We were expecting Dave Harry to join us in the morning for one day of paddling. I kept my eyes pealed and was rewarded by seeing something human-powered come around the point to the south. We started whistling and waving until we saw that our visitor was not Dave but two surfers. They were in their wetsuits paddling their boards down the coast to explore it on this very calm day. After we launched, Dick picked up Dave on the VHF radio. Dave had forgotten his PFD and spray-skirt so Christine Hauser was racing home to get them! We were to meet Dave at Devils Cauldron in an hour or two but we had already packed up, launched and were only 30 minutes away.
We lingered on the coastline rock gardening and explored Devils Punch Bowl, even paddling inside the center of this feature. The Pumch Bowl is a network of arches that open into vertical holes. When the waves are large this must be an impressive place to come and watch the awesomeness of nature! But in the calm swell that we had on this trip, we just paddled into the middle and looked up at people on the trails looking down at us.
Around the south side of Devils Punch Bowl we landed and waited for Dave. He missed us paddling through the Punch Bowl but came down with a new friend, Steve, who is interested in becoming a better kayaker. By the time Dave’s equipment arrived and he was ready to launch it was almost noon, our latest start ever. (Dave takes full responsibility).
From the Punch Bowl area it is a short paddle to Yaquina Head. This headland has a lighthouse on it and is a state park. When I was scouting the coast I explored this head and found a great cobble beach on the south side to camp in. Unfortunately there was a stairway for the public to access this beach. That in itself is good, but every morning at low tide the rangers come down to put yellow signs up near the water’s edge that say: “Caution, Keep Out, Delicate Marine Environment”. Even the signs are OK but while the rangers were putting them up they would notice kayakers trying to camp on the beach and forbid us to stay there.
We arrived on the north side of Yaquina Head and started poking into the cliff there. We found one little cove with a gravel beach that had an arch, a side channel that leads back out through the cliff. Around the tip of the headland there are beautiful spires of basalt, chipped away by the weather into vertical towers to rival the lighthouse itself. As we came around the south side of the headland we stayed wide offshore to avoid scaring the harbor seals hauled out in the delicate marine environment. Even a few hundred yards away the seals panicked and all jumped into the water.
Half way down the south side of Yaquina Head is an old quarry restored into an artificial tide pool area. On my scouting trip I walked down into this project and checked it out. They had spent millions of dollars building a tide pool with handicapped access. A long, long, ramp zigzagged down from the parking lot with viewing areas to look down into the water. The ramp continues down under the water at high tide. At low tide you could roll your wheelchair between rings of concrete designed to look like natural rock and trap water in pools. However, the whole thing was roped off with “KEEP OUT” signs so that no one, handicapped or not, could use it. I knew this but there were no signs visible from the water. The tide was high and there were no harbor seals in the cove so we paddled in, landed and ate our lunch. Just as we were about to pack up and leave a ranger came down and politely asked us to leave. I asked her why this access was off limits and she said it was because harbor seals had started hauling out here. We mentioned that we had checked for them before we landed and she said that we had to leave in case a harbor seal wanted to haul out here. We politely apologized and left the area.
Between Yaquina Head and the mouth of Yaquina Bay there are four or five miles of boring dumping sandy beach so we cut straight across. As we hoped there was calm water and a deep channel behind the south jetty where we had no trouble landing for the day. This evening was the highest and lowest tide of the month so we decided to set up camp just above the high tide line next to the jetty. This put us out in plain sight with lots of beachgoers on the sand and fishermen walking out past us on top of the jetty. We normally tried to hide our tents in the dunes at other jetty beaches. But along the way we had seen other people with tents on the sandy beaches so we decided we could get away with this once in a while. During the evening several locals came by and asked us questions about kayaking. One guy even asked us if it was OK to camp on the beach like this. I told him I didn’t really think so and asked him not to turn us in!
Chris met us at the beach and helped Dave roll his boat to their car. While Dick Ryon and I set up camp, Chris and Dave went into the town of Newport and bought Fish and Chip dinners for each of us. It was threatening to rain when they left so I set up the tarp. But when they came back with dinner and a few bottles of wine the rain had never developed. We had a nice meal sitting on the rocks and catching up with all the gossip. It was a huge meal compared to the camping fare that Dick and I had been eating for days now.