Here's an inconsequential narrative, but it's illustrated with seven photos
that I'm putting into a new album in the Photos section ("College Cove"), and
they are the actual story, or at least, worth looking at for their own sake.
These comments only augment them with place names and anecdotal trivia.
Last Sunday I went out in the morning to see if there were any waves anywhere.
The surf these last few weeks has been small to smallish
(waist-high/shoulder-high) but very surfable, particularly for a longboard.
But Sunday (and Monday, too, unfortunately) there were no waves anywhere; it
was the vast Pacific Lake all up and all down. On Sunday, the last surfbreak I
checked out was a spot I've never surfed before, called College Cove.
It's just a couple of miles out of the little town of Trinidad and there's a
small parking lot at the end of a short gravel road which tees off of a twisty,
up-and-down, one lane road, called Stagecoach, that heads north from Trinidad.
You take a small trail at the far end of the parking lot through the forest
maybe two- or three-hundred yards or so, and there's a little spot to stand in
the trees right at the top of the bluff; and from here you can look down and
see if the surf is breaking. (see, Photo No. 1.)
As you can see for yourself, it was calm and flat, but enticing nonetheless,
even if not for surfing. There's a small, stepped trail leading down from the
left of the view spot and it wends down the bluff through the trees. Flowers,
ferns and foliage of all sorts shoulder the trail the whole way down to the
beach. (Photo No. 2.)
It's not too far before you glimpse the shorebreak at the bottom of the trail.
(Photo No. 3.) College Cove is a lovely arc of soft sand and scattered sea
stacks tucked into the redwood and deciduous forest that blankets the hills and
valleys that meet the ocean here in Humboldt. This is a view looking south
from where the trail empties onto the beach. (Photo No. 4.) Here is another
view, looking north while standing among anemone-covered rocks exposed during
low tide. (Photo No. 5.) And a sight-line through sea stacks to Trinidad Head.
(Photo No. 6.)
No one but myself. I walked along the curve of the beach and listened to the
gentle crash of tiny waves as they made their own small contribution to the
beach -- the lightest and siltiest of sea sand.
At the far end of the cove, I started to climb one of the larger stacks, one
with trees and brush on top, but after a while I thought better of the idea and
made my way back down. As I strolled back to the trail at the other end of the
cove I glanced back one more time at the sea and just as I did, the smooth,
grey back of a dolphin broke the surface and arced quietly across the still
water. I stayed and watched for another few minutes while two porpoises lazily
dawdled in the green sea that lapped my feet. Never got that photo.
There was work to do Sunday afternoon, jail visits with clients and reviews of
police reports in an ongoing trial, and I'd hoped to get some time in the water
before all that; but I wasn't dissappointed in the least with the morning that
it turned out to be.
Got in the truck and headed home. (Photo No. 7.)
