Scouting and Sea Lions

The scouting mission for our new venue in the Florence area of the Oregon coast is off to a good start. We took a short drive on the vast dunes that are available for atv riding, we found a super crabbing dock and a pier to fish from even for rockfish, checked in at the visitor's center and the sporting goods store (for local knowledge), and went up the bay to look for a good spot for clamming when the tides are right. We also bumped up the coast a few miles and stopped in at the Cave of the Sea Lions, which we entered instead of just scouted because the live feed in the cave which you can see from the gift shop showed lots of the Stellar Sea Lions in the cave including some bulls- a situation not generally expected this time of year. It was a day of dense fog, and the cave is dark to begin with. Since flash photography is not allowed, the combination of low light, pounding waves, rapidly moving sea lions, and the foggy clarity of the air in and out of the cave made for some less than ideal photos, but that's what I wound up with. This time of year, the sea lions are usually all outside the cave on the rocks and the bulls are offshore more, so this was a great opportunity.

If you come here to see this, the largest sea cave in America, be prepared for a 200 foot down elevator ride into the cave which smells very strongly of processed fish. Not processed fish as in fish sticks; I'm talking processed as in sea lion poop. How indelicate. But very real. It is also very loud in the cave- from the pounding waves and the roaring of the sea lions which is very loud when there are a lot of them in the cave.

Today is a damp and rainy and chilly day on the coast so I don't think we will come out of the shoots gangbusters today, but hopefully things will improve in the next day or two and we can get to our planned outdoor activities.

Here's some more from the visit to the Sea Lion Cave: