Adventures along the Northern California Coast

After spending our first day at King Range NCA at Black Sand Beach, we wanted to see more of shelter cove. So the next day when we headed down the hill, we went straight instead of turning right, and ended up at Mal Coombs Park. Next to the parking lot sat a lighthouse and a big grassy area. Plenty big enough to run Bailey. Finally!

See, my only complaint about our Wailaki campsite was the poison oak. It seemed to be everywhere. And while Michael and I could avoid it, Bailey didn’t exactly care. So at camp he was leashed up all the time. Bailey doesn’t complain about anything, of course, but I was happy to give him some time to stretch his legs.

Mal Coombs Park is a tidal pool area. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived the tide appeared to be coming in. We talked to a local who confirmed that for us, and he gave us a fabulous heads-up: The next low tide was 8am the next day. Also, it was going to be a negative low tide, so the water would be even lower than normal. He suggested that if we were looking for abalone shells, the best time to get there would be around 7am or so.

I hadn’t thought to look for abalone shells before. But that sounded like a great idea and Michael agreed to get up early. Again.

With that plan in place we checked out the other areas of Shelter Cove, like Seal Rock and Abalone Point. We had fun watching the harbor seals, and I got to use my zoom lens.

 

The harbor seals were all out sunning themselves. I swear, they look like Bailey when he’s getting snuggles. My friend Kevin once called it Blissful Dog Face.

 

 

At one point, though, a big set of waves rolled in and a lot of the harbor seals got swept off this rock.

Of course, being harbor seals this wasn’t a real problem – no, the issue seemed to come with the resettling. There were a couple of kerfuffles as everyone re-established their space.

Eventually the darker seal moved away.

Abalone Point was also great for pictures.

The next morning my alarm went off at 6:15. I guess it was lucky we had some recent practice in the “putting the tent away before breakfast” thing, because we were underway to Shelter Cove just before 7am.

When we arrived at Mal Coombs park there was only one other car in the parking lot. We saw more turkey vultures than anything else as we headed out, looking for shells. The water was incredibly low.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw crabs and starfish and hermit crabs. Honestly, I didn’t actually know what to look for, as far as abalone shells went. I found my first one by accident.

Michael got the hang of it a lot more quickly. He had a little help, though. After a short while we did start to see other people in the tide pools. Most of them were wearing neoprene wetsuits, and going out a lot further into the water. Michael sidled up to one of them, who was on his way out, and who gave him a nod and said something that sounded like, “gone ab’n?”

After Michael figured out that the guy meant if we were collecting abalone, he asked for tips on finding the shells. You have to look in the crevasses between rocks, he said, and near sea grass or kelp.

Of course, he was talking about the live ones. Yep, a lot of the people we saw out that morning were gone ab’n. Apparently people eat them. (I looked it up later – abalone can be eaten as sushi, but are also excellent sliced up into steaks and pan-fried.)

After an hour, this was our haul.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with these shells. Probably ship then off to San Luis Obispo. Anyway, we talked with a group of people on our way back to the parking lot, and they happily showed us their (live) haul. You need a permit to catch abalone, and there are also size restrictions. Each catch was looked over by a monitor we saw in the parking lot.

I should have taken a picture – but here’s what live abalone look like. The link is for an article in the LA Times, about the dangers of diving for abalone. But the picture is pretty accurate. The people we talked to were not diving and we asked them how, exactly, you catch an abalone. There seemed to be some difference of opinion as to the best way.

The older folks claimed that speed was your friend – and a big knife to help pry them off. Abalone are mussels, and if you don’t get them off their rock right away, they hunker down and are impossible to remove.

The younger guy in the group said that slow and quiet was the way to go, that he could gently remove an abalone from a rock without them putting up a fight.

Things to keep in mind if I ever take up abalone hunting.

We all arrived at the parking lot together. The group had been there for a few days, fishing, and told us that they had more fish than they could eat. Ling cod and rock fish. Did we want some?

Is the Pope Catholic? We happily said yes. Fish tacos, anyone?

Still, it was with a bit of sadness that we departed from the Lost Coast that morning. This was such a beautiful area, and after the crowds of places like Yosemite, the King Range NCA was delightfully empty.

Our next stop was Eureka, California. It’s a big town so we knew we’d be able to resupply on everything, which was what we needed at that point. Even dog food, which lasts a lot longer now that we have just one dog to feed.

Eureka’s WalMart was pretty much right next door to PetCo (or was it PetSmart? I can never remember)…. On a map. In reality, the WalMart is part of the Eureka’s mall. Well, one entrance is. We asked when we went in, and the guy at the door suggested we go around the mall, to the back, and park at the main entrance.

The more time I spend in northern California, the more confused I get. In central and southern Cali, the coastal areas are generally where you find the wealthy. Poor people live inland. And yet in NorCal, these coastal towns have more rednecks than a trailer park in Arkansas.

Case in point: Eureka’s WalMart.

I’m pretty sure that the website PeopleOfWalMart was created because of this WalMart. I think our truck was the nicest vehicle in the parking lot. The store’s produce “section” was a laughably small corner of the store. We quickly decided to just resupply dry goods, like almonds and paper towels, and then find a real grocery store.

The real grocery store turned out to be a Safeway on the east side of town. When we arrived, I could tell we were definitely in a higher rent district. Safeway’s produce section was lovely.

Here’s the main problem I’ve found with coastal California: no free camping. I’m guessing it’s because of all the homeless people but we had a terrible time finding a free campsite without having to drive 2 hours out of our way. (All the State Parks were booked, in case you’re wondering – and besides, they cost $45 per night!)

We found a place on FreeCampsites.net, but it sounded iffy. And the last time we checked out an iffy site (just north of Fort Bragg) we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. That one was oceanside, a big gravel pullout from the southbound lane of Highway 1. We found at least three car bums in sketchy-looking vans. The last van had a rabid-looking pitbull that the owner, a tiny little woman, could barely control.

Needless to say, we didn’t camp in van-land. So we were a bit wary of this site, a rest stop off Highway 101, near Trinidad. Apparently you can stay in a California rest stop for up to 8 hours. This site had several reviews by people who had successfully stayed there overnight.

Well. It was 5pm and we were only about 30 minutes away from this site. When your campsite may be illegal, you don’t want to something stupid, like set up shop too soon, because then you might get noticed. The key to illegal camping is to keep it on the down low. We got that tip way back in Park City, Utah. So we found a coffee shop where I could work on the blog. This led us to yet another side of Eureka: downtown, aka the upscale boutique area. Eureka seems like a complicated place… someday I might want to check it out a little more.

Next post: highway camping!