The great coastal scenery of northern California continued into southern Oregon. Samuel H. Boardman State Park in southern Oregon runs 27 miles from above Brookings and has fantastic shorelines with many big monoliths, sea stacks, a natural bridge, an arch and many turnouts for other great views. It's a good thing the state owns this strip of land, otherwise it would be all developed.
The Oregon Coast Trail currently follows 300 of Oregon's 350 miles of coastline and they're working on the other 50 miles. The Boardman State Park stretch of coast is well worth hiking. I hiked a little of it but continuous rain for several days nixed the idea of doing more.
The rain made me look for other things to do. I started beach combing and investigating tidal pools and sea gardens. I found a fair number of sand dollars, a shell from 2 to 4 inches across with 5 leaf like patterns joined together to look like a leaf on a vine. Found tons of green sea anemones, many orange starfish and many, many purple ones and lots of purple sea urchins. Also found a mussel shell 8 inches long. Made me think of malevolent, mutant mussels. A lot of the beach combing I did was in heavy rains and winds strong enough to push me around. I have some decent rain gear and just bowed my head into the wind and continued doing what I was doing.
I was camped for a week with 15-20 coho salmon fishermen 9 miles up the Rouge River in the town of Gold Beach during the rains. One day I went down to the mouth of the Rouge to investigate the area and maybe see some harbor seals. Well I saw harbor seals all right, but I also saw something else... in fact 2 different something elses..
I drove along a little harbor and out onto a seawall. I saw many things in the water moving around. Thinking they were harbor seals I got out to watch. They weren't harbor seals, at least not many of them. They were sea lions, both California and Stellar sea lions... a bunch of them.
California sea lions are the ones we see in the circus balancing balls on their nose. They weight 300-750 pounds and dive and swim through the water with a lot of grace. Steller sea lion males average 1200-1500 pounds and can go up to 2000 pounds. They're a tannish color and plow through the water with their nose up when on the surface. Watching them at 150-200 feet from the jetty was awesome.
Later, I watched as they caught incoming waves and surfed them. No kidding. The first time I didn't believe my eyes but it was frequent and no accident. If a sea lion happened to pop up for air as a wave was getting ready to break they would flip with their flippers, positioning themselves for a ride. The Steller sea lions always seemed to ride the waves on top while the California sea lions rode them in underwater, sometimes 2 on or in the same wave.
The next day was a break in the weather. Nothing as spectacular as the sun shining but it wasn't raining. It was blowing pretty hard but I decided to dunk the kayak in Pacific waters anyway. I didn't expect any big problems with the wind or the tide or the currents and the draw of the sea lions was too great. I disturbed 30+ harbor seals asleep on a sand bar across from the boat ramp. A bunch of them followed me as I paddled out into 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.
I saw several big bull Steller sea lions in the harbor weighing 1000-2000 pounds and several smaller (presumably) females. Now, I didn't really know the Steller sea lions wouldn't attack me. I didn't think so, hadn't heard or read anything about it but still wasn't sure. So, when I got down to the sandbar across the mouth of the river 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 narrow, fast moving channel and sea lions were moving in and out. I wasn't much more than 100 feet or so away from them. The California sea lions usually keep on the move, diving and resurfacing for air like a dolphin or staying submerged to feed. The Steller sea lions seem to need more air, are lazier or just like to look around more. They didn't seem overly concerned with me in the water with 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 great size and their canine like teeth. Sometimes they'd stick their heads and necks all the way out of the water. Their necks were much thicker than my waist. They are huge. A trip to remember for a long time.
Coos Bay is a logging town. The town exists for Georgia/Pacific, Weyerhaeuser and other big lumber companies. Charleston, right below Coos Bay has several state parks right in a row on the coast and I went to investigate them one day. The first park I came to was Sunset Cove, a beautiful little cove with tall cliffs on three sides. One cliff gave way to a rocky point with a lighthouse perched on the tip.
A little farther up the road is the Simpson Reef Overlook where I found more than 100 California sea lions, most up on island sand bars 200 yards from shore making as much noise as a large flock of Canadian Geese. Most of them were out on the larger island but 20-30 spread out on smaller rock islands 100 yards closer. Many of them were kinda standing there with their heads up in the air like they were checking out the clouds or something. Dunno why. On the islands farther out from shore I could see the tannish color of Steller sea lions. I later heard elephants seals frequent these islands for a resting place too and I later saw harbor seals out there.
At the end of the road and I found the pupping site for many harbor seals. A bunch of them were out in the water sound asleep with their snouts pointed up in the air. Several pairs were cavorting together. They would be head to toe with each other just going around in circles, splashing and having a good time, mating, playing or whatever.
Well, I was so impressed with Sunset Cove and all the seals and sea lions a couple of miles away, I just had to get the kayak in the water, so the next day, off I went. The cove is partially protected by several reefs at the mouth. Two hours short of high tide the waves crashed over them with great effect. As I approached them the swells appeared and got larger as I went. Soon I was in 3 foot swells, some of them maybe 4 feet. Not having been in anything over 2 foot lake waves in a couple of years I wanted to take it easy and get used to things again.
A few harbor seals popped up to investigate this strange being invading their domain. Out past the reefs I started getting 2 foot reflected waves bouncing back towards the ocean. The waves would hit the reefs, some of the wave goes over the reef and some are reflected back out to sea. I paddled out about a half mile and just sat there a while, bobbing around, enjoying just being on the ocean again. Waves crashing against the reefs and 50 foot cliffs proved to me this was an excellent place for a first trip in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the waves were splashing 10-15 feet in the air off the reefs.
50-75 foot cliffs lined the shore as far as I could see which was a couple of miles to Cape Arago, past where all the sea lions were yesterday. Pine trees top the cliffs the entire way with the cliffs broken up by points and columns. They're fronted by reefs, ledges and sea stacks. I paddled a mile or so spotting several California sea lions along the way, sometimes in pairs. Some stopped to look me over but most kept sliding through the water. I could hear the racket they made up ahead on their rock islands and could see their outlines against the sky.
A 20 foot fishing boat was no more than 100 yards away and it was out of sight most of the time as the swells picked me up and dropped me back down. I sat for a few minutes watching waves crash against the cliffs, some of them spraying 30 feet or more up the face of the cliff. Then the water would cascade back down.
Then, directly in front of me I saw a water spout. It didn't register right away and then I saw 10-15 feet of back... a gray whale between me and shore. Wow! Not more that 100-150 feet away. I sat there waiting for another view of it, but in vain. The swells raised and lowered me continuously and there were swells in between us too. When I thought about it, there could have been many more whales around and I never would have seen them. This one just happened to surface right before my very eyes. I didn't want to get too close to the islands with the seals so turned back at that point. Another wonderful trip.
The Sea Lions Cave is a privately owned strip of coast 11 miles north of Florence. I paid the $7 entrance fee and wasn't disappointed. A walkway led down to a view point that overlooked a bunch of ledges that are a sea lion rookery. This is the only place on the Oregon coast Steller and California sea lions give birth to their pups on shore. Everywhere else is out on the rock islands. From the view point I looked down 200 feet to a couple hundred Steller and California sea lions all mixed together.
It wasn't hard to spot the males of either type. They are at least twice the size of the females. The male California sea lions get quite large also. Steller pups are born at 40-50 pounds and live 20-25 years.
The other part of the attraction is the sea caves. The attendant had told me the sea lions were out on the ledges and to go there first. Then I went down 200 feet in an elevator to the caves. They're 125 feet high and 75 feet wide or so, one of the largest sea caves in the world. A rock island projects up out of the middle and 3 California sea lions were up on it making for some nice pictures.
Spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park (rain forests) and Mount Rainier National Park (glaciers) but will save them for the next report.
And that's how my fourth year on the road ended. They've been really great years and I'm looking forward now to the next four years.
Enjoy! I certainly intend to.