The Call of the Coast

 

Goat Rock Beach

It was the Geek's birthday at the begnning of October and we opted to spend the day at the coast. We don't give presents to each other; we rather spend a beautiful day together. It's only a short drive to the coast, but by the sea feels like being on vacation in a different world. You just need that every now and then.

We started at Doran Beach in Bodega Bay and slowly made our way north up the coast, walking at favorite beaches. The weather was a very mixed bag - a swift change from thick fog to clear skies and sun and the other way round as well.

This is what it looked like from the cliffs on our way down to the beach...

... and this is what it looked like at the beach. There are only a couple minutes between these two photos. (The picture below is Portuguese Beach, "our" clean-up beach where we used to participate in the state-wide coastal clean up day in September; unfortunately we can't join that anymore since it is always on a Saturday and I have to be at work.)

This is a typical Northern California day at the coast.

While walking along the beach, I enjoyed seeing all the "stuff" that the ocean swept onto shore, without knowing what you call most of these (well, I know kelp and crab of course).

Feathers could be found everywhere and they make a beautiful subject. I assume it's from a gull - more on gulls in a later post.

This "creature" was my favorite:

Of course I couldn't resist sticking my feet into the surf. The water wasn't as cold as I had expected, maybe because the beach here (Doran Beach) is rather shallow and in a protected bay. Usually the ocean along our coast is freezing, being supplied with nice cold water coming down from Alaska.

Someone had played with sand - Stonehenge on the beach.

I always look for shells and I found a couple beautiful pieces.

At Goat Rock Beach - my all-time favorite beach - we hung out on a large piece of driftwood, looking out onto the foggy ocean.

The gulls kept us entertained. We also saw Brown Pelicans swooping over the ocean, barely touching the water. They are such graceful birds and always look a bit primeval.

We ended the day with a visit to our favorite seafood place, Betty's Fish & Chips. It's hard to beat their seafood and we always compare seafood that we eat anywhere to them. So far only the Seafood Shack in Gualala comes close. We find that many places make the batter too thick (probably to save on the fish), but at Betty's the batter is just right and the cod can't get any fresher.

I'm sharing this delightful, tasty fish with Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date.

Water Creatures

 

For this week's Thursday Art and Dinner Date over at Rain's place the topic is "water creatures". I start with a small watercolor painting I did last year in the spring. I think it was either Sketchbook Revival or one of those Taster lessons - I really can't remember and unfortunately I also forgot the artist who was doing the lesson.

Let's continue with birds - there are so many that are found in or around the water. Here's one of my favorites - a Black-Crowned Night Heron.

But I also love Egrets and Great Blue Herons.

Only once did I see at the lake what I believe is a Wilson's Snipe.

Watching pelicans is always a joy - either the American White Pelicans inland in the winter or the Brown Pelicans at the ocean.

At the ocean of course we have lots of gulls - since I'm not good at identifying them I hope that David will help me out here.

As you can see there are also other water creatures in the left image, albeit pretty dead - freshly caught salmon in Valdez, Alaska, where we also saw very cute sea otters, but I don't have a picture of them.

Another gull with its dinner.

If it's not dinner, it looks like this:

Angry bird...

Oystercatcher on Spiekeroog, an island in the North of Germany.

And a sweet Common Ringed Plover (I think) that I saw in Ireland.

A Bald Eagle casually sailing by on an iceberg in Prince William Sound - do they still count as water creatures? They catch fish...

A very special fish - made from pumpkins! Photo courtesy of Kaefer (she took the picture at the garden show "Blühendes Barock" in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart).

But back to the ocean - harbor seals are plenty here and this year we saw more elephant seals than usual.

I shouldn't forget seastars and sea anemones - and of course shells!

The following water creature is not only found in Hawai'i and California.

But in Hawai'i you find the Green Sea Turtle and at our lake the small Pond Sliders

Here's a fun one - this one lives in the Berlin Zoo and is one of the offspring of Knautschke, a hippo  born in 1943 that survived the bombardment of the city in World War II. He died in 1988 after fathering many many little hippos; he was the darling of Berliners, and of course there is a sculpture of him near the hippo enclosure.

And look at this cute water creature! Or is it a mud creature? She was 16 months old when we took her to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Northeast Germany which is home to many lakes. She loved playing in the water and also did her first independent steps in the water (she was a late walker and very early talker).

What's for dinner? You guessed it - fish and seafood of course!

T is for Trip on Mother's Day

 

Every year on Mother's Day we used to go up the coast to Mendocino. However, due to the pandemic we hadn't been there since 2019, so this year my wish was to go back to Mendocino. This was the first time that we did this trip without Kaefer. I have written about Mendocino several times - here, here,  and here. Sorry, this is a photo-heavy post.

Mendocino is a small town located right on the Pacific Ocean in Mendocino County which borders to the North of Sonoma County. It takes about two to three hours to drive there depending on how many slow moving vehicles are in front of you. All the roads to Mendocino are windy backroads with very limited opportunities for passing other cars. We also usually have breakfast somewhere in between, but this time the place where we usually go to was a big disappointment and I doubt that we will return.

We arrived shortly before noon and first walked around the picturesque town a bit.

Mendocino has a lot of old water towers, but depite them as a result of our heavy drought they had to endure a very severe water crisis. Their own water was running out and they had to truck in drinking water from other places. Imagine sitting right on a huge body of water, but having no water to drink.

I have always loved the beautiful gardens in Mendocino, full with colorful flowers. Flowers that are lining the white fences.

But the water crisis changed how people garden, and what I now saw were manly gardens with drought tolerant plants that don't need much supplemental water - and definitely not here on the often foggy coast.

Mendocino is full of little nooks and decorations on buildings. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this sign, taken outside Dick's place.

One of my favorite places in Mendocino is the Gallery Bookshop - it smells of books, the shelves are crammed with books, everywhere are benches and chairs to sit and read. It's a wonderful old fashioned bookstore. Some of my most useful gardening books for the Northern California climate I found here.

Then we headed out to the Mendocino Headlands, passing more beautiful places within the town.

The Headlands are on a peninsula which gives you beautiful views of the ocean and back to Mendocino. From here you can see how it is located on top of the cliffs. It is indeed very romantic - as well as often cold and almost always windy. I was glad I was wearing my thick winter jacket.

The headlands were covered with wildflowers, especially lupines in white, yellow, pale pink, blue and purple. It was a feast for the eyes.

But there were also other wildflowers, like this mallow which I think is an Oregon Checker Mallow (Sidalcea oregana) and wild iris.

And then there was the ocean with a shoreline so different from the one at Salt Point. 

There is a pretty big blowhole out on the bluff - it didn't blow much, but the noise when the ocean splashes in there is quite impressive.

A narrow trail leads around it - and then there were always those views!

Thrift Seapink (Armeria maritima) and California lilacs (ceanothus) rounded out the wildflowers.

As you know, I love trees, and somehow I really liked this one and couldn't stop taking pictures of it.

After having walked the big loop we returned to the town and now it was time to pay a visit to the Chocolate Haus. Oh my! Mother's Day was a great excuse to get some wonderful chocolates.

We opted to drive back along California Highway 1. At this time of year, the road was lined with wildflowers.

Looking out over the ocean,you can see the marine layer (aka fog) hovering over the sea at the horizon. It didn't take long to reach the land.

The view from the highway to the West and to the East.

We stopped in Gualala at the Seafood Shack for some delicious rock fish and chips and a bottle of local Scrimshaw. This beer is brewed in Fort Bragg which is about 10 miles north of Mendocino. The Seafood Shack is a small local business that we try to support whenever we can. Like so many places, the pandemic hit them hard, but since their seafood is one of the best along this part of the coast, we always stop here for a late lunch or early dinner. The staff is hard working and always very friendly. And of course you guessed it - the beer is for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday. Cheers to you, Elizabeth, and all of the T visitors (i.e. YOU who is reading this right now).