Yaquina Head Lighthouse is located at central Oregon coast, near the city of Newport. It is popular among visitors due to its unique tide pool ecosystem. The tide pool consists of various marine life creatures such as starfish, sea anemone, and others. To get to Yaquina Head Lighthouse, it is about 2.5 hours away from Portland, so it is definitely doable as a day trip during the weekend.
We headed to Yaquina Head Lighthouse at 8AM in the morning so that we could get there before the low tide that would happen around 11:20AM. The low tide would bring the tide down to about 1.2M (about 4 feet) and we would have access to the tide pool to see all the marine life. The lowest tide was actually around 4AM in the morning but we would not be able to get there that early and not sure if it would be even accessible.
We got to Yaquina Head Lighthouse around 10:30AM. The admission fee is $7 per vehicle or people could park the car outside and walk in for free. The ranger station only took cash, but there was an automated parking machine that takes credit card. We drove to the Yaquina Head Interpretation Center first to take a break and visit the information on the lighthouse. People could park car here and do a short hike to the lighthouse because the parking space at the lighthouse is limited. We chose to drive to the lighthouse and parked there instead since it was still early.
As soon as we got to the lighthouse. we took the stairs down to Cobble Beach, where the tide pool is at. There was a sign showing where the tide pool is in case people could not find it. The Cobble Beach had tons and tons of round volcanic rocks. These rocks were washed and eroded by the ocean waves and became extremely round. When walking on the Cobble Beach, do watch steps so that you don't trip yourself over the rocks.
As we headed down to the tide pool among the rocks, we had to be very careful to walk around the marine life creatures so that we would not step on them. We saw a lot of green sea anemone in the tide pool and they were soft when you touch them. There were also purple sea urchins in the pool. On the rocks further away, we could see many seals laying on the rocks. These seals don't come close to the beach however and there were signs telling people not to approach further.
When we went to the lighthouse, we could see the far side of the ocean. Some people said they were able to see the whales migrating South with binoculars. Unfortunately we did not see any.
Overall, this was a very interesting experience to see all the marine life at the tide pool. The tide pool here is very accessible and highly recommend to come here for a visit.
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