It’s spring in Port Angeles, and sunny and beautiful at water level, but up in the mountains there was a last hurrah of snow that is glistening in the sun and  is giving us a stunning view from downtown Port Angeles.  This photo was taken from Mount Pleasant Road several miles on the southern side of Port Angeles and a thousand feet or so above sea level.  Little photographs can’t quite catch the majesty of the real view, but you can use your imagination.

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Check out this video of the Port Angeles Senior Citizens Center:

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Port Angeles News Bulletin!

Port Angeles business owners have a whole new forum and an incredible free service offered on PortAngelesVision.com.  Following is the full article reprinted with permission.

This blog [PortAngelesVision.com] is devoted to the vision and future of Port Angeles and our mutual success as business owners. We will start (or continue) a dialogue on this subject, brainstorm here, argue (diplomatically), and share information.

But there is much more to the benefits to Port Angeles business owners, and today we reveal one of those benefits to participation. When you as a Port Angeles business owner post three (3) comments on this site, you will be entitled to a very nice profile of your business and what you offer customers with a photograph of your business or products. You will also get a link back to your own website if you have one, and your location and contact information. But . . .

This is much more than just a simple advertisement of your business. This is a nice description of your business with good graphics and good script describing your business and your product so people will want to do business with you.  And this profile is not limited to 10 or 30 words.  If you need several hundred words to describe your business, no problem.  Your profile will also be optimized for the search engines by an expert, so you can be found by people using the Internet. In addition, you will be indexed by category on this blog so people, both local and outside our area, can find you and do business with you.  Right now many of us who do business in Port Angeles don’t even know each other. We are missing opportunities to do business with each other right now.  You’ll also notice that all of our blog posts have an audio version, so those with a vision impairment will still be able to hear about you.  Our audio is also syndicated as a podcast, which is only the tip of the iceberg on how we promote this site behind the scenes.

By the way, before anyone gets all defensive on me, let me be clear about the cost to you: absolutely nothing. This is a service to local businesses, and what we are doing here is free. I know, I was taught in my college economics course by Dr. Orth that, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Well, he was wrong. There is such a thing as a free blog that has an honorable goal and offers you something you would have to pay thousands of dollars to get elsewhere.

An expert will help you at no cost to write your profile persuasively, and our tech expert will optimize your business information, also at no cost to you.

So, be sure to come back and when you have a relevant comment, register and post your comment. When you have three comments, email me your basic business profile with your photo, and I’ll work with you to perfect it. Then we can always tweak it to get you more traffic. As this site gets more traffic, you will get more exposure. Let’s work together to make it happen. Post your thoughts, and email three friends with a link to this site.  The more visitors this site gets, the more exposure your business gets.

To take advantage of this service, go to PortAngelesVision.com.

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Port Angeles News Bulletin!

Port Angeles now has it’s own Blog to openly discuss the future of Port Angeles, or in other words, the vision of Port Angeles.  Many local businessmen and local citizens have strong opinions about what can and should or could be done to promote Port Angeles as a great place to live, a strong business environment that fosters the growth of small and large businesses, and what the direction and plan should be for the future of Port Angeles.

There have been many discussions in the past dozens of years about the future of Port Angeles, and local government has made many decisions that have defined where we are today.  Those decisions include land use and zoning, development restrictions, regulations, business fees and taxes, incentives, and thousands of decisions made on multiple levels, including city, county, the Port of Port Angeles, the Chamber of Commerce, quasi-government agencies, and private associations.

For many locals, the outcome on many issues has been unsatisfactory.  For example, the bus depot downtown was a hot issue.  Was it the right decision or wrong?  There have been hundreds of decisions like this made in years past.

Some argue that Port Angeles has some of the most valuable and beautiful water front property in the world, but one only needs to look at the furrowed brows of visitors who drive through our water front to affirm that something has gone amiss.  What about downtown buildings and development?  What about business incentives?  What about the philosophy of our city leaders?  What is their vision for Port Angeles?  Shouldn’t there be some cooperation on a vision among all government agencies?  Or should we let them each do their own thing, even if the results are quite contradictory?

Why a blog on this subject?

Because this is the one place where all discussions are documented and permenantly on public file for all to read and re-read and comment on.  You can always come back and see what someone actually wrote, and how others felt about that position.

When the Chamber invites a speaker on business development in Port Angeles or the future of Port Angeles, you might have 30 people attend, or on a good day you might have a 100.  Those 100 people go home and each has a memory of the speech that fades over time.  Meanwhile, the remaining 24,900 people in Port Angeles did not hear the speech and had no opportunity to express their position.

Or take a city council meeting.  The same could be said.  Limited people, limited opportunity to respond, and politicians only get 1% of the people’s perspective, and that 1% is often special interests.

Now everyone has the ability to dialogue and express themselves on this blog focused on the future of Port Angeles.  The Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce has over 500 local business members.  They can all express their views here.  And the person on the street can do so.  Politicians will be able to hear more voices here than any other forum available.  And politicians and regulators can intelligently express their positions, ask questions, and answer questions.  And all articles and comments are archived for all to read and consider.

That’s the value of this blog.  The good news is that it is a valuable community resource and absolutely free to all users.

Check it out at PortAngelesVision.com.

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Today the photos will tell the story of the annual Port Angeles Crab Derby.  In our first photo Brady Marunde volunteers at the Crab Derby helping boys and girls (and moms and dads) fish for their crabs.

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Port Angeles and Seattle have a strong connection with China.  China is so far away, not just geographically, but culturally and economically, most of us in Sequim and Port Angeles hardly give China a thought.  We’re going to be hearing a lot more from China in the years to come.  We already have growing ties with China, and it is all good.

Ryan Kent Smith of Sequim has been teaching in China for several years.  My own son, Jesse, competed in Chengdu, China four years ago in the World’s Strongman Contest.  Jesse told me that Chengdu was exploding throughout the city with enterprising businessmen.  Most recently, a client of mine who is buying property in Port Angeles, has a thriving trade show business in China.  Seattle has a sister city in Chongqing, China.  Economic relations between Washington state and China is building momentum as the Chinese economy escapes the grip of its past bondage.

A massive new U.S. Embassy, the second-largest in the world after the heavily fortified compound in Baghdad, formally opens in the Chinese capital this week, a testament to the depth and breadth of the ties binding us.  President Bush, who will be attending the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies Friday, will preside over the ribbon-cutting at the $434 million, 500,000-square-foot compound that same day.

The Olympics are bound to break a few more boundaries between us, and this is all good.

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The Bounty of the 18th Century arrived in Port Angeles.  We were fortunate to have visitors from sea, replicas of 300 year old ships.

Click on the photo for a beautiful enlargement.

In 1787, the Deptford Naval Yard in England was commissioned to re-fit the Bethia, a collier built in 1784 (in Hull), for a voyage to Tahiti.  Tahiti was the source for the breadfruit plant, which was to be used as a cheap source of food for the workers on the sugar cane and indigo plantations in the West Indies.

The Bounty’s voyage was to last 18 months.  Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, enlisted David Nelson, who was the botanist and gardener at Kew, and William Bligh to oversee her refitting as a floating garden.  This set the stage for the Mutiny on the Bounty.

The Bounty was built in 1960 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, from the keel up by the shipwrights of Smith & Rhuland Shipyard, following the original plans in the British Naval maritime Museum.  Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer studios commissioned the ship to be built at a cost of $750,000 to star in the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlin Brando (Fletcher Christian) and Trevor Howard (Captain Bligh).  Work began in February of 1960 and on august 27 of that year the ship set sail to begin primary filming in Tahiti.

The Bounty displaces 412 tons, includes 400,000 board feet of lumber (American Oak from New Jersey for the frames, Nova Scotia Black Spruce for the hull, and British Columbia Fir for the masts, yards and decks), 112 tons of screw bolts, 14 tons of bar iron, 2 1/2 tons of spikes, 1200 pounds of putty, 10 miles of line for rigging, 192 blocks for mechanical advantage, and over 10,000 square feet of hand-sewn canvas for the sails.  Bounty is 120 feet on deck, 180 feet overall, 114 feet off the water.  She has a 30-foot beam, a 13 foot draft, and 13 feet of freeboard.

I’m no pirate, but as a photographer, this was a great tour.

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You can take a Ferry from Port Angeles to beautiful Victoria, Canada, and you have a choice. You can take your car across on the big Ferry, or you can walk on the little Ferry. If you haven’t been to Victoria, you really are missing out. It’s a great place to spend the day sight seeing and shopping.

Photo by Chuck Marunde, Aug 2007.

Black Ball Transport Ferry “Coho”
The Coho provides year round vehicle and passenger service between Port Angeles and Victoria, B.C. Sailing time is approximately 1 hour and 35 minutes. The ferry arrives and departs from downtown Port Angeles to the inner harbor in Victoria. Reservations are accepted.

For more information on sailing times and fares, call (360) 457-4491 (Port Angeles), (250) 386-2202 (Victoria) or (206) 622-2222 (Bellevue).

Coho Ferry websites: www.ferrytovictoria.com or www.cohoferry.com

Victoria Express Passenger Ferry
The Victoria Express is a passenger only ferry with service between Port Angeles and Victoria, B.C. Sailing time is approximately 1 hour. Like the Coho, the Victoria Express arrives and departs from downtown Port Angeles to the inner harbor in Victoria.

Reservations are accepted and recommended in the summer. For more information on sailing times and fares, call (360) 452-8088 (Port Angeles), (250) 361-9144 (Victoria) or (800) 633-1589 (WA State only).

Victoria Express - http://www.victoriaexpress.com/

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I’ve assembled what I think is the best links for Port Angeles. At least this is a great place to start for nearly anything you want to know or find in P.A.

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