We could be in San Francisco today. It’s cool, solid gray overcast and a slight breeze that’s pretty stiff walking into. A little humid, too;so it’s chilly and we are on the water. A little fog or fog horn would put us in Frisco.
The nature of the beach is subtly changed. The slope and depth varies over most of our walk; not a lot and it’s hard to pin down, but you sort of feel it. The sinkhole is back by the first jetty we reach. Past it where many chunks of concrete are exposed is also just visible a corroded flight of metal steps that might be from a ship.
All traces of old tracks are gone. Other than Izzy and mine the only new ones are from dogs around the fancy pier.
A single Canada Geese is paddling about just off shore. Two sea birds wheel up and down the shore a little ways out from the waterline searching for a meal.
A single eagle makes a couple hops in the trees ahead of us as we approach our major promontory. Just past it there appears to be three or four eagles close to the water a moderate distance off. They are wheeling about and heading away from us shoreward and one appears to be carrying a fish. One bird nearer to us is obviously a vulture and it lands in a tree at the brink of the bank. We are still just coming around the promontory when a young eagle startles up from the beach before the tree with the vulture. It may be the eagles and vultures are having a bit of turf war.
The vulture stays on its perch as we pass by. Usually they fly off, but we may be far enough away for it to remain comfortable.
I look at the beach as we pass the young eagle’s departure area. We are past one place and getting close to another where the sand showed scrabble marks or fish scales that might mark a feeding location. No such marks or food are about the departure area, though. Sand removed from around here uncovered a handful of contoured gray clay slabs three or four feet square that require closer attention to walking due to their slippery surfaces.
The turnaround point at the one-mile mark is free of the usually disturbed sand. This is where we begin experiencing the stiffer breeze as we head back into it.
Only one oyster boat is out today. Another craft shows itself on our backward journey and I can’t tell what it is. At first sight it’s moving pretty fast and looks to be about four times larger than an oyster boat making me think it’s a military hover craft that we’ve not seen for several years. Then it stops, turns around several times, heads downstream a little and stops, then about again to head upstream. Some sound seems to reach us despite the breeze blowing between us. I don’t have the binoculars. By the time I get a pair the craft has disappeared upstream, another mystery. I did take several pictures, but even enlarged the image is too poor and blurred by moisture in the air to be identified.
Jet and engine noises from aircraft can be heard as we walk, but only a single banana chopper appears below the clouds far off towards the opposite bank. The sound to two jets close together flying over towards the end of our walk is similar to fighter jet activity. This is also where another flat-ish piece of whale fossil shows up on the beach close to where other pieces have appeared, a fitting finish to our walk.—-
