Exploring West Seattle

Today's adventures took me to Alki Beach, which was one of the earliest pioneer settlements here. Its, original name was New York-Alki which in the local Indian dialect meat (optimistically) New York - pretty soon. When the settlers - including the Borens from Illinois, Lows, Bells and Dennys landed by ship from Portland, Oregon in November 1851 they relied on local knowledge from the Indian Dumamish and Suquamish peoples to survive the first two winters, including feeding their infants clam broth as they couldn't bring in a milk cow by boat.

I walked downtown and ducked behind Pike Place market down Post Alley, whose walls are covered with an accretion of used gum, every color of the rainbow. Gross yet artistic.  The alley runs downhill behind Pike Brewing Company - it was interesting to peek into the 'business' areas of the brewery that are not open to the public.  There is a tremendous amount of construction going on down by the waterfront, most of which was cordoned off.  I just managed to catch the water taxi (they saw me running down the gangplank and waited) across to West Seattle, which provides great views of the Space Needle and the big wheel from Elliott Bay.  The piles at the dock were covered in a more pleasant accretion of mussels and barnacles,

Alki is beautiful - the views across Puget Sound reminded me of  the Coromandel peninsula in New Zealand. I sauntered through the College Street ravine which was filled with wild roses and bluebells, and later on, through the Schmitz Preserve, which is one of the few places in Seattle where the old growth trees remained, having been saved from logging by the steepness of the ravine.  I took a loop up and across the creek, which was periodically criss-crossed by fallen logs, their trunks mossy with age with ferns growing up around them.  The beach has a long strip of sand with driftwood logs that you can sit on, and further up changes to pebbles.  A few children ventured into the water but most people sat sunning themselves.  There were a handful of divers in heavy wetsuits and rubber gloves by the water taxi dock - I wondered if they were looking for clams or other marine life.  Apparently three pods of orcas, 88 animals live in Puget Sound, but I didn't spot any today, nor did I see any seals or porpoises.  The weather was glorious and I realized when I got home that my cheeks had caught the sun.