It has been a crazy winter for storms here in California. Some places got a year’s worth of rain between Christmas and the beginning of March. And sadly, we are still in a drought because the groundwater is sooo low. But the snowpack looks good for summer water and hopefully we won’t have more floods because of too rapid of a snowmelt this year.
The coast took a huge hit with these atmospheric river storms. The pier at Seacliff had a partial collapse, and now it looks like they are taking it down completely. The businesses (mostly restaurants) in Capitola right on the edge were wiped out. The surf came right into the buildings. Santa Cruz had road collapse, especially the Cliff Drive area. I read they may just remove parts of the road and keep it as a one way road from now on. We counted 9 parts of the walking/biking trail along Cliff Ave that had missing sections. It looks like they threw a bunch of riffraff out to try and save other sections. We were not able to go to Wright’s Beach because of closure earlier in February, but New Brighton campground is reopened. Or was. More about THAT later.
On Friday we drove to Ano Nuevo State Park to take an elephant seal tour. We were here in December also. This time there were a lot of females with pups, but also a lot of the weaners that the moms had left behind. They nurse for 28 days and then mom leaves. The pups generally hangout on the beach for a couple weeks and then start playing in the shallows and any pools around. They have to learn how to swim and catch their food. But they have to be wary of the giant bulls- as the female leaves to go back in the water, she comes into estrus and mates. The big bulls just run over anything between them and a female in estrus, or another male. And boy can they move fast! They’ve lost so much weight. In December they were fat and majestic and now they look fairly worn out! And saggy. The beta males hang out right on the edge of the surf trying to catch a female after she mated the alpha male. Sperm competition! Then the female holds the embryo without implantation for a month or so until she comes back to land for the molt. The lose their entire skin and fur over a 3 week time frame before they can go back out to sea until next December or January when they come back to have the pup and mate again.l
We had a bit of rain during the nights but the days were pretty nice. It was actually quite warm coming back from the Elephant seal tour. Cold in the mornings but decent at night by the fire. Site 87 was very nice and we could hear the waves (except for the generators 🤨!). We also noticed walking on the beach, that the sand has been washed away. The beaches are “shorter” between the cliffs and the water even during low tides. High tides there is very little beach available to walk on. Pie Ranch seems to be back in working order also.
On Saturday we drove to Santa Clara to watch Jenny and her partner, Hangel, compete in the semifinals of the Galloway Moot trial. They were representing the government in front of the “Supreme Court” represented by some of the law school instructors. We watched both trials (it was the semifinals). Jenny has put a lot of time into prepping for this and then she got a bad cold this week and was so sick. I felt bad for her. We figured out a drug regiment to get her to Saturday and Dave and I went to watch. She did pretty good, and Hangel was great. Much better than the other “government” team and yes – they made it to the finals!! None of the 8 students were bad but the I don’t think you are supposed to correct the judges!! We came back on Tuesday to watch the finals with actual appellate court judges acting as the SC, and Jenny rocked it. I think she was the most composed attorney and interacted so well with the judges and answered their questions. Her team won the moot trial!! Whoop, whoop!
On Monday, Dave and I went on a whale watching boat – they had only gotten back to tours the weekend before because the harbor had to be dredged after all the storms. It was a 63’ boat and had about 40 people on it. The crew was all women and very good. We went out to the edge of the deep water canyon and down almost to Moss Point. We saw 3 or 4 different Humpback whales, sea otters , sea lions and Harbor Seals. It was great. Until it wasn’t. Bobbing around sideways to the waves is not my cup of tea. You had to move to the back of the boat to “feed the fish” and I did. Like 5 times. Ugh. It doesn’t help the there were 8 or 9 other pukers back there with me. So much for Sea Bands! Bleh…but still I had fun and the whales were awesome!
We also discovered a new hiking place – Wilder Ranch. state Park. We did the hike along the coast and the historic buildings this time. Next time we will try the longer hikes across Highway 1. So many flowers and birds.
We decided that we would leave New Brighton won Tuesday night (we were supposed to stay until Wednesday) to go watch the moot trial in Santa Clara. Then we wouldn’t have to drive back and forth. We parked on the street in front of the Stukenbach home and stayed with them. Turns out, that was truly a great plan. After we put most of our stuff away, we decided to walk the beach again. As we came back, we were told the campground had been closed due to expected high winds and another major storm. So we finished packing up, AND got our last night refunded. Some people had just pulled in the night before to stay a week and had to get out quickly. Saw later that Highway 17 ended up shut down on Wednesday in 3 places from falling trees! All in all, another great trip.
