2020 10-22 Pt Arena
After another restful night camping in our RV at the Albion River, we departed around 9am and headed south towards the Point Arena Lighthouse. We stopped for a nice patio breakfast at the Rollerville Café, “the last café before Hawaii.” Their moniker is earned by the fact that Point Arena is the western-most point of mainland in the lower 48 states. Two miles west of the café is the lighthouse.
The final portion of the road to the lighthouse is an area rich with raptors. The terrain is semi-flat grassland and looks suitable for grazing cattle to me. We have always seen raptors here, and today was no different. Several red-tailed hawks were around, and a very cooperative/friendly American kestrel perched on a wire right next to the road for some nice portrait photos. This same stretch of road features some nice pull-outs with great ocean viewing. I used them to take wide angle photos of the lighthouse in the distance and of some nice ocean life. The rocky intertidal extends seaward with shelves of rock and interspersed channels. The harbor seals love to haul out here, and one rock slab was home to a cluster of resting gulls.
Near the lighthouse and adjacent to a few vacation rental homes, there is a helicopter landing pad. A shiny orange US Coast Guard M-65 short range recovery helicopter was there. It was great to photograph one on the ground having seen so many in the air.
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helicopter on pad Pt Arena CA 2020 10-22
Postelsia palmaeformis Sea Palms on intertidal rock ledge 2020 10-22 Pt Arena-d-004
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Postelsia palmaeformis Sea Palms on intertidal rock ledge 2020 10-22 Pt Arena-d-006
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