This morning our main goal was to get gas and to our kayak tour by 11am. The tour was in Mendicino — which sounds like a familiar town and therefore must have gas, right? Nope! There was one gas station that had $9.59-per-gallon pricing!!! We were literally on fumes so I put $15 into the tank and we headed back to the kayak meetup point. Someone later told us that gas station was literally THE most expensive gas station in the country! So I guess yay for us for finding such a gem.
The kayak “place” was a white van and a couple of dudes with kayaks. We paid in cash and they got us hooked up with a pretty blue double sea kayak, paddles, and life vests. There were probably about 15-20 people max on our tour and two guides. It was breezy but definitely not as gale-force windy as we’ve had in the past, so that was great. And the sun was shining, so the air wasn’t too cold either. Honestly, it was perfect conditions! We launched from the beach and then all paddled to an orange buoy to get started. Then we paddled close to the rocky shore until we went into a cove that had a small cave opening called Thunder Cave because of the roaring noise the water made as it rushed through. We each took turns paddling in and then out the other side. It was really, really cool! The water would sort of surge up and really lurch you forward and the cave got pretty narrow, so you had to be pretty confident with your paddling and ability to control your kayak. There was one lady on our tour who was really struggling! I don’t think she had ever been paddling before.
Then we moved further up the coast and into another cove where there was the Cathedral Cave. We took turns here moving through a much larger cavern, again navigating the surge of the waves to exit. The water was really blue and it was amazing to see the rocky shore, the large kelp stalks and the surge of the surf as it hit the shore and rolled in between the large rocks. We saw lots of birds and one seal lion on the shore. He was sunning himself but did get up and walk on his little front legs a bit, which was super cute.
The tour seemed really short, but we actually did a lot because we doubled back and went through each of the caves a second time. And it was sometimes hard to believe we were even kayaking out there with the huge surges of tides and waves. I know even if we had rented a random kayak, we wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture that far out!
After a quick lunch in the car we headed to Fort Bragg to finally get some normally-priced gas ($4.66/gal) and hopped into a thrift store. Then we decided to go to MacKerricher State Park where we did a short hike to see tide pools and more seals. The path was a beautiful boardwalk through yellow fields of wild oats and flowers. These cute squirrel families seemed to make their homes under the boardwalk and they were popping up all over like little meerkats or groundhogs — sort of standing on their back legs and staring at us! There were 14 seals lounging on the huge rock. We stayed for a bit, but the seals were pretty settled soaking up the sun, so we headed back to town.
We did a little shopping (Kaia got a t-shirt) and we enjoyed some gourmet ice cream at the Cowlick Creamery before heading to Sea Glass Beach. We had read online that there wasn’t much sea glass left on the beach, but the local girl in the t-shirt shop told us where to go… so we figured it was worth a try since we were so far north today. I’m so glad that we did! We “didn’t take the first path on the right, but instead went 20-feet further, stepped over the barricade, and went down a slightly steep path to get to the beach.” The ENTIRE beach was covered in sea glass. We could have just scooped it up into huge bags there was so much of it. It was almost overwhelming after our experience in Puerto Rico where we had to really scour the beach looking for any spec of glass. I got picky with my choices — looking for larger pieces or just green or amber, etc. It was really fun and we stayed until we got too hungry and hour heads started hurting from being upside down so long sifting through glass and rocks.
We had an amazing pad Thai dinner and then stopped at the Safeway grocery store to stock up while we could — now that we knew how rare grocery stores are around here! After a couple of hot showers we are going to head out and see how the star gazing is tonight!
