Beautiful, calm, sunny morning. It's so calm in this cove, it's hard to believe how hard it's blowing a few miles out. Every morning and evening, we listen to NOAA weather, expecting them to say the wind had died down to 3 knots or something, but all we ever hear is, "Small-craft advisories, northwest wind 15 to 25, locally to 30." I think they just made one tape and keep playing it over and over.
Roy spent the morning connecting the shortwave radio to the batteries, and I endeavored to repair the SSCA burgee, which was all frazzled.
A man we had met in Brookings arrived here last night in his boat. His name's Ken, and he's 62. He and his crew rowed over to the Jofian in their dinghy. He said they really took a pounding last night. Blew out the main. They steer outside, so they were soaking wet and cold. Nearly had hypothermia.
After lunch, we paddled around. Found a really neat cove with a big cave. The cave must have been at least 100 feet long, judging by the sound of the waves smashing into the far end. Boomed like thunder.
There was a cement wall, like a dam, along one side of the cove. We pulled up on the beach and climbed the steps to the top of the wall. On the other side was an old, wrecked-out dock and ways. It looked as if there had been a boathouse on top of the dock, but it had burned down. Abandoned electric poles were on the side of the wall, and there was an old shack near the top. We were immediately curious to find out the history of the place. We figured it must have been a Coast Guard station at one time, where they launched rescue boats.
We saw one or two whales swimming around outside the cove, not far from where we were. Roy took his camera back to the boat, while I paddled towards the breakwater, on my way to town. All of a sudden, a gray and white whale surfaced between me and the breakwater, not more than 30 or 40 feet in front of me! I let out a yelp and paddled backwards as fast as I could.
When Roy caught up with me, we paddled to shore without further incident and climbed the hill to Heads State Park. It was small but pleasant and well-maintained. Outside the perimeter of the park was a lot of underbrush, so we couldn't get close enough to the cliff to see the cove. We walked out a path to the point and had a great view of the ocean. It looked fairly calm.
Another tourist told us there was information about the Coast Guard station that used to be here on a sign near the parking lot, so we walked back there and read it. The station had been built in 1939 and abandoned during the '60s, when it became obsolete. The name of the cove was Nellie's Cove, and it was east of the barracks. We walked past the barracks in an easterly direction and lo! there was a paved walk heading into the brush. We went under a tree and found a long, long flight of steps. We walked down, down, down and found the shack we had seen from below. It had been a generator hut. We went farther down and could see the dock below and the old electric poles, but we couldn't get all the way down, because the steps changed to overgrown, rotten wood. We were so tickled to have been able to find that place! What a neat adventure!
When we got back to the boat, we listened to NOAA weather. Southwest wind at 15 knots predicted for tonight and tomorrow! Just what we'd been waiting for! We decided to leave at midnight.
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