DUNGENESS — “Welcome to serenity,” reads the sign near the Dungeness Lighthouse, a 5-mile beach trek away from Sequim’s outskirts.
Let’s face it. Most of us cannot make it out to serenity during the week.
But Johan Van Nimwegen, the technologically savvy president of the New Dungeness Light Station Association, is working on giving Internet surfers a view of that sweet spot.
Already a weather station has been installed near the lighthouse on the tip of Dungeness Spit.
And on the association’s Web site, www.NewDungenessLighthouse.com, the “current weather at NDL” link shows conditions — temperature, wind, today’s rainfall — and will keep records for those who want to follow weather trends.
Next up: a permanent Web camera, to show screen jockeys a spit panorama.
The camera will afford “unsurpassed views” of the lighthouse and Olympic Mountains, Van Nimwegen promised.
“If everything goes right, we’ll have the camera up this weekend,” he said during a Tuesday presentation to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
A link of value to Sequim
Van Nimwegen will then offer the city of Sequim a free link from its Web site, www.ci.Sequim.wa.us, to the lighthouse view and weather report.
That could save the $13,000 the city earmarked in its 2007 budget for a weather station and Web camera on Reservoir Road, said City Manager Bill Elliott.
The Sequim City Council has approved spending that sum, taken from hotel-motel tax revenues, as part of its tourism marketing budget.
That Web camera was to look out over the Dungeness Valley to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and provide tantalizing images for use on Seattle television news reports.
Shots of Sequim sunshine would bring vacationers from across the state, said Pat McCauley, who heads the Sequim Marketing Action Committee.
But if the lighthouse camera works as expected, the city won’t need to spend a dime.
“We’d provide [the Web camera] as a community service,” said Van Nimwegen.
Producers from KOMO, KIRO and KING-TV in Seattle have expressed interest in shots of the lighthouse, he added.
