one six-person crew, two weeks a month; ideally, Robertson and fellow aquatics restoration manager Monica Shoemaker told us, they could keep half a dozen crews and a fleet of boats busy.
By the way, while on the beach, we learned about a new app that you can use to help if you spot debris on the beach – like this damaged float that had appeared sometime within the previous day:
It’s a threat to marine wildlife and birds because it contains styrofoam that looks to them like yummy fish eggs:
You can report something like this via the MyCoast app, in which our state is a participant – find out about it here. Besides “large marine debris,” derelict vessels are another category of reporting for which you can use MyCoast. Back to the creosote removal:
This isn’t new – the state’s been doing it for more than a decade. But unfortunately it’s the kind of work that has to be repeated – there’s so much creosote out there, any beach is vulnerable to something more washing up. Fauntleroy is just one of many beaches where the state is doing this work.
(WSB photo: Tennis-court-less, sea-wall-less possibility shown at 2017 meeting)
The city says it has a preliminary design for Lowman Beach Park‘s future, minus the failed seawall – and it will mean removal of the park’s tennis court. The design will be shown at a community meeting just announced for February 28th. The announcement from Seattle Parks today:
The Lowman Beach Park seawall is failing and needs to be removed. As visitors to the park have seen, the existing seawall is slowly falling over/sliding toward the water. It is Seattle Parks and Recreation’s goal to remove the remaining seawall and continue the shoreline restoration work that began when the south half of the seawall failed in the mid 1990s.
In May 2017, together with our design consultant Environmental Science Associates (ESA), we presented design options. We hired ESA as a design consultant in 2018 to continue the design process that began with the feasibility study, listed below. The design will take into consideration both the habitat benefits of the seawall removal and the coastal engineering ramifications of that seawall removal. Given the design constraints of the project, the existing tennis court will be removed. A remnant of Pelly Creek that currently flows under the seawall will be daylighted as part of the project.
The last community meeting was May 31, 2017; here’s our coverage. Documents from that meeting, and a feasibility study made public in December 2017 (covered here the following month), are also available via the project website. The February 28th meeting will be at The Kenney (7125 Fauntleroy Way SW; WSB sponsor) at 6:30 pm.
As noted here previously, the next two mornings bring winter’s highest high tides, aka “king tides” – 13.1 feet both days (7:04 am tomorrow, 7:43 am Thursday). Though no major problems are anticipated, the National Weather Service nonetheless has issued a Coastal Flood Advisory for 5 am to 10 am, advising, “The combination of high astronomical tides, low atmospheric pressure and waves from onshore winds will result in minor coastal flooding Wednesday morning.” If you’re out at that early hour, let us know what you see (photos to 206-293-6302 or westseattleblog@gmail.com) – thanks!
Tonight’s almost-full moon reminds us …
(WSB photo from December 17, 2012)
KING TIDES: Without stormier weather, we’re not likely to see a scene like that, but you still might want to know that the highest high tides of winter 2019 are just a few days away. Wednesday (7:01 am) and Thursday (7:43 am) will both bring 13.1-foot “king tides,” a bit lower than last January, which had two days with 13.2 tides. Here’s the full tide chart.
ECLIPSE: The forecast does not look favorable for seeing the Super Blood Moon lunar eclipse Sunday night. But if we get a break – here are the times to look.
(WSB photos/video)
Those are a few of the hardy souls – mostly from Seattle PD and other law-enforcement agencies – who are taking twice-hourly “plunges” into Puget Sound all day today outside the Alki Bathhouse. Their mission is twofold: To raise money for Special Olympics of Washington and to raise awareness of The Big Plunge on February 9th (you’re invited to be part of what they hope will be a recordsetting event that day). They’re having fun, too – we stopped by for the eighth plunge at 11:30 am and discovered the group conga’ing from the bathhouse to the water:
Video:
Between plunges, they’re staying warm inside the Bathhouse. And you might notice some of their flotation gear outside:
This is set to continue on the hour and half-hour until 5 pm. Meantime, you can register for the February 9th Big Plunge by going here.
15 minutes before hundreds ran in and out of Puget Sound for this year’s Alki Beach New Year’s Day Polar Bear Swim, organizer Mark Ufkes hollered that the water was warmer than the air – 46 degrees and 36 degrees respectively.
Did you notice the fireboat in the background in that clip? Here’s what it did after most were out of the water:
And thanks to @SeattleFire for the fireboat show! pic.twitter.com/8Yv5jEGLeh
— West Seattle Blog (@westseattleblog) January 1, 2019
Of course there were plenty of sights on the beach – hats and masks, for example:
Or declaration of Rose Bowl allegiance:
Organizer Mark sported closer-to-home college gear (plus the pink trunks he explained in his announcement of the event):
He also brought TSA-auction-bought corkscrews again for pink-wearing swimmers:
But for many, it was all about the thrill and the chill …
… with a bonfire awaiting some as a reward.
P.S. This year brings a second “polar” swim to Alki – as we reported last month, the Special Olympics of Washington Polar Plunge fundraiser is returning to West Seattle waters for the first time since 2011. February 9th is the date and they’re hoping for a sizable enough turnout to set a record.
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