Heceta Head Lighthouse

Heceta Head Lighthouse, a Classic Bridge, Kayaking, and Dunes… Pacific Coast Series #21

/ Curt Mekemson / 23 Comments
Like a moth to a porch light, I’ve always been attracted to lighthouses. There is something about their remote, often scenic, location that I find incredibly romantic. The Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of many located along the Oregon Coast, and is among the most beautiful. At one time or the other, I’ve been to all of them.
It’s hard to beat the lighthouse’s front row seat on the Pacific Ocean. Imagine watching the giant waves crashing ashore from here during a major storm. Or being here when the sun was casting the nearby islands and lighthouse in a warm glow, as it did during our visit.
Naturally, we had to photograph the lighthouse from a number of different perspectives. (Peggy was taking the photo featured on top.)
Heceta Head Lighthouse was built in 1894 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The two islands located next to Heceta Head added to the scenery. The top of the islands hosted nesting cormorants, murres and California sea gulls. We were surprised (and pleased) with how the camera depicted the ocean behind the islands.
A closer look.
The scenery changed to crashing waves at the bottom of the islands.
That left behind hundreds of cascading waterfalls.
This was the head lighthouse keeper’s home. Not bad. It now serves as a B&B.
Calla lilies cascaded down the hillside off to the right of the house. We have found them in every location we have camped at along the coast on our journey north.

Just above the picket fence there was a small gift shop. I’m not sure Peggy has ever found one she didn’t want to visit. Besides, she was on a mission: Looking for octopuses. She’s been searching for them ever since she read a book on their intelligence. She found one and named it Octo.
Leaving Heceta Head we took two more photos. One a beach level photo of the two islands…
And two, this iconic Oregon bridge built over Cape Creek, which flows into the small bay just beneath the lighthouse. The bridge opened in 1932. It was designed by Conde McCullough who was also responsible for designing a number of other classic bridges found along Highway 101 in Oregon.
Back at camp, things got a little strange. Octo immediately climbed up on Bone as a convenient perch for keeping track of what was happening inside and outside of our tiny trailer/house. We thought Bone would go crazy and toss the presuming octopus into the nearest ocean…
But Bone, being Bone, merely thought of Octo as a rather unique new hat he could wear on formal occasions.
While Eeyore, the donkey, moderated a discussion between Bone and Octo about their new living arrangements, Peggy and I prepared to try out our new boats, a pair of Aquaglide, Deschutes 130 inflatable kayaks. I was bit nervous. It wasn’t about the kayaking. We had owned a pair of Innova inflatable kayaks for 25 years and kayaked in such diverse waters as Alaska and the Florida Everglades, the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and the Gulf of California off of Baja. My concern was how our new kayaks would handle. Plus it would be our first time setting them up.
We chose to head out to Cleawox Lake at Honeyman State Park, which is just south of Florence. We had kayaked there before in our Innovas. Setting our new kayaks up turned out to be relatively easy and they handled beautifully.
Here, Peggy is checking out some water lilies. Knowing how much I always enjoy them, she called me over with my camera.
Having got my water lily fix, we kayaked toward one of the coastal sand dunes located at the upper end of the lake. The Oregon Dunes are world famous for their extent and for their appeal to the dune-buggy crowd. I don’t think that the dune buggies are allowed here, but the spots you see a third of the way up the dune are people sand boarding, which is also a popular sport.

I learned a fun fact about the dunes when I was getting my haircut in Florence. The barber, who was a sci-fi fan, noticed me reading a sci-fi book. “Did you know that Frank Herbert was inspired to write Dune by a visit he made to the Oregon Dunes in the late 50s researching a magazine article he was writing about how people were trying to control the flow of the sand over roads and trails in Florence.” Researching the story when I got back to camp, I found several articles that confirmed the fact.

That’s a wrap for today. For our next post we will be in Tillamook, Oregon which is the home of Tillamook ice cream and Tillamook cheese. We will take you to the factory where it is produced. Plus.
This large cow photo, which must be at least 20 feet tall, stands above the entry to the Tillamook Creamery.

From Sea Gulls to Sea Lions to Sea Lights… The Oregon Coast Series

/ Curt Mekemson / 41 Comments

The Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the US.

My older brother, Marshall, is visiting this week and it has taken us back in time, back to our childhood, a time with mixed reviews— and back to when Marshall was living in Oregon. I am going to skip over the early years here, but the Oregon time is relevant. First, however, a little on Marshall: He is a homeless man with a red cargo van and a healthy bank account.

I’ve mentioned our families wandering ways before. I think it is genetic. Both sides arrived in the US before it was the US and immediately started making their way west. Marshall likes to say if it weren’t for the Pacific Ocean, we still would be. For the past several years he has lived in the Southern United States and migrated with the weather, basking in the warmth of southern Florida in the winter and hiding out from the heat in the mountains of North Carolina during the summer. His rule is that he never camps in any one place for more than two weeks.

He takes great pride in his freedom, and in his ability to live inexpensively. For example, he always camps for free. He loves the outdoors and satisfies his love by camping in beautiful locations. He is also an avid reader, consuming a book every two days. I’ve never know him to be happier than he has been since he decided to become homeless in 2002 when he turned 61.

Three years ago, he discovered that he had throat and mouth cancer. He tackled it with a sense of humor his doctor couldn’t believe and continued to camp out while he had his treatments. Marshall has now been declared cancer free. He can continue roaming until he can’t any more. He decided to move west, however. He will now migrate between Arizona and Oregon. We will be one of his regular stop offs.

And this brings us back to Oregon and my post today on the Oregon Sea Lion Cave and the Heceta Head Lighthouse. In the late 1970s, Marshall and a partner bought an old motel on the Oregon coast about six miles north of Heceta Head and eight miles north of the Sea Lion Cave. It was a rambling, funky old place called Gull Haven. Professors from the University of Oregon, writers, and others needing an occasional escape could stay there for $10 per night. Marshall installed our 75-year-old dad there and he happily ran the place while he wandered up and down the coast— taking photos, painting landscapes, collecting rocks, and gathering mussels off the rocks to cook up and eat.

Gull Haven in 1979 when my brother owned it and my father managed it.

Naturally, I went up to visit. I was living in Sacramento at the time. Pop had tried to feed me mussels, no thanks, and showed me around the area. He had photographed the Heceta Lighthouse numerous times, and painted it once. I visited the Sea Lion Cave on my own, descending into the depths to the sounds and smells of a hundred or so sea lions. The sound was substantial and the smell… well, it was odoriferous. It isn’t one you forget, although I’ve since come to the conclusion that the sea-lion cave smells like a petunia patch in comparison to cattle feed lots in California’s Central Valley.

After a year or so Marshall sold the motel— cheap. And didn’t tell me he was going to. I never have totally forgiven him; I would have been sorely tempted to buy it. Today, it is a beautiful B&B known as Ocean Haven. Go here to check it out.

The Ocean Haven B&B north of Florence, Oregon.

Gull Haven today. Or Ocean Haven as it is known now with its magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean.

I visited the area again a few weeks ago when Peggy was back East. Following are some photos I took of the Lighthouse and the Sea Lion Cave.

A distant view of the Heceta Lighthouse. It sits 205 feet above the sea.

The first order Fresnel Lens in the tower of 56-foot tall lighthouse shines a beam that is visible for 21 miles out in the ocean, making it the most powerful lighthouse on the Oregon coast.

This picture of the Fresnel Lens is found on the ground floor of the lighthouse. Our guide told us that when one of the bottom glass sections broke a few years ago, it cost as much to replace as the whole light cost originally.

A final view of the lighthouse. Over 1000 barrels of blasting powder were required to create a flat space on Heceta Head to build the lighthouse.

This is a view of the lighthouse keeper’s home seen from the trail leading up to the lighthouse.

When the lighthouse was automated in the 70s, it was turned over to Lane Community College for classes. Not bad, eh? Today it is a B&B. The house also comes with its own ghost named Rue. It is said that she doesn’t like change.

A view of the Cape Creek Bridge from the lighthouse.

And a close up. The Cape Creek Bridge is one of several gorgeous bridges along the Oregon coast.

The small bay created by Cape Creek is also quite scenic. The lighthouse sits on the hill to the right.

A sea-gull takes off from the beach of the Cape Creek Cove. I took this photo (and the two above) on an earlier trip.

A final view from the lighthouse. If you look closely, you will see the Sea Lion Caves building on the distant headland. Find the cut made for Highway 101 as it snakes its way along the cliffs and follow it to the far right.

Over 100 sea lions (eared seals) were in the cave when I visited. An elevator whisks visitors down into the main cave.

Steller Sea Lions live for about 20 years. They can swim up to 17 miles per hour.

This big fellow had his head back and was barking most of the time I was in the cave.

I found the drama of the waves in the cave to be as interesting as the seals.

The rock in the middle is also prime seal territory. The waves actually washed over it as I watched, leaving only two sea lions on top.

A final view of the rock with its two sea lions and the big guy.

NEXT BLOGS:

Wednesday: Bone is Found!

Friday: The Tribes of Burning Man…

Next week I will be traveling down around Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey and Santa Cruz on the Central Coast of California. It may be blog-break time. 🙂