March Point

August 14, 2025

The plan for today is to pick up with the one from two days back, the out and back ride from home to the end of Colony Road - the one that got scrapped when I flattened a half mile after leaving home. I show up at 8 when Cafe Velo opens its doors, anxious to find out whether I need a new rear cluster with the changed chains and why I'd get a flat on a robust tire I had installed just a few weeks ago at the neighborhood Trek store down in Portland.

The bike report is all good. I don't need a new cluster yet so kaChing, that saves a chunk of eChange. And, I really like the explanation about the flat. It's because the tube was misinstalled and had a fold in it that caused it to flatten with a slow leak when it was inflated. So that tells me two things:

Don't go back to that Trek store.

This explains why I've felt fairly weak ever since moving up here. I have hardly done any climbing at all and have been challenged to finish even pretty easy rides. I've probably been riding with a low tire for the last week or more. It also explains why I'll feel so much stronger today.

At Cafe Velo, our recommendation for a bike repair shop in Bellingham.

There's no rush getting started because we have all day, so I hang around the cafe half of the Caffe while I have my second coffee of the day (an Americano, and a bargain) and blackberry scone.

As it turns out though, we're not getting that ride to Colony Road in today either. It's not me this time, it's Rachael. She's apparently got a serious bout of food poisoning and can't stray far from the facilities. I'm certain it's from the fish dish she had at a Mexican restaurant we went to last night, a place I didn't mention or include food photos from because I didn't care for it much. What they lacked in quality they made up in quantity, and I came home with sufficient leftovers from my heaping plate of arroz con pollo to last me the next three nights, even though I hav no plans to eat it because I didn't really care for it. I was just too embarrassed to leave so much uneaten, and Rachael would have insisted on bringing it home anyway because she hates leaving food on the table.

So I feel lucky at least that I had the chicken and don’t feel sick myself, but all of the leftovers are going to the dump and I'm going for a ride while Rachael sits this one out.

In Emerson, taking note of the location of the car so I can find it when I return.

Turkey vultures, three of about dozen or more scattered around scavenging from a newly mown pasture.

We looked at this scene when we were here a few days ago. Here's a better shot, in case anyone has thoughts on what this crop is.

Sonchus arvensis? (Aka the field milk thistle, field sow thistle, perennial sow thistle, corn sow thistle, dindle, gutweed, swine thistle, or tree sow thistle)

The mouth of this unnamed slough turns into a braided channel just before emptying into the bay.

Big Indian Slough also empties into Padilla Bay. Other than the Swinomish Slough, it's the only one with a posted name that I could find.

European starlings, common but colorful.

Marsh Point is a thumb sticking up between Padilla Bay and Fidalgo island, separated by the Swinomish Channel. In captioning the photographs for this post I'm really surprised at how inaccurate my understanding is of the geography of the region was. I won't mbarqss myself by telling you what I thought some of these larger sloughs emptying into Padilla Bay were, but they're all just sloughs draining out of the Samish River delta.

The Swinomish Channel though is different. It's a canal-like nearly straight channel, supposedly natural, that separates Fidalgo Island from the mainland. On the north it opens into Padilla Bay, and at the south end it opens up into Skagit Bayon the wide, pancake-flat delta at the mouth of the Skagit River.

The swing bridge at the northern end of the Swinomish Channel. The formations, left to right: Guemes island, Hat Island, Samish Island, Chuckanut Mountain.

Looking east from Marsh Point, 200-300 white pelicans line the east side of Swinomish Channel.

Hat Island, seen from the northern tip of March Point.

My original plan was a pure out and back tithe northern tip of the point. I intended to bike up and back the east side, thinking that to the west it would be too unsightly and busy from the refinery. In fact though it's a great ride all around the perimeter, with the development all concentrated along the median line that includes the road to the refinery and the train line that delivers unrefined crude oil to the refinery and refined product to the end of a long loading pier.

So I changed my plan and added four miles by returning by way of the east side with its views across Fidalgo Bay. By the time I got back to the highway and turned east again though it was getting late and the skies were turning grey and menacing with the approach of the coming rain front.

Loading refined crude oil for export from the Snacortes Refinery, March Point.

Another shipping pier blocks the view across Fislgo Bay to Anacortes from March Point.

The Tommy Thompson Trail is an abandoned railroad trestle converted into a pedestrian path connecting March Point and Anacortes.

I had expected to fly when I got here because I'd been pushing into a strong tailwind a few hours earlier; but with the weather front came a shift in the wind direction and so I fought headwinds both ways today. Which is. Long-winded way of explaining why I didn't slow down for much in my race to get back to the car before it felt unsafe to drive home into headlights, and misse two photographs I didn't see in time to capture: an adult male northern marsh harrier kiting low over an open field and a tiny, ultra-cute snowshoe hare just on the side of the road as I biked past.

Downloaded from All About Birds: #191, Northern marsh harrier.

Downloaded: a snowshoe hare, brown with its summer coloring. In the winter they turn white to blend into the snow.

I'm excited by the diversity I've seen today though, and have been mentally tallying birds as I go. I know I'm getting close to 30 for the day so I have my eyes out for anything new and stop at a few places hoping to get there. Close, but 28 still counts as a pretty big afternoon for me.

Bough color to be worth a stop on the way back.

Last bird of the day: the humble house sparrow.

I can't believe how well I timed the completion of my ride. It took almost two hours longer than I'd expected because there was so much to see and I lengthened it by four miles by encircling March Point. I didn't make it home until 7:15, exactly one minute before the first showers began. Also, it's worth noting that even though it was getting to be late in the day for me to be out driving, it wasn't a problem. Possibly due to the lowering of my prednisone level, my trouble with seeing into glare or contrasting light and shade is gradually becoming less of a problem.

Our film tonight is Dr. Strangelove, one we both picked because we were due for a comedy - odd, because there's so little other than very black humor in it. For both of us, our 'memory' was almost entirely limited to iconic images like Slim Pickens riding the missile into oblivion. Neither of us remembered anything about the plot, which is especially unnerving to see at this point in history.

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Today's list: list: Rock pigeon, House sparrow, American robin, American crow, Common raven, European starling, Eurasian collared dove, Killdeer, White pelican, Great blue heron, Double-crested cormorant, Barn swallow, Violet-green swallow, Turkey vulture, American kestrel, Red-tailed hawk, Northern harrier, Northern flicker, Brewer's blackbird, Glaucous-winged gull. Ring-billed gull, California gull, Short-billed gull, House finch, Savannah sparrow, Fox sparrow, American goldfinch, Surf scoter (28)

Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 551 miles (887 km)

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