Yaquina Head Lighthouse and tide pools
— — the tall light and the pools the tide leaves behind.
Not only on a wall.
“The tallest lighthouse on the Oregon coast stands on a thin finger of basalt that runs out into the Pacific. Yaquina Head was first lit in 1873, two years after the smaller bay light south of it failed at the job. Below the tower the headland drops in cobbled tide pools — sea stars, anemones, hermit crabs in the seams of dark volcanic rock. The pools open at low tide and disappear with the next set of swells. Brown pelicans pass low over the cliff most afternoons. from the studio
Yaquina Head Lighthouse and tide pools, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse stands on a basalt headland that runs a mile into the Pacific about three miles north of Newport, Oregon. The tower, completed in 1872 and first lit on August 20, 1873, rises 93 feet — the tallest lighthouse on the Oregon coast. It is built of brick and lined with iron, with a first-order Fresnel lens that still flashes a 2-plus-2-second pattern visible 19 nautical miles offshore. The surrounding land became the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area in 1980, managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The tide pools below the lighthouse sit on Cobble Beach, a small cove of black basalt cobbles rounded by the surf. At low tide the rocks below the high-water line expose a textbook intertidal community: ochre and purple sea stars, giant green anemones, hermit crabs, gooseneck barnacles, and chitons clinging to the seams. Tides on the central Oregon coast swing roughly seven feet between low and high; the pools open only on the lower tides and the BLM publishes a daily tide-pool schedule at the interpretive centre. Common murres nest on the offshore rocks each spring.
Access is by car off Highway 101 at Lighthouse Drive, with a per-vehicle day-use fee collected at the gate. The interpretive centre at the headland holds tide-pool schedules, a working Fresnel lens display, and the lighthouse tour sign-up. Tours of the tower run when staffing allows and reach the watch room below the lens; the lantern itself is restricted. The Cobble Beach stairs drop about 100 feet from the parking area to the tide-pool level. Mornings around the lowest low tide are the best window for the pools.