Port Angeles & Sequim Bed and Breakfast
Oceanfront Lodging on Washington's Olympic Peninsula

Picture yourself sipping award winning wines paired with delicately spiced chocolates in a lavishly decorated wine cellar. The ever-popular annual “Red Wine and Chocolate” tour  is coming up on February 6-7 and February 13-15. What a great reason to visit the Olympic Peninsula!  Participating wineries are all within easy driving distance of our Sequim and Port Angeles Bed and Breakfast. For details on this mouthwatering event, you can visit www.olympiccellars.com.  Here are just a few possible wine-and-chocolate combinations, to whet your imagination:

2006 Cabernet Franc (Gold Medal) and dark chocolate spiced with Cardamom

2006 Merlot (Excellent by Wine Press Northwest) and dark chocolate spiced with Cinnamon/Chili

2006 Syrah (Outstanding by Wine Press Northwest) paired with our Mediterranean Chili Molé

You can buy tickets in advance for the Olympic Peninsula Wineries’ Red Wine & Chocolate Tour at www.olympicpeninsulawineries.org.   

Price: $25 per person.

Red Wine and Chocolate Event

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With the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains on one side and the Salish Sea on the other, our Sequim and Port Angeles bed and breakfast is blessed with mild winters, mild summers, and plenty of sunshine. 

Today the sun, filtering through the cedars, made the heather blossoms sparkle.  Here’s a picture from a corner of our gardens that I took this afternoon, with just a glimpse of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the background.  It was a perfect winter day to sit by the sea.   ~Bonnie

Heather, showing off their January blossoms in our garden

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Bald Eagle perched in our yard

Opportunists that they are, during the autumn months our local eagles hang out wherever hordes of salmon are battling their way upstream. One favorite spot is near Port Angeles, on the way to Sol Duc Falls. Now that the salmon have either made it home or made it into the food chain, the eagles have come back home.

A magnificent pair of eagles is remodeling their nearby nest, and we often see them gliding through our yard, talons outstretched, clutching twigs and moss.

Last week, on the way to its nest, an eagle was again taunted by a gang of noisy crows (probably well deserved).  But in this ongoing feud, we’ve never seen a lone crow try to bully an eagle. Even crows know that would be just plain dumb.

We snapped this picture today from the dining room.  See that black spot at the top of the branches?  The one with the white head?  That’s clear evidence that we need to get a better camera.   ~Bonnie

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Sol Duc Falls (photo by Tammy Yee)

One of the great perks of owning a bed and breakfast is meeting interesting people.  With a B&B near the Olympic National Park, we are treated to nature-lovers who come from near and far to see firsthand nature’s incredible handiwork.  Panoramic vistas at Hurricane Ridge, cascading waterfalls at Sol Duc and Marymere, miles and miles of untamed ocean beaches, enchanted old-growth Hoh rainforest, glacial and serene Lake Crescent . . . these world-class attractions fill our guests with wonder. 

Today we are enjoying couples from Bogota, Colombia and from land-locked Iowa.  They may have arrived from starkly contrasted homelands, yet each was completely delighted with the natural beauty of the Olympic Peninsula.   ~Bonnie

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Pilots call Sequim "The Blue Hole"

This morning we awoke to a threatening gray sky and an equally gray Strait of Juan de Fuca.  The city of Victoria, across the sea, was hidden under a heavy cloak of clouds.  Soon the wind picked up, singing through the cedars, and bringing sheets of rain with it.  Our guests figured their best plan for the day would be to visit the Hoh Rain Forest.  If you’re going to explore a rain forest, you might as well see it on a stormy day, with the moss glistening with raindrops.  

Then, by mid-morning, the winds halted all at once, and the sun broke through.  With the mercury showing 50 degrees, I couldn’t resist spending the afternoon outside, working in the gardens.  By noon, there wasn’t a cloud above us in the bright blue sky.   “The Blue Hole” is what pilots call Sequim.   As they fly through the cloudbanks covering most of western Washington, they know they are flying over Sequim when the clouds part, and suddenly  they are flying through blue sky.  Meteorologists call it the “rainshadow effect.”  Here at Sea Cliff Gardens Bed and Breakfast, tucked between Port Angeles and Sequim, we are perfectly situated in the rain shadow of the glorious Olympic Mountains.   ~Bonnie

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