I like to pass lazy afternoons looking for new places on the Oregon map. I like to believe there are places in this big state of diverse landscapes that hardly anyone knows about. Places just waiting to be discovered.
Today, I think I found that undiscovered Oregon. I am on the deck of a boat, in a simple seascape of blue sky and silky aquamarine water. I have joined a group of birders who charter a boat to the Perpetua Sea Bank, thirty miles off the coast of Newport.
This Oregon – the Oregon from which you cannot see land - is a surprising, even enchanting place. Where I expected emptiness, I find life. Where I expected an absence of landscape, I find a brilliant ocean seascape of bright sun, brilliant clouds, and water bejeweled with purple and amber jellyfish. Where I expected a day of solitude looking through binoculars for twelve hours, I found unexpected friends.
Blue seas off the coast of Newport, Oregon
