We paddled south past the calm cove below the Heceta Lighthouse and past a point called Devils Elbow. We started seeing a lot of sea lions in the water. We saw large numbers of them hauled out on the rocky shore ahead and were about to turn out to sea to avoid spooking them. I looked up and saw a square structure inside a cave half way up the cliff. People were inside this structure looking down at us! For a second I wondered what this could be but then I remembered that this is the location of “Sea Lion Caves”. A tourist stop that has an elevator shaft drilled down from the road to the caves near the water. People pay to take a ride down to see sea lions up close. I started to think that perhaps the sea lions here are acclimated to humans and we could go through these caves after all. But just then a megaphone voice came down from the deck at the top of the cliff: “Attention Kayakers! Please stay 400 yards offshore! This is a protected area!” As this amplified voice boomed off the cliffs, all the seals jumped off the rocks. We think it was the ranger and not us that disturbed the seals this time! I gave the ranger the OK sign and we turned and went out to sea around these caves. From the south we could see that one of these caves was huge and went clear through the point. It would have been spectacular rock gardening.
From Sea Lion Rocks we could see the Siuslaw River Jetty. On the topographic maps this is a small jetty, but the satellite maps show that it has been extended and the end of each breakwater has a split shape with two ends on it. I wondered if this was a new design that resists being destroyed by storm waves. When we got close we could see huge piles of driftwood in the crotch of the split. Whatever the reason for this design it seems particularly good at catching driftwood!
Whenever the tide was against us, usually when the water retreated and made us carry our gear long distances to launch in the morning, I always joked “Who planned this trip?” As we turned into the Siuslaw River, we picked up the maximum ebb current running up the river. This was moving at over three miles an hour and if we paddled with it we clocked ourselves at over seven miles an hour! So this time I was able to joke “Good Planning!” even though it was more or less an accident that we were able to use this current.
It is not unexpected to find sand dunes at the beach, but Oregon seems to have huge fields of sand dunes everywhere. As we paddled up the river we passed more and more sand and huge dunes on the south shore. We landed next to one of these to have lunch. Then we continued on to pass under the Highway 101 bridge. I had seen a parking lot next to the river here with a paved trail heading down towards the water. This belonged to a nearby motel and I figured they had a beach for their customers to use. I wanted to drag our gear up this trail to get it near the road and near where our car was stored in an RV storage lot across the highway. Unfortunately, that trail must just loop back up to the motel because we found no access from the river to the highway. We had to fall back on Plan B, which was to cross the river and land at the public boat ramp there.
When the ramp was in sight I started practicing rolling my kayak fully loaded. This impressed a boy who was on a dock fishing with his grandpa! Dick was eventually inspired to try his roll out as well. He has never rolled a fully loaded boat before and says that it moved slowly but eventually came up. I have only rolled my Prijon Kodiak once before. It was empty then and did not feel particularly easy to roll. Fully loaded it came up easily. I had an unusually intense feeling of the boat flipping over as I started my “hip flick” each time.
After rinsing a lot of the crusted salt off our boats and ourselves, we landed on the boat ramp. We had just paddled 180 miles down the coast of Oregon in our kayaks!
Because we didn’t find access to Highway 101 from the other side, Dick had to hike across town, across the bridge, and a mile farther to get to the RV storage lot to pick up his car. This only took a half an hour while I sat and watched our gear. We loaded everything up quickly and then drove off to visit Dave Harry and Christine Hauser on our way home.