Winter Sunset With Sea Otters

After making my choice on flooring today (see previous post), I needed to get out into the wild and explore, so I grabbed my iPhone, my binoculars, some water and took off for an area I like south of Carmel that locals call Monastery Beach.  There's a State Park walk that is just south of the Carmel River Beach that extends from the monastery beach area north to the river and includes a rocky shore, south Carmel Bay and views of Pt Lobos.  Entrance is free and walking is very easy.

I parked at the entrance gate area and began to look for, well, whatever was there.  I like hiking the area this time of year because the ground is more moist, the grass is greening in and winter skies are far more interesting.  Wintering birds and local sea life are easy to spot, and most areas are usually not crowded.

The coast is ridiculously beautiful from Pebble Beach to points south of here extending another 70 miles or so - the storied Big Sur Coast.  At the time of day I walked, the tide was low, the intertidal zone was fairly exposed and there was only a whisper of a breeze in 65-degree air.  A few other people came and went but I felt like I was alone and free.

Bush bunnies made furtive dashes from one side of the trail to the other but mostly stayed hidden.  Wren tits, sparrows and crows were active but held their songs as they waited for sunset.  Exotic oxalis is blooming now, a vivid fluorescent yellow spot of color here or there.  I thought of pulling them up as they are an invasive species, but it would hardly matter, so I left them.

After gaining the beach in a matter of two minutes, it became obvious that high clouds might offer an interesting sunset later on.  Harbor seals, sea lions and sea otters were visible in the swells offshore, bobbing in a moderate chop and small swells.  Once again, the ocean was soothing after driving and doing errands.

On the distant juts of land that form Pt Lobos, big waves were galloping and surging to the jagged shore and exploding in tall sprays of white water.  On such an undulating coastline, it is common that one area will be protected and relatively tranquil while another area nearby will be getting pounded by much larger waves.  It all depends on the direction the swell is coming from.

The sun sank steadily into the west, now shining, now hidden behind layers of low clouds on the horizon, and as the anticipated time for sunset neared, sea life became more visible.  Egrets standing on rafts of kelp hunted for fish on the surface.  Cormorants dove and pounced on prey.  A pair of black oystercatchers pecked for small shelled creatures clinging to the rocks, and the ever-present gulls circled back and forth quietly.

I noticed a small persistent squalling call that at first sounded like a shorebird, but I located its source - a sea otter pup of a very small size.  Its mother was kept very busy diving for shellfish and returning quickly to the little one to satisfy its roaring appetite.  Sea otters eat something like a quarter of their weight in shellfish every day in order to fuel their metabolism.  They have intensely thick fur that they must groom with natural oils to keep supple and warm.  The otter pup was too small to dive for its own food and stayed put in a small raft of kelp, either busy eating or looking around for the female and squalling.  Each time she came back, he nuzzled her and climbed up on her belly to grab the food she held there while she floated on her back and fed herself and him.

After some time and a few dozen trips under to find food, the mother led her pup south a little way to an inlet and began searching once again.  I looked away for a while and realized I was hearing an alarm call and looked back.  The pup had drifted too close to the rocky shore and was caught in the surf now and had begun yelling loudly for help from the female.  She popped up from underwater and began her own alarm call, which sounded like a scream.  She torpedoed straight to the pup who was getting a good sloshing and tumbled in the waves helplessly.  She got to him in a flash, took him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him out to a point beyond the surf line.  Any lifeguard would have been completely impressed with her firm and decisive rescue.  They jostled each other, she making sure the pup was fine, he keeping very close to her.  She licked him all over before relaxing and resuming her search for food.

With the drama over and calm restored for the time being, the sun trimmed the treetops of Pt Lobos with gold and cast glimmers on the restlessly moving ocean.  Wren tits sang their descending call from the brush nearby.  The pair of black oystercatchers bobbed and peeped on an outcropping of beaten sandstone, and then beat their way powerfully to the north where a pink and lavender evening sky waited.

Warm and Charming in a Cold Ocean

It's cold enough to snow outside.  It never snows here because it's too warm, even when it's cold.  That is, it's just cold enough to squawk about how uncomfortable you are, how your feet and ankles feel like uncoordinated stumps of wood and your lips won't move much when you try to speak.  But, it's too warm to show proof to your friends by waving photos of your frozen self up to your knees in slushy snow or standing next to icicles.  The ocean looks great no matter what, and when friends see our cold ocean photographed in winter, they say, "Oh, it looks so pretty.  Sure wish I was there."

I guess it goes to show that even a near-death experience can be a thing of beauty.  It was 49 degrees at 7:30 this morning, the ocean was 51, and, with the wind-chill factor figured in, it felt like 20 below or something in the freeze-your-chichis-off range.  The sunlight, beaming in thin slivers through the gathering clouds overhead, glanced off the restless surface of the sea and looked like tinfoil.  Or shiny chrome.

Because I knew how cold the water is, I wasn't very enamored of its chrome-like glitter.  They say familiarity breeds contempt.  I have no contempt for the Pacific, but I do have tons of respect for it.

Which brings me to sea otters, those cute little furry wonders of the ocean that charm the pants off of everyone who sees them.  They aren't actually fat, not like seals, sea lions and other big ocean-dwelling creatures are.  Instead, they're incredibly furry, wrapped from head to toe in the densest fur imaginable.  They spend a large portion of their time grooming oil and air bubbles into their coats so they can remain water repellent.  And they eat and eat and eat, bringing up shellfish from the rocky ocean bottom to bash open with rocks also hauled up from below.

Sea otters float around on their backs, looking nonchalant on imaginary chaise lounges, waving at tourists, grooming their fur, whacking shells on rocks on their bellies.  You see them, nonplussed, riding up and down in storm swells, ducking through cresting waves, thriving in the cold water like you or I do on our living room recliners.  At Pt. Lobos, famous for many reasons now but known in whaling days for a harbor where blubber was rendered, you can stroke a sea otter pelt on display and learn about the differences between otters and seals.  The fur is soft, plush and nearly impossible to part down to the skin.  It has a thousand hairs per square inch.  Just for fun, count the number of hairs on a square inch of your arm.  Not such a big number in comparison.

The mean glitter of the ocean at dawn today warned of cold, so I heeded the signs and stayed dry.  I saw an otter foraging, a sea lion cruising the shoreline and peering over at me as it swam slowly by.  Gulls, cormorants, grebes, and pigeons sailed or perched on high rocks and outcroppings, high and dry.  Down below them, the otter charmed one and all with its ability to thrive in the freezing water.  I'm always tempted to wave at them, but they're too busy staying warm to notice the likes of me.

Clambake Coming

Magically, it appears to be Spring today.  With the former Crosby Clambake Golf Tournament (now the AT&T Pro-Am Golf Tournament) mere days away, the organizers must be feeling like there's a joke in here somewhere.  They are much more used to horrible weather than good.  The greens keepers are masters at the art of squeegeeing  great sheets of rainwater off the greens, lashing the grandstands and tents to the ground with massive cables and ropes as well as corralling flying articles of golfers' attire that have been caught in gusting winds. 

Bing Crosby used to love to host his golf event here every winter.  (By the way, I have no idea of what exactly a "clambake" is in the real world; here it meant that the celebrities went to parties where booze flowed like water.)  The format of pairing actual touring golf professionals with amateurs including celebrities from Hollywood and making them play on spectacular courses lining a filthy-rich exclusive enclave sporting a melange of mansions, some the size of New Hampshire, was a formula initiated by Crosby and continues still. Giving profits to many local charities and nonprofits has encouraged acceptance by we non-elite residents and attendees of the event who feel a little overwhelmed by the gilded environment of Del Monte Forest. 

The downside of the whole idea was, and is, that it's held in, well, you know, winter.  So, a golfer could tee off on the 16th hole aiming at the distant fluttering flag and wind up watching his ball sail over to Carmel Beach, kind of in the opposite direction of what he thought he was aiming at. So, there's the inherent challenge of golf itself:  Tiny hard ball hit with long thin metal shaft at tiny hole beyond lakes, trees and sand pits.  At this particular event, those elements were mixed liberally with The Elements.  In other words, blustering wind at least, and possibly gales.  Also, drizzling fog - which only obscures the long view of the courses, not a problem for a happy-go-lucky celebrity - or slashing rain have been problems. Golf fans have been overheard at times:  "I saw a bird flying upside down and backwards today. "  Happens, you know. 

If today's weather holds up for the remainder of the week, the organizers of the Pro-Am will be ecstatic.  Flocks of golfing fans as well as celebrity watchers will alight in hotels all around the Peninsula and the turnstiles of Del Monte Forest will be whirring.  It's not a bad thing.  We're used to it here in The Groove.  But, rumor has it the sea otters are going to the next Chamber mixer and will be asking for higher wages for being so cute and distracting to the golfers and fans alike. 

In the Storm

The stormy weather that had been approaching us for the past week has arrived with all its bad manners and ill temper, holding us hostages in our homes except for brief tantalizing glimpses of sun and blue sky.  Because it's so gray and heavy outside, the only way I can tell one part of the day from another is by paying attention to my appetite or need for sleep.  Without looking at the clock, I feel like it's 10 AM, but it's after 2. 

There have been some big gusts of wind that have thumped the house soundly.  Rain has soaked things already, driving in from left, right, front, back and sideways.  By all accounts, we need this good soaking, and we are all grateful.

The trees are doing a restless little rhumba out there as gusts of wind shove against their branches, but it's a lull at the moment.  Starlings - trash birds because they are non-native - are squealing and chittering, probably recounting the morning's flights to each other.  "You know Sam? Saw him go by a few hours ago.  Was taking aim at a pine branch at 20 feet and missed it.  Twice!!! HAW HAW HAW!!!  Starlings yell and pound the countertops when they talk, whistle at the girls, full of themselves like that, horning in on nests they didn't build and hogging supplies whenever they can.  Other trash birds you've seen around are English Sparrows, pretty dominant in most human-inhabited areas.  They have the most tuneless call, a shriek really, and grab food off plates at outdoor cafes like tiny wild dogs with feathers.  I do believe that if any bird species can snarl at one another, it has to be English Sparrows.  Cute but mean.  They don't count because they don't belong here.  Not that I'd kill them - and this is off my subject - but invasive species throw a spanner into the works of a native ecological system. 

They're all out there - trash or not - dealing with this winter storm, taking opportunities to forage at the moment, tougher than we are.  We wondered where the sea otters go during storms as we looked at the Asilomar area yesterday.  Usually ineffably cute and charming, they float on their backs or make graceful curving dives to look for abalone and sea urchins, crunching them up with rocks they've found on the sea floor.  They need to groom their thick furry coats constantly to incorporate oils and air bubbles, and they need to eat all the time to keep their metabolic systems in high gear.  I think of them when I see the choppy, nasty surf whipped up by the wind.  Somewhere, somehow they're out there, staying alive.