Out and About

So these past few days in Bodega Bay have been enjoyable, some more so than others. Amazingly it's been fairly good weather during the day allowing us to venture out to the bay, nights have been brutal though. Every night so far I've been woken up by the rain, and sometimes by weird dreams. Now to expand on these days in full.

Very unfriendly cliffs

It Feels Like the Very First Time (By Foreigner), oyster sucking

So Monday we just went for a nice little walk, maybe around 3 miles along a small peninsula. Very sheer cliffs, I was rather terrified of going over them to be honest (I kept inching my way towards the edge to look over, what a fall that would have been). Checked around for some herps, but didn't see any on that day, just a lot of birds. Afterwards we went down to a small little pool nearby the peninsula, it was roped off to cars but we could still walk around. One of th first things I saw when we arrived was a mouse skeleton. The vertebral column was broken in half, so not too bad, the skull though was shredded so it wasn't very appealing to take. The pond was fenced off so we just looked over it. Not too much else to say about it. Finally we went to the UC Davis Bodega Bay research lab. ... It wasn't open to the public... So just a quick look around through the car and we left. Might look into having an internship there sometime, but the housing was not so great though. As we drove away we saw the wind battered buildings solemnly sitting on the hillside. So very decrepit. This day I experimented with a new seafood as well; oysters. I had never had an oyster before, but they weren't too bad. Rather slimy as one might think, but a very light taste to them. The one issue I have with them is the amount of salt, which is to be expected. Given that I would eat oysters again, but more of an appetizer instead of a full entrée. Along with those we got some small additions to the experiment, limpets. Limpets are those little cone shells you see everywhere along the beach or along river banks. They are a type of snail and they are edible. Note: cook them and then cut off the intestines. They taste like calamari and have the similar chewiness about them, but get a bit of the intestine and the taste turns to a very strong bitterness. The next day was soon to come.

This certainly looks welcoming

Tuesday... not so good as far as I'm concerned. It really just started off badly, woke up with a headache from the night before, and it never diminished the entire day. There were two main things that occurred Tuesday, first off went to Fort Ross. While we were there it just so happened that a Russian film crew were starting on a documentary about the fort, so we didn't get to go inside, but it was still nice to see. From there we were able to go down to the shore line. In the bushes I saw a rather large shell, so had to go and check it out. As soon as I do the bushes rustle. AHA a reptile. That was all I could discern from it as these were blackberry bushes with nice large thorns unwelcoming to open hands. I was able to see the scales of the reptile so I knew it was either skink or snake (possibly an alligator lizard), but that was it sadly. As for the shell, I left it there as it turned out to be badly stained by moss.On our way back the second most important thing we saw was a large group of Harbour Seals. Got plenty of good pictures and videos of them. They were fairly off in the distance so couldn't get very close, but still very cute as they waddled themselves on shore. After all that we decided to head to a nice little town nearby called Occidental. If every you should go there remember to go to the Occidental Inn for food. The pizza there was AMAZING!! Plus the town has a very tight community feel. While in there we had numerous people walk in and start talking to each other, hugging and jollity then commenced. Further, all the men sounded like loggers telling stories of seeing the local Sasquwatch (I don't believe in this creature, but hey they can believe what they want). After all of this, still had the headache and it was time to head back to the trailer.

Poor thing lost one of it's legs, oh well it will grow back.

Such a cute little gopher!

Now we are up to today's adventures. After waking up a few times in the night, once to move from couch to bed and others due to rain and dreams, the first thing I notice, MY HEADACHE IS GONE! Oh so happy about that, just knew it was going to be a good day, and indeed it was. The day was spent another small peninsula that went out into the bay. Out at the end was a long line of rocks for wave control. Within the rock cracks I discover numerous starfishes, so that was cool. While climbing around I also frighten a Norwegian Rat among other small rodents. However the best part of the day was when I found a large vertebra. This I kept. Definitely larger than human vertebra, but I couldn't tell if it was a seal, or perhaps a dolphin? I don't really know. So I decide, Hell I'm looking for more. I went all the way out on the rock line and found one more vertebra, whether they are from the same animal, I cannot tell. BUT, these were not the only bones I found on this day. Along with those two vertebrae there was a head of what I assume is a humerus (s it was not human, so large marine mammal. Dolphins don't have femurs and this was larger than the femur of a seal I think). Lastly a rib of a bird probably. Also along this peninsula we happened upon a gopher digging out a little hole for some food. So we know have a video of a cute little gopher scrounging around. For lunch we had some wonderful Dungeness Crab, a very messy meal. And up til now the only other thing we have done was play a rousing game of Aw Shucks. Today was indeed a good day.