Llywindatravels 2025

Weather, weather, everywhere

You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether the sun is coming or going, whether you are in fog, low clouds, sea mist or rain. Here’s the fog coming in:

In 30 minutes it can go from clear to socked in. But 30 minutes after that, the sun can be back out.

How many harbor seals are in this picture? Hint: There are usually more than you first notice.

Today we had a picnic at Navarro Point, where there is a wonderful bench. All along the California coastal trail we find benches with memorial plaques on them. It is a reminder of all the people who enjoyed these trails and worked to make the system possible. This one has an inscription on a small boulder in front of the bench, so your eyes fall on it as you sit and look at the ocean.

We did some binocular beachcombing. That’s when a beach is impossible to access from the bluffs (you could visit with a kayak). We check them out for interesting driftwood and abalone shells. Today’s had both. I had to restrain Jonathan from climbing down to get it for me…

Changing times

I made an amazing discovery on Saturday. There used to be so many abalone that people paved their driveways with the empty shells. There is a house around the corner that is for sale where I noticed the driveway after seeing a lot of crushed abalone fragments in the street.

I went to the beach on Saturday and there were a number of people diving for abalone. I spoke to a couple who were packing up and showed me two of their three. They said it was fun and the water wasn’t as cold as you’d think (!). the man said that he saw a lot of abalone–in the hundreds–during his swim. Again, i was very surprised. I think I have to go snorkeling myself and have a look.

Low tide beachcombing extrav, 8/6/15

I somehow skipped over the most recent low tide beachcombing. The tide is not particularly low but it is fun to go out and walk along the tide line and see what’s there. We began at Jughandle State Park, walking along the rocks, and ended up on the beaches there. Low tide was around 10:20 am, so we left home around 9:30 am, early for us these days, and started our walk before low tide.

The sea was pretty rough, no boats out, but the wind wasn’t bad, and the beachcombing was excellent. I found two complete abalone shells right on the beach. Jonathan saw them from the bluff above, but he couldn’t get to the beach before me.

The freshness of the shells and the fact that they still had abalone muscle clinging to them in places strongly suggests these are poachers’ leftovers. Each shell has a chip broken off the side, as though roughly pried off the rocks. Legally obtained abalone aren’t removed from their shell on the coast. The legal tag runs through the shell and cannot be removed until the abalone is being prepared to be eaten–someone who pried the abalone out and tossed the shell in the ocean in shallow water is almost certainly a poacher.

If this wasn’t enough, we walked along the bluffs near our house in the afternoon and saw a herd of deer grazing in the field covered with fog.

We decided not to go down onto the rocks when we saw that someone had arrived before us:

Perfect Saturday, 8/8/15

Today is beautifully clear and warm, unlike the past three days that were overcast, misty with coastal fog, or both, and downright cold at one point.

We walked all over the south half of the Pt. Cabrillo State Historic Monument, taking the hiking path south from the lighthouse. It was a glorious day/walk/view.

We saw jellyfish in all the eddies–it looks like the recent round of jellies is receding. We saw cormorant chicks on a ledge huddled together as though they would never fly away. A yellow bird that may have been one thing or another–yellow birds are more difficult to identify than you’d think.

What’s a good guest?

I’m puzzling over what makes a good guest. If we are all going to save water, recycle and tread lightly on the world, how are we supposed to do it?

We’re in California right now where the big issue is saving water. Should visitors try to save water when there doesn’t seem to be a water-saving shower installed in a single motel or rental unit we’ve stayed in from Mendocino to Reno, Nevada? Is it ok to take a long shower/use a lot of towels because we are away from home? (I’d say no, but it’s tempting. In a hotel you’re not charged by the gallon for water.)

When we stay in a hotel or rental place we are often on vacation, reinforcing the idea that someone else will clean up because we’re temporary visitors, and have paid for the privilege. Do we really have to recycle? What if there are no bins–do we have to carry our empty plastic containers across state lines?

In addition to hotels/motels/rentals, the most surprising place where you’re unlikely to see recycling bins is in a marina. Isn’t that a contradiction? Wouldn’t you expect people who live/vacation/play on the water to be the most conscious of pollution and related issues?

Rental properties are my current home, and I’ve been considering them particularly closely. The issues are the same: how much water to use/save (should we use the garbage disposal)? The ants were here before we arrived–they just reemerged when they smelled crumbs. Do I have to buy Raid?

At our last rental, we were asked to wash all the sheets and towels before we left–a previous tenant commented on having to do that since we are all charged a cleaning fee. Finding the right balance is not that easy, is it?

A few of my favorites, Aug. 5, 2015

The sun has been coming in and fading out, creating special effects.

Jughandle state park

Blowhole on the Mendocino Headlands

Picnic friend

This is a goblin castle.

It’s only visible on the calmest day on the water.

This is what the sea looked like the next day (today).

Tomorrow’s forecast is for gale force winds and 11 ft. waves.

Go figure.

August is the best month on the north coast

Once we moved back in to our Mendocino house, we had a busy day. We’d decided to attend the benefit for the Mendocino Botanical Garden called “Art in the Garden”. It’s held on the first Saturday in August each year, and this year it was Aug. 1. The flowers were gorgeous, dahlias and begonias among the showiest.

Though the juried art show was more crafts than art, there were some very fine artists present and we enjoyed looking at their work in all media from watercolor to dye-infused metal plates.

We met Marian DeGloria, painter of the logo work of art for the show (above). She had a planter of similar composition beside it. She’s been a volunteer at the Garden for seven years and seems to know her way around plants both on an easel and in the ground.

We used my short cut sketch to make a quick trip two the water’s edge on Saturday evening–it was as stunning a view as ever.

On Sunday, we walked down to Van Damme State Beach where Jonathan tested out how he’d look if he grew his beard into the most popular shape locally:

Ch ch ch Changes, or sun, sand and packing–still no water-saving shower heads in the motel.

This week was the best weather since we’ve been in northern California.

We discovered that you need a guidebook to find some of the access points to the coastal trails, because they are so well hidden. Homeowners are not necessarily trying to prevent public access to the coast, but the rights-of-way are very specific. You can miss a trail if you don’t look carefully.

The picture on the left is about five feet before the picture on the right. If you turn back too soon, you can miss a trail to the water.

A lagoon sits a few hundred feet from the ocean.

The beach is gravelly but beautiful, with no other visitors.

Either the trail needs maintenance, or it has a shady mystique.

This week we moved from our apartment in Ft. Bragg back to Mendocino. Before we left, I took a walk around Ft. Bragg. Our apartment is in the downtown area, bordered by the coast on one side and extending east. From downtown you pass a block or two of transitional neighborhood and then you are in the zone of permanent residents. You can tell from the houses, most I’d call California bungalows. Many are well kept or in the process of being fixed up.

There’s something unusual about the soil in Ft. Bragg, too. I’ve never seen such bright blue hydrangeas outside a florist’s shop.

We moved out on July 31, and had a few hours before we could check in to our motel, so we went berry picking. It included the happy discovery of two apple trees covered with ripe fruit in the middle of the berry patch.

We picked enough wild blackberries to make about 3 cups of seedless jam and 2 cups of blackberry sauce for ice cream. The apples were enough for an apple crisp.

Once again we stayed at a California motel that doesn’t use water-saving shower heads. Thanks Surf and Sand, Ft. Bragg. Let’s just hope you use gray water on your landscaping.

Pt. Cabrillo lighthouse, July 23, 2015

Again, we set out to fish and were dissuaded by the waves. Beautiful, but no luck. We were on the Caspar Headlands.

We could hear the barking of sea lions from our fishing spot, and found about 50 sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks in the background of this photo.

Here’s a closer look.

When fishing proved unpromising, we decided to walk around the Pt. Cabrillo lighthouse, another local landmark. The lighthouse still works, though it is automated now and the lighthouse keeper’s house and the assistant lighthouse keeper’s lodgings are now rental properties.

Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and other places, July 22, 2015

We set off to go into the wilderness, the Sinkyone (Sinky-own) State Park. The park has a herd of elk that hikers often see. After choosing a possible hiking route, we packed our lunch and set off. Not too far before the turnoff for the park we came up to a field and found people pulling off. There were three BIG elk grazing, two in the field and one right beside the road!

We got to the turnoff from Highway 1, onto the Usal Road. The trail head was 6 miles in at the crossroads that is Usal. It’s about another 15 miles or more to the visitor’s center, which we are assured has a water tap, but no other facilities and no resident ranger. From there, a few people with 4wd get further before they begin hiking.

At the top of the first hill, about two miles in toward Usal, we saw an area being logged.

Since we had bottomed out 3 times already, we realized that we were not going to make it to the trail head, not to mention the visitor’s center. Reluctantly, we turned around. On the bright side, we no longer needed to hike deep into the park to try to see elk…

The road back gave us some sensational views of a section of the “Lost Coast”. The name comes from loss of population during the 1930s, and since that time, the general abandonment of the northern California coast from Mendocino to Oregon. It seems to be extremely challenging to build along this coast and today, most of this rugged coastal region is state wilderness. See that narrow beach on the left. There doesn’t seem to be any way to get to it!

When we got back to Rte 1, we decided to visit Leggett, the next town down the road. It turned out to have limited services–mostly businesses that were closed.

Not far beyond Leggett was “The Peg House” a cafe in the middle of nowhere, set between two state parks. We split a delicious Reuben sandwich and a wild blackberry sundae, seated under a parachute.