Locomotoring

One of my wants from the Scotland trip was a walk in the fog. I found that walk much closer, at Point Reyes. The region could be touristy, but it isn’t. Nearly a dozen years ago, we had stayed at the Dancing Coyote Beach Cottage in Inverness pondering the challenges of buying a home in Bay Area. This time, after the surgery, when I needed to convince myself that I was ready to resume normalcy, Dancing Coyote Beach Cottage came to mind. This time I called in early to request the Beach Cottage, it is closest to the Bay, the other cottages stand behind like a small squad. With Beach, one gets a bit more privacy and a lot more view.

These cottages are built by SF born architect Igor Sazevich. Last time we were at Inverness, Sazewich was still alive. The cottages are by the Tomales Bay. They are small but perfect in every way. From anywhere in the cottage – including the bathroom, you can look out at the Bay. The most notable view is the SS Point Reyes shipwreck as the foreground of Black Mountain.

The shipwreck too has a story. Apparently it was a WWII ferry boat, bringing soldiers to their towns. Then it got redeployed as a fishing boat. Eventually it was abandoned altogether for want of a repair. So, not a shipwreck. But shipwreck carries the sound of adventure. More recently, someone lit fire to it so it is deteriorating faster. Environmentalist want to remove it altogether, and the town people want to keep it. To see the shipwreck, you can walk behind the Inverness Store. Grab a made to order sandwich from their Shipwreck Deli and sit out by the Bay. On a clear day, the black mountain with its knuckle shaped ridges stands proud on the other side of the Bay. On summer days, its top is often covered in coastal fog. From our vantage point at the cottage, we saw people fishing by the wreck.

The cottages are only a few miles from the Hearts Desire Beach. We live on the west coast of California, and ergo we have a large number of wonderful beaches near us. However, this one is a perfect little intimate beach. It is a sheltered cove by the Bay, it isn’t windy. You can see Hwy 1 on the other side of the Bay. The water is clear and shallow. It is kayak friendly. You can drive your car right up. The parking is generous. We saw a company renting kayaks out by the hour, right at the beach. You can also reach the beach via the Johnstone and Jepson trails. There are generous number of picnic benches, both on the beach and the nearby vista point group picnic area by the Jepson trail. There are toilets.

In comparison is the McClures Beach on the Pacific coast closer to the Elk reserve. It is half a mile walk down from the trailhead. The beach is cold and wild, a regular Californian beach where you can find washed up bull kelp and star fish. You can hear the strong waves crashing on the beach. The vast ocean in front is uninterrupted except for occasional outlines of a shipping vessel.

For another one of our walks, I had chosen the Abbott’s Lagoon trail. It is a charming trail where one walks across boardwalks and sand. Later, when my partner mentioned that he remembered the walk from before, I looked up my notes from previous trip and indeed, we had walked by before (link). The landscape hadn’t changed. This time we noticed a turkey vulture at a distance and a beautiful blue heron up close.

In the twelve intervening years, both the Marin Sun Farms (link) and Saltwater Oyster Depot (link) have disappeared. This time we ate at the Tap Room gastropub in Inverness. It’s halibut fish and chips were better than those we ate at Scotland. At the Tap Room, we also tried our first zero alcohol beer and liked it. We had to seek out the Hog Island oysters. Google map kept telling us that Hog shack was only 1.2 miles from the cottage, true if we kayaked across. In the end, we ate their oysters at the Marshall Store. For some actual post-hike calories, we also tried their po’ boy shrimp sandwich, a cheesy hot dog bun stuffed with plump grilled shrimps. It was great. Another new find was the Side Street Kitchen from where we took a roasted chicken back to the cottage. And finally, the Cow Girl Barn from where I couldn’t resist a bunch of bougie ferments. My sis-in-law has been on a ice cream making binge, so when I saw cowgirl creamery’s ice cream at the Barn, I couldn’t resist – with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of flaked salt.

Cypress tunnel is where the professional photographers take couples for romantic shots. As the name sounds, it is a long lane with mature Cypress trees leading all the way to a charming art deco building. When the light is right, the Cypress trees are draped in the color of gold. This was our day in fog. The art deco building is a story for the nerds. Here is what the little information board on its door says:

“KPH began operation in 1905 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco (thus the “PH” in the call sign) providing Morse code telegram services to ships at sea. Afer the 1906 earthquake the station first moved to Green Street in San Francisco and then moved to Hillcrest above Daly City, south of San Francisco. In 1920 KPH moved to the former Marconi site in Marshall, California, then owned by RCA. KPH was off the air for the duration of WWII but at the conclusion of war the station was reopened at this location. This building was constructed in 1930 as the receive site for the RCA short wave transpacific radio service which continued until 1973. KPH continued operation from this site until the station closed in 1997. In 1999 the Maritime Radio Historical Society, in cooperation with the Point Reyes National Seashore, National Park Service, began the restoration and operation of station KPH. Today KPH is the only remaining operating maritime Morse code radio station of its type in the world. It is on the air every Saturday providing telegram, press and weather service to ships at sea. The station is open to the public for tours most Saturdays from 12 noon until 4 PM.“

When we were in Edinburgh, we had walked up the Calton Hill. There is a historic observatory (link) there. The main purpose of the observatory was a time service. The transits of stars through the meridian was used to keep the observatory clock, a sidereal clock accurate. I had wondered how that worked given Scotland penchant for rain and fog. The Morse Code strategy on this foggy Point Reyes coast made so much more sense.

Our last walk at Point Reyes was the Chimney Rock trail. It ended up being my favorite walk this trip. This was the walk in the fog, to make up for the lack of fog during the Scotland trip. Located at one end of the Point Reyes headlands, there is Drakes Bay on one side and Pacific Ocean on other. The trailhead was a short 30 minute drive from the cottage. We had left the cottage in sunshine and had approached the headlands in rolling fog. It looked colder than it was. This time of the year, the grasses had dried up. If the sky were clear, it would have looked the color of gold, with the fog, it was the color of hay. I hear that the spring flowers are amazing here. The ocean looked gray. The landmass kept appearing and disappearing through the fog. There were a number of industrial structures that looked abandoned or rather, the wildlife had taken over. One of them was the historic U.S. Coast Guard Chimney Rock Boathouse. In between the rolling fog, we saw cormorants on its pier. At the end of the trail, you can look down at the chimney rock. The cormorants on the rock are numerous, but one would need a binocular to see them clearly. You can see and smell their guano (white color) far more easily. It is one of the spots along the Drakes Bay cliffs where they nest.

Since the last trip to Point Reyes, I have gained a new appreciation for Scotland. So, I wondered why the names around Inverness had so much Scottish influence. In addition to the town name, there were street names like Rannoch Way, Perth Way, Trossachs St, Aberdeen Way, Callender Way, …. One of the cottages by Igor is named Skye. It turns out to be the work of a Scottish landowner.

The other notable name is that of the longest road in Point Reyes, Sir Francis Drake Blvd, named after Francis Drake (link), the (in)famous pirate and privateer from England. Apparently, he was moored at the Drake Estero for a few weeks repairing his ship. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if we changed the Drake Blvd’s name to Miwok (link) in honor of the first nations people who called this land their home, thrived in 120 villages here and took care of this land for thousands of years.

The landscape does look beat up from generations of cattle farming. Most of the cattle ranches stand in disrepair, not gone. Large swathes of land are still blocked off by barbed wires. There are a number of cattle grates on the Sir Francis Drake Blvd. I do love Strauss creamery and yet I am glad that we could buy out the cattle ranchers and give the land back to the wilderness (link). Land like this belongs to no one and belongs to everyone. Most definitely it does not belong to thousands of cows, it belongs to the native wild creatures like the elks, raptors, elephant seals, and the cormorants.

Next time, and sooner than 12 years, I will go to the Chimney Rock trail in the spring. I would ride in with my partner, the love of my life, in our Miata convertible soaking up the coastal fog. I would want the wildflowers to put up a show for me. I would still want the air to smell of guana but I will also have binoculars on me to watch the nesting cormorants. I would want to look out towards the ocean and watch the hump back whales migrating through the rolling fog. I would want to see the elephant seal pups in the Drakes Bay, I already know that they love a foggy day more than me.