Saturday morning, April 15, 9:01 AM.
A 3.8 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast about 10 miles north of here near Waldport about an hour earlier. I had stayed the night in the nearby small coastal town of Yachats and was likely packing up at the time. I didn't feel anything, but some follow-on reports indicated some mild tremors were felt on shore.
This is an easy, drive-up viewpoint that a lot of people miss while driving down the coast. I missed it myself for years despite camping many times below this point in the 1990's.
I like to stop here if it's a nice morning or clear twilight in the evening. This may be the clearest I've seen it. It's only a 30 minute diversion, so in the context of an hours-long drive down the coast, it doesn't add too much time to the drive. There is also a trail that climbs to the same spot, but that, of course, would take much longer than a half-hour for the round trip for the average person. I've hiked the trail while camping below. It's a nice hike.
It likely isn't the case, but I wonder if those dark, thin, evenly-space striations in the water are the result of the quake that morning. The ones running parallel to the shore.