We explore Morro Bay

October 8, 2011

This morning we dinghied around the Bay taking in the amazing bird life on the shore.

Morro Bay was the end point of our Big Sur bike tour so naturally we had to revisit the inn from the water. It’s next to a huge rookery, empty at this season, for herons, cormorants and egrets.

White pelicans ranged on the tideflats, willets and curlews flew by us in droves and lots of other little birds that were too far to see drilled into the mud. Later we joined a bunch of MBYC members watching the sailing club from Cal Poly as they ran around the short obstacle filled race course set up by the YC. The kids ranged from At One with the Boat to What’s a Jibsheet? (Actually they reminded me of us SYC adult Vanguard sailors.) We had a riotous commentary going from the club’s balcony as they took turns racing in the club’s Flying Juniors. No one capsized and there was only one mild collision with a hapless vessel on a mooring. Thank goodness we’d moved Gratitude to a buoy further up the harbor first thing in the morning.

Charlie enjoyed a too short schmooze with the skipper of a beautiful Tartan 47 who was ited up at the dock. They exchanged tips on tying to a mooring ball. Charlie's new gadget proved the most effective, though he did have to replace a plastic pin with a metal screw. We walked around town via the waterfront boardwalk and discovered that it's a huge tourist destination!

In the late afternoon I took a walk to the rock. Morro means turban or dome shaped rock. It’s a volcanic plug, revealed by erosion, actually from an ancient volcano. Many interesting kinds of lava can be seen when you get close. One of the fabled peregrine falcons of the rock flew past me as I approached and another soared at the top of the rock. On ocean beach behind the rock the Scholastic College Surf competition tents were set up. Even though a frigid northerly was howling at about 25 knots out there, half a dozen talented nuts in wetsuits could be seen paddling out to catch the last of the day’s good waves.

October 9
Before heading to Port San Luis for the night, we took an hour paddling around the marshes and mudflats. The birding was wonderful. Long billed curlews, dowagers, willets but most amazing was the immense flock of small (maybe least?) sandpipers coating the edges of one little island. Help me, bird friends. We only had the iPhone for pix.