04/21/03 Paddling the Mouth of the Rouge River:
No rain last night but 40's and windy this morning. Saw bits of blue in the sky and hoped it might be clearing up for a while. Went down to the mouth of the Rouge River to visit the Steller sea lions again. Wind was 10-15mph or so. Saw a half dozen sea lions plowing in and out of the channel. Decided to go hike some more of the Oregon Coast Trail.
Down past Myers Creek the sun came out in full force. After just hearing the windy, rainy forecast for tomorrow I turned around and headed for the public boat ramp on the south side of the Rouge River. Better get while the getting's good. The kayak has been sitting on top of the truck since Wyoming in September. I had a cockpit cover on but its kinda old and worn out. My spray skirt was soaking wet and the PFD not much better from all the rain these past weeks. Putting on a wet spray skirt over dry clothes is almost as fun as putting on a cold, damp wetsuit over warm skin, but not quite.
30-40 harbor seals were sleeping on a beach on the other side of the channel where I put in. They woke up and headed for the water as I passed by... all but three fat females who couldn't be bothered. I was about 50 feet from them when they went in, the closest I've been to seals on land, east or west coast. Of course after they went in all these heads started popping up out of the water all around me. All these little gray heads with black eyes and noses all around me. Looked like a bunch of little hobgoblins. Cool stuff.
I had to paddle out of a protected cove, past another to the little harbor between the river mouth and the US-101 bridge. 15-20 seals followed me part way, keeping me surrounded. Once in the harbor, many of them disappeared. Several of them still trailed behind me though. If I stopped, turned around and looked at them, they would submerge. If I stopped and let the wind blow me around until I was facing them, they stayed up. I experienced the same behavior with harbor seals in Maine. Often, one of them would dive and pop up 15 feet from the kayak, look startled and dive again with a big splash.
Out in the harbor, the river current seemed to be running about 2.5 knots and the first thing I did was turn into the current and begin paddling. With a six month layoff and not much paddling then and not having paddled any tides or currents since I don't know when, I didn't want to get stuck in waters I couldn't handle. Once I was satisfied I was OK I let the current push me along.
The harbor is only about 1/2 mile long by 1/4 mile wide. A beach or sandbar separates most of the river from the ocean and forces it into a channel 75 feet wide or so. I saw several big bull sea lions weighing 1000-2000 pounds and several smaller females. Now, I didn't really know the sea lions wouldn't attack me. I didn't think so, hadn't heard or read anything but still wasn't sure. So, when I got down to the sandbar, I stayed close to it. If anything unpleasant was going to happen, I wanted it to happen where I had a chance of getting out of the water in a hurry.
I was pretty close to the channel and sea lions were moving in and out. I wasn't much more than 100 feet or so away from them. The females usually keep on the move, diving and resurfacing for air or staying submerged to feed. Males seem to need more air, are lazier or just like to look around more. They seemed a little less concerned with me in the water with them than when I had been standing on shore watching them but they knew I was there and I wasn't one of them. A couple of them surfaced 50 feet away and I was impressed with their size and their teeth. Sometimes they'd stick their heads and necks all the way out of the water. I hope they weren't licking there chops but they had big canines like a dog. That's kinda intimidating. Their necks were bigger than my waist and I ain't skinny.
I just maintained my position near shore and watched for 30-40 minutes. Really great stuff. I don't think I've been that impressed since I first paddling with alligators. They are so much bigger than I ever thought. Finally I didn't see any for a while and headed back to the boat ramp. All this time 6-8 seals had been hanging out nearby and proceeded to follow along behind me. Back in the protected cove many more heads appeared. Half a dozen of them were asleep in the water. All you see is a snout and whiskers pointed up in the air. If you look closely you can see their eyes are closed. I had seen this in Maine too. Then they would sense my presence, wake up, look as if to say "Oh, sh*t", and dive.
Really glad I went out, even if it took me a while to buck the wind and river current on the way back. Now I really wish I had gone paddling with the seals and gray whales at the mouth of the Klamath River in California last week. Sigh! Still haven't had the boat in the actual Pacific Ocean. It was on the other side of that sandbar I was hiding behind. Soon, though, soon!
Started back down US-101 again to hike the Oregon Coast Trail but made the mistake of stopping at the Meyer's Creek beach. This beach has many large monoliths and sea stacks just off shore. The tide was in past most of them and pools were forming around the others. I had my sandals and Polar Tec socks so I wasn't worried about wet feet so off I went.
Lots of green sea anemones, a few purple starfish and a couple of orange ones. Even found a sand dollar, a round shell 2 inches in diameter with 5, what look like flower petals. Tomorrow's plan is to get back here to Meyer's Creek Beach for some beachcombing and sea garden viewing.
Went back to the mouth of the Rouge with the vague hope of paddling with the sea lions again. The wind was up around 20-25 knots and it stayed there. I found most of the sea lions outside the sand bar. The tide and the waves were coming in which added to the enjoyment of watching them. One female was feeding right in front of me and stayed right in that area.
And then I saw a large male surfing. Yup! Surfing! I saw him bobbing around as a 3 footer was getting ready to break. Usually they dive under or just ride over a wave. This guy just flipped his flippers, caught the wave as it broke and rode the surf. And a nice ride it was too. I had never seen that on TV before nor had I heard of sea lions surfing.
Then the female I was watching flipped underneath an incoming wave and rode it in, underwater! Both were deliberate acts. Over the next 30 minutes I saw several males catching waves, sometimes two on the same wave. And a couple of times I saw two females riding the same wave underwater. I didn't see any males underwater nor did I see any females on top of a wave either.