Pivot Day 3 - Arr, Mateys, There Do Be Fog Here

Low tide was at about 8 this morning, so we were up and out and on our way back to Cape Perpetua pretty early. The Spouting Horn is the coolest thing there, but Thor’s Well is pretty cool too, and I wanted to see it at low tide. So we went to see it and it’s a big hole in the lava with and arch on one side opening out to the ocean - neat. If you were planning a single trip to CP you’d definitely want to come at high tide, but if it’s on your way somewhere else it’s worth stopping in at different tide levels to see how things look.

From CP we continued driving south to our hiking destination, going in and out of the fog and sunshine. The coast south of Newport is a great place if you want to do a lot of stopping – it seems like every mile or two there’s a public beach, wayside, picnic area, scenic viewpoint, campground – lots of places to stop and enjoy yourself. We were headed to the Hobbit Trailhead, a hike Jen and I did when we stayed in Florence that I thought Dave would like. 

You start on 101 and take a lovely twisty trail with twisty trees down to the beach (where there is an inexplicable collection of crab shells), then walk along the beach for a mile or so, cross to the east side of 101 and walk back to the start through and older forest. It was foggy on the beach, so there wasn’t much view. We did see quite a few “tin can” jellyfish corpses (I don’t know their real name). There was also some of the hummocky sand there too, which I don’t remember from when Jen and I were there. We crossed over 101 and hiked back up to the car – it’s a long, gentle mostly uphill – in the beautiful sunshine. It was fog/sun/fog/sun all day long and even into nightfall. We’d thought we might stop at the Cape Perpetua overlook, which is 800 feet above the highway on NFD 55, but CP was completely fogged in and somehow driving up a windy road in the fog to look down at the fog just didn’t sound that appealing. Two things we want to remember: 1. the way we did the loop today – going N on the beach and S in the forest – is the way to do it, otherwise you have to come up a long stairway coming off the beach and b. Heceta Head Lighthouse is 1.5 miles S from the Hobbit Trailhead and would probably be a very nice hike.

We stopped back at the trailer for a few minutes and then it was off to Newport for lunch at Newport Brewing, where the beer and Dave’s nachos were fine and my elote bowl with carne asada was delicious & also reminiscent of a Corner Store burrito bowl. We had about a half hour before we needed to check in for our next activity, so we drove up to the Yaquina Head Outstanding area where Dave went for a short walk and I took a short nap in the car. While Dave was hiking he checked his facebook and made a sad discovery – Lava Beds National Monument is being threatened by the Antelope fire and the park has been closed. So there went the second half of plan C. We decided to think about our options and not do an immediate pivot.

Then it was time to check in for our 2 hour tour with Marine Discovery Cruises. You have to check in an hour in advance because parking near there can be crazy and they want to make sure nobody misses the boat. So we checked in, and also decided we’d like to stay in Newport for another couple of days (Heceta Head lighthouse, anyone?). Dave called the KOA and while our spot was reserved starting tomorrow, there was another spot open that we could move into. This was such good news that we enjoyed shopping on the historic bayfront, scoring a Mexican style jacket for Dave and a lightweight jacket for me at the Discovery Cruise store. We barely finished all our shopping and it was time to get on the boat! I left my waffle shirt in the car, which was a mistake.

We all lined up by the railing waiting to board the boat, and had our safety drill including learning to point at someone who has fallen overboard and yell “MAN OVERBOARD”, which we practiced doing and were all quite good at. Cap’n Nick, a Newport native, drove the boat and Emma, a marine studies student at OSU, was our naturalist and also the person we all pointed at during the man overboard drill. Nick and Emma both had the same jacket I just bought but nobody seemed to think I was part of the crew.

We cruised around the harbor a little, giving way to the Northern Ram and learning to identify shrimpers and trawlers (we’d learn trollers later). We also dropped two crab pots baited with fishheads. Then we headed out under the famous Newport Bridge and out to the open sea. Which is very different in a small boat than in a cruise ship. I think it would have been a lot of fun – the sea was very calm and there was no wind – but there was a “fresh” fog (what does that mean?) and you pretty much couldn’t see where you were going – or whether that giant shape was a ship or your imagination (the former). Cap’n Nick turned us around and we went back under the bridge and cruised around the harbor and up the river, which is brackish and has jellyfish and crabs and the occasional bull shark but looks like a river. We saw California Sea Lions and learned that they’re all male – apparently the females stay in California while these males spend most of their time partying in Newport, making the barking noise which is so loud and takes so much air to make that eventually it changes the shape of their heads. We also saw some harbor seals and steller sea lions and cormorants and common murres, and we went back and pulled up the crab pots and we had caught three crabs, all of which were female so couldn’t be kept, and all of which were too small to keep even if they’d been males. Dave got to hold one. And we saw some oyster farms, where they get oysters (which we had for dinner again tonight) and also a gigantic mound of oyster shells which Emma told us the attach baby oysters to and then they only have to grow one shell. Which sounds a little suspect to me. While we were cruising along Dave got a call from the KOA that the people who were going to come take our spot had cancelled to we can stay without having to move – this is the first time in the history of this vacation that a change of plans has gone in our favor!

One thing about the tour is that you really see Newport as the active fishing town it is; about half the historic bayfront is Pacific Seafood buildings where they process fish and they have one building dedicated to making ice – they can make 500 lbs in a minute, or something like that. It’s just kind of weird and amazing that the front of Newport is all touristy and then the back side is people doing real non-tourist work.

All good sea tours come to an end (at least the 2 hour ones do) and eventually we came back to the dock. I had gotten pretty chilled and was glad to get back in the car with the seat heat turned on. We stopped at the trailer for showers and then off to Waldport and Ona’s again, where the food is excellent and we eat too much. A standout tonight were the steamed clams – they were just unusually delicious. The restaurant looks out on the Yaquina river and it’s always fun to watch the sun set and the landscape disappear. We were waiting to see stars, but as it got darker more fog blew in, so we didn’t see many. After dinner guess what, back to the trailer for recliner time!