ADMIRALTY HEAD LIGHTHOUSE
Fort Casey, Washington
I didn't make it to this one the first time I came to Seattle to photograph lighthouses. Actually, I didn't know about it. A year later and I have become more familiar with US lighthouses. Anyway, true to form for Seattle area, it rained the entire time I was there. Took the ferry over from Port Townsend after taking pictures of Point Wilson. This was one of those rain some and stop, rain some, rain some more, more, stop, etc. days, and I managed to time most stops in the rain with stops at lighthouses. One such I didn't was Slip Point Lightstation in Clallum Bay. I drove out to it and saw it from the drive way where the no trespassing sign was posted. I also could see it from a bar/grill parking lot further west on 112. But the dang rain...
Oops, well Admiralty Head is no longer active as a lighthouse. It just sits there on the bluff looking like one. As you can see there is no lens inside the lantern room. If you come over from the Port Townsend Ferry as I did, then turn left out of the ferry area and go less than a mile to the Fort Casey Park entrance. Follow the signs out to the lighthouse. Big parking area. Great views. You can see out the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific (I doubt that you can actually 'see' the Pacific; I want your eyeballs if you can!) or down into the Puget Sound towards Seattle. Unfortunately, you can't seem to get the water into the picture with the lighthouse very well. The more you move to the right, the more obscured the building becomes, until you run into the woods yourself. The rain hadn't quite stopped and I wasn't coming back so I used a big black garbage bag with a hole in it in several places, each just wide enough for a particular lens and arranged so that the various holes were in a circle at the bottom of the bag. I could use any lens and put the camera in the bag with the lens just into the appropriate hole with the others below it. The rest of the bag acted as a hood which I could put over my head. This worked well to keep the rain off me and the camera, and still allow me to get outside and take pictures. Crude, but I got the pics. Of course I could only hold my breath for about five quick pictures. Thank God for autofocus.
Here's how I
saw it:
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JBC Photography