49th Stop - Seal Rock, OR
Blog Post #60 - Written April 8, 2026
Stay: September 7-10, 2025
I think if we had to pick a favorite place that we'd happily vacation at again and again, Seal Rock might be it. The seals were great, but the tide pools were the show-stoppers! It's amazing how much life you can find and how much enjoyment you can get when you slow down and take your time to observe and explore. Z made sure we explored the tide pools every morning and every evening, and we found new, amazing things each time!
Our campground was along HWY 1 and a short walk across the street to
the cove / beach. Our campsite was atop the cliff, so we had amazing views of
the gorgeous sunsets.
After setting up, we just had to go to the beach, so we hiked
down the staircase along the cliffside and found a naturalist's paradise.
Low tide revealed hundreds of sea stars and millions of sea anemone.
Gary found this amazing one that looking like it was being
devoured by this crazy little Stalked Jellyfish. But no, the nudibranch was actually eating the stalked jellyfish from the inside! It was an epic battle that he and Z watched for like 15 minutes. It's amazing to realize that these two little magical, alien creatures live right here in the USA.
We found a few other opalescent nudibranchs and many other incredible marine life:
A Rockweed Isopod:
Buffalo Sculpin (Z found a ton of these):
When the tide was extremely low, it opened a path to a massive rock outcropping. I climbed through the jagged tunnels, but didn't find much there. Just a seagull and more rocks.
And then there were the seals. There were around 20 or
more seals swimming around the cove, sun bathing on the rocks, and diving down
for food. They were a bit far for the camera, so we didn't get great
pictures. Gary thought he'd try and go swim with them, but without a wet
suit, he only lasted 10 minutes or so haha. Plus he wanted to respect their space. But if you look closely, you can see their heads popping up out of the water.
We took a couple of day trips along the Oregon Coast, which
can best be described as dynamic and dramatic. The first trip was down to Yachats, to see
some spectacular natural water shows. We pulled off the highway to first
check out the Devil's Punchbowl. This would have been more dramatic at
high tide, but the waves still come crashing down a long crevasse, booming as it hits
the shore.
Our next stop was a double feature: Spouting Horn and Thor's
Well. We timed our entry to see these two features as the tide was coming
in. The Spouting Horn is a small shaft that shoots water in a geyser-like
cloud as the waves come and hit it.
Thor's Well was like a scene from another world. The earth looks like it's breathing as water rises and quickly drains from a massive well. As the water recedes, thousands of muscles and dozens of star fish are revealed as they hang on tight to the rocky walls.
Our last day trip was to Depoe Bay: Whale Watching Capital
of the Oregon Coast. Also, the smallest natural, navigable harbor in the world. This place did not
disappoint. Just pulling off the side of the road we spotted our first
whale right off the coast. Continuing south brought us to our Whale
Watching Tour.
While we waited for the tour to start, we watched the most stoic (or heartless, if you ask the kids haha) woman prep crabs for the local restaurant. She pulls one out of the bucket (still alive), smashes its head against the side of the table so the shell falls into the trash, and throws it into the pile of crabs to be boiled. All in just a few seconds. I caught one of the massacres on video.
**MILDLY GRAPHIC VIDEO (if you're a crab)**
They called our boat tour and we hit the open sea. We didn't have to go far before we saw our first spouting, the water that comes out of the blowhole of a whale as it comes up for breath. Depoe Bay is home to a family of resident Grey Whales, as well as the seasonal migrators who found they didn't need to travel all the way up to Alaska and fight for food, but could chill a bit further south and still have plenty to eat.
Grey Whales typically breathe for a few minutes, then dive down for about 6 minutes to feed. Then they come up and spout again. We spotted around 14 whales in our hour-long tour. Even D was an eagle eye at spotting spouts far off. It was interesting to learn that whales leave 'footprints' called a flukeprint. This is a smoothing of the water that comes from the whale's tail hitting the water.
Once ashore, we went up to the Whale Watching Center, where
we continued to see more whales spouting from the clifftop. There was a
fun ranger station there that showed us different parts of the whale, including
the baleen, which is huge and tough. Z spent an hour here pestering the
rangers with every imaginable question about marine biology a 7 year-old could ever
think of. We finally dragged him out and back to the car.
We had one final stop at Yaquina Head State Park, which was
closing in 15 minutes. The lighthouse was already closed, but the sands
of this beach were black, which was new.
I think it was somewhere around this area where Gary ran
into some of his parents' friends from Colorado. Small world!
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