Exploring Coast North of Mendocino

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Geo: 39.4458, -123.804

It was another day of sunshine and we decided to go do a little
exploring of the northern California coast. We decided we would go to
MacKerricher State Park north of Ft. Bragg. it has a nice boardwalk and
they say it is a good place to view marine life.

When we arrived
at the park, we were pleasantly surprised to see that there was no cost
to enter the hiking area. The lady of the entrance told us to watch
for whales because some of the strays had been seen.

The
boardwalk winds down the coastline with informational signs as you go.
There are places you can go down and explore the tide pools or sit if
you prefer. We saw people doing both.
We got out to the area where
there was a large number of seals playing in the water and hauling
themselves out to rest. It was great to watch them. There are also
some small ground squirrel like animals that kept popping up try to
convince us to feed them something.

Went back to the car and gathered up our things for a nice picnic lunch with a view out over the Pacific. Very nice.

There
was a talk on seals that we went to. It was well attended and there
was the added attraction that we would go out to where the seal pups
were. The man doing the presentation gave us a lot information about
seals and also the difference between them and sea lions. After the
talk we all walked over to the area where the seal pups were. This is
the end of the "pupping" season so they were not as small as we had
hoped. It was still a very interesting presentation.

From there
we headed to the kite festival that had been advertised. It must be in
its infancy because there were not many spectacular kites but a large
number of home-made kites but it did look like the kids flying them wee
having fun.

We started headed back toward Russian Gulch and
stopped off at Jughandle State Natural Reserve to enjoy more of the
sunshine. Nadxli and Jerry walked down to the beach, and Robert hiked
the Ecological Staircase Trail. Laura had a bit of quiet time in the
car.

Back to the campground for our last night at Schooner Landing before heading back to get ourselves repacked for heading home.

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