A Rare Sight

Kelp in Bodega Bay

I drove along the meandering Westshore road on the way to the end of Bodega Bay, passing common loons in the water. I was heading to Bodega Bay Marine Lab for a short tour of a kelp farming project. But I was early and had some free time. Why not head out to stare at the open ocean, as I usually do when I am even the slightest bit antsy or uncertain about how I should occupy my free time? 

It was a Thursday last week, and the trailhead parking lot, just at the end of a sheer cliff made of brittle sedimentary rocks, was nearly full. The sun was bright and the sky mostly clear. As I turned off the engine I could feel my car being slightly pushed by the onshore winds. 

I grabbed my camera and walked to the edge of the trail where an older man sat with his digital camera equipped with a telephoto lens. I saw some birds—black and white with bright orangey-red feet—perched on the most precarious edges of the cliff. Assuming the man was a birder, I asked him what they were. He hadn’t got a clue, he told me. I guessed he was out there like me, just to see something pretty with little reason (I later found out they were pigeon guillemots).

As I stared at the birds I looked below them at the churning water, and saw kelp. It was a small inlet, tucked behind a large boulder, and full of long blades of the monstrous brown algae. I was surprised to see this. Kelp forests along the West coast of North America have been almost entirely wiped out, with only a few small pockets left. I guess this was one of those small pockets.

I took a few photos, excited by the somewhat rare sight, and drove down to the marine lab. 

What followed was a truly special tour that I wrote about for the North Bay Bohemian and Pacific Sun. 

For the past year or so, Julieta Gomez, working with the Greater Farallones Association in partnership with NOAA and others, has been helping to create a kelp-growing program to reforest some sites along the Sonoma coast. This is their first summer planting the baby kelp, and depending on how well this restoration effort succeeds, it could be the first in a long line of reforestation efforts along the coast. You can read more about the project and my experience there at this link!

Hope you enjoy learning about the kelp forests and the California coastal ecology. There are likely to be more stories like this very soon! :))