Bodega Bay: living here and a poem

 

This is unexpected, but we would like to live here.  We won’t for several reasons.  Property is expensive.  Taxes are high.  Carol would have to drive me to the boat.  And the hassles of moving.  But we both would like to.  The place is beautiful; there is no hurricane season; and at this moment Bodega Bay is 30ºF cooler than Hilton Head.

The photo above was taken just in front of the house in which we are staying overlooking Bodega Bay.  The land to the right is Bodega Head.  Barely visible on the left is Point Reyes.  The small town center is a mile from here and off to the right of the frame.

A dense marine layer covered the area with fog and low clouds since our arrival.  The sun burned it away an hour ago.

Yesterday Carol drove us to Bodega Head where we watched long lines of cormorants flying past and waves crashing against cliffs.  

On the way back we stopped at two small marinas with fishing boats and pleasure craft, both of which charge less than a third what I pay for GANNET’s slip on Skull Creek.

We also stopped at The Tides Restaurant, which shares only the name and location with the one in THE BIRDS.  This version is huge with a gift shop, a fish market, and a dining room.  

The view from bed.

A poem by William Butler Yeats.

Bodega Bay: Bodega Bay and MPG

 

The view from our AirBnB.  Not as dramatic as Shelter Cove, but very pleasant and we are pleased to be here.

As I have noted I have never seen northern California before.  It is beautiful and has few people.  I googled ‘What percent of California’s population lives San Francisco and south?’ and AI told me 90%.  I googled ‘What percent of California’s land is north of San Francisco?’ and was told 58%.  Both numbers surprise me.

Today we passed over more than a dozen rivers and creeks running almost dry.  Riverbeds two hundred yards wide carried water a tenth of that and often even less.  Some creeks were completely dry.

Because we knew California gas prices are high, Carol rented a Toyota Camry hybrid.  Neither of us had any experience with hybrids.  We have now stopped for gas twice and are getting an impressive 47 mpg.

Shelter Cove: seen on our walks and a plant

 Yesterday.

Shelter Cove is misnamed.  There is no shelter here or any where for fifty miles north and more than forty south along this unforgiving coast.

The population is said to be about 600, but many of the houses seem to be vacant second homes.  

In addition to the three deer above, which we conclude are a mother with her two fauns, we saw three more deer yesterday.  Another mother and faun munching another yard and a single deer eating at the side of the street.  We saw three more deer today.  The mother yesterday kept her eyes on us constantly as we passed.

The red boat being steered by a fish smoking a cigar is a yard ornament.

Today.

The aptly named Black Sand Beach

Looking back at the hotel which is the green building on the very right of the frame.

We also saw hundred of pelicans in flight.  More than I have ever seen at one time before.  And watched seals sleeping on Seal Rock and some frolicking in the water.  It was interesting to see how graceful they are in the water and how awkward out.

Our room is large and includes an interior hot tub and an interior sauna, neither of which we find compelling amenities. 

  

It also contains this curious plant.  Carol thinks it a species of bamboo.  I find it quite attractive.

There are only a three or four eating places and a general store a mile or so away on the approach road.  

The essence of being here is simply being here and that is a beautiful and dramatic experience of the continent’s very edge and the ocean.

We move south tomorrow two hundred miles to Bodega Bay.

Shelter Cove: The Inn of the Lost Coast

 

This is the view from the balcony of our room at The Inn of the Lost Coast.  It is accompanied by the constant sound of waves breaking and swirling around the rocks below us.  Lovely.

On our way here yesterday Carol drove us on what is known for obvious reasons as The Avenue of the Giants. through Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

The birds on the rocks are mostly pelicans and cormorants, though there are a few small dark birds I can’t identify.

We had dinner last evening on the balcony.

The Inn is at Latitude 40º 02’ N.  I like looking west and knowing there is no land until Japan 4,200 nautical miles away.

Shelter Cove, California: the end of Oregon

 

We are now in a room on the edge of the Pacific Ocean with spectacular views which will appear in a future post, but this is about yesterday in Oregon.

Oregon for us was trees, offshore rocks, a lot or RVs, massive driftwood, and though it does not show in the photos constant strong cold wind from the ocean.

In the photo of Brandon Marina you can see whitecaps in the distance.  It was much more serious than that.  All day the wind blew 20+ knots and it was very cold.  As Carol drove us south we wondered that there were no windsurfers.  Finally at one point we found them.  A half dozen and a kite surfer as well enjoying their skills.

The wind was cold.  The water colder.  I admire them.

Coos Bay: between Newport, Oregon and here

As is well established this is a serious coast with no natural harbors of any size between San Francisco and Seattle.  Astoria claims, I expect with truth, that the entrance into the Columbia River is the most dangerous in the world with more than two thousand ships wrecked there.  While in Astoria we visited the Columbia River Maritime Museum which exhibits videos of bar pilot boats going out to ships and the pilots climbing up rope ladders extraordinary men simply doing their jobs in survival conditions.

The trees beside HIghway 101 are all bent thirty or forty degrees east from the wind.

I have never seen Tsunami Hazard signs before.  They are frequent in Oregon, telling you when you are entering and exiting such a zone.  Oregon is like New Zealand anit-flat and so there are countless hills, mountains, and valleys.  Many homes have been built in the tsunami hazard zones.  I expect that their owners are like those of us who live in hurricane zones and hope it will not happen in their time.

Much of the coast is more dramatically beautiful than my iPhone can convey. 

However, we have learned that we are traveling the Oregon coast at the wrong time, the height of a very short peak season.  We had hoped to amble and stay wherever we found a pleasant spot.  It does not work that way on the Oregon coast in August.  Last night we stayed in Newport in the worst $300 a night room I have ever experienced.  In October it would be an $80 a night room, which even then might be over priced.  So we are speeding up and slowing down.  Carol has found The Inn on the Lost Coast.  We will be there in two days and stay three at the same price per night as last night’s hovel.  I am looking forward to that.  You don’t always get what you pay for.

Astoria, Oregon

 

Astoria, Oregon: on the other coast and two poems

A gas fireplace is on instead of air-conditioning.  The temperature outside our room at the Cannery Pier Hotel is 57F and it is foggy,  We stayed here nineteen years ago and liked the place so much we always planned to come back.  As you can see the hotel is right on the Columbia River.  The land on the far side of the bridge is Washington state, and the notoriously dangerous mouth of the river is not far to the left of the frame.

Ocean going ships pass close to our windows and the Astoria Marina is a neighbor.

We walked over there yesterday and found few boats of interest.  This one was for all the wrong reasons.  I don’t recall ever seeing a boat so neglected or with such growth on it.  We wondered why anyone is still paying slip rent for it.  Perhaps they aren’t.

We are staying a second night here and then Carol will start to drive us slowly south along the coast.

  

I thank my friend, Tim, for a link to a 1861 Civil War poem reminiscent of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT which it preceded by more than sixty years and several wars.

And from William Butler Yeats.

Hilton Head Island: sprited and flying

 

Yesterday I carried the painted bowsprit back down to GANNET after spraying three coats of Petit Easypoxy onto it.  I was fortunate with the weather while painting.  We had little wind and no rain except for a brief shower one afternoon which did no harm.  As you would expect paint dries quickly in this heat.

Having taught myself how to sail from books and magazine articles, for many years I called spars extending forward of a vessel’s bow bow spirits until Suzanne, who came from a New Zealand sailing family, corrected me.

I also doubled some of the dock lines, tied down the tiller, tied a line around the furled jib, and set up the running backstays, because we are leaving tomorrow on what has become since Carol’s retirement our usual August escape from the heat.

Tomorrow we fly to Portland, Oregon, where we will rent a car and Carol will drive us slowly down the coast to San Diego.  While I lived in Oakland, California, for a year, I never travelled very far north of the Bay area and so the Oregon and Northern California coast will be new to both of us.

I am looking forward to the trip.  I am not looking forward to the flights.  We are due to land at Portland at what will feel to our east coast bodies 2 A.M.

Hilton Head Island: almost ship wrecked

Captain Cook and I were both almost shipwrecked when our engineless ships were becalmed and swept toward reefs by currents.  Captain Cook had the excuse of sailing an uncharted coast.  I, having let my departure from Papeete, Tahiti, be decided by a dragging anchor had none.

Captain Cook first.

The ENDEAVOUR went onto the Great Barrier Reef on the night of June 11, 1770, about one hundred miles north of present day Cairns, Australia.  She was stuck there for twenty-seven hours, before the Captain and crew managed to get her off and into what is now the Endeavour River twenty-six miles north where the ship was careened and repaired as shown in the above painting by Sydney Parkinson.

Like any good seaman, the captain wanted to get to the open ocean.  He found a pass through the reef near Lizard Island fifty miles farther north.  His great relief at being beyond the coral lasted only two days.

Here are his words from his Journal.

And here are my words from STORM PASSAGE.  The date is December 24, 1974.

I had sailed from San Diego on my 37’ engineless cutter, EGREGIOUS, on November 2 for Cape Horn.  Near the Equator the boat developed rigging failure, so I turned downwind for Papeete, Tahiti, where repairs were made.  On December 24 I was ready to try again.  I cleared with the officials that afternoon.  At that time you anchored in Papeete Harbor with long stern lines ashore.  Returning to EGREGIOUS I took in the stern lines and pulled the boat out over her anchor, but there was no wind until just after sunset when a land breeze coming down from 7,000’ high Mount Orohena inland caused the anchor to drag.  Rather than reset it, I decided to leave.