Three days ago something unusual happened on the Oregon Coast, it snowed, and then the temperature dropped to twenty degrees. The skies cleared and I knew that with the sun so low in the sky, every moment of this day was going to be beautiful. I didn’t want to miss any of it so I woke up early.
The river behind my house was low and scrapy so I decided on my trusty CFS as the tool of choice for this continuous class 2-3 run.
The river itself, a shallow dripping fern gorge, had become a palace of icicles. The walls of the entire 4 mile run looked like this.
By the time I got out of the water the sun was just peeking over the horizon. With little hope of taking off my frozen gear, I loaded the truck with a sea kayak and a surf kayak and headed for the ocean.
This was one of those rare winter days when the surf was very small, so I tied on a crab trap in hopes of capturing dinner.
One the crab trap was set, I headed around the mountain to explore the caves and arches. Volleys of five foot icicles kept me from going through!
A pair of sea lions swims past.
A few hours later I return to the trap to find my chunk of roadkill intact, and one lonely little rock crab, curled up and already dead.
Luckily, I happen to cross paths with a commercial crab boat. The captains voice booms over the loud speaker “Can you do a roll?”, I did a roll. Again from the loud speaker “Would you like some crabs?” I felt like a sea lion doing tricks for fishes!
The crab and I enjoy a romantic sunset on the beach.
After loading up the sea kayak I took the bat boat out for an evening surf, catching long rides on tiny waves until it was too dark to see.
I drove home on slippery roads with the heat blazing. That evening we boiled the crabs on the woodstove.
