Our drive from Yosemite National Park back to the coast was very interesting.   Lots of curves and steep grades at first, crossing the flat agricultural valley in the middle of the state, across San Francisco Bay and lots of curves and steep grades going over the coastal range in the end.

Longer than we normally plan and one of the most challenging drives up to this point in our walkabout.

The good news was that we’d put some cleaner in our black and grey water tanks, and this drive was just the ticket to clean them out really, really well 🙂

As we crossed the bridge leading to Fort Bragg Hector pointed out our campground down below us, a marina and RV park. I saw that the RV’s were pretty close to each other on a gravel lot, and I was not too excited.

But after we arrived at Sportsmans RV Park, were greeted with a hug from Linda, one of the two owners, and given a key to their private pier – basically a big deck on the water with picnic tables – I had a change of heart.

I find that smaller, private parks can be quite charming and their owners make a huge difference. Dusty and Linda were great hosts and having access to the large, fenced deck area over the water where Angel could hang out with us off-leash made up for our small campsite.

Adding to the charm, there are interesting signs throughout the property which Dusty claims were put there by “vandals”, some are sayings, others are historical signs about the harbor. 

The campground is located by the bridge at the mouth of the harbor and is funky in a good way.   Old boats and other nautical flotsam, reminders of the history of this little harbor, are all around.  

 

And, one of the most important features for us was that the road that the RV park is located on dead ends at an off-leash dog beach where the Noyo River meets the Pacific.  It’s a nice size beach which is pretty solitary on weekdays.  Although a bit more crowded on the weekends.

Angel enjoyed the off-leash dog beach every day of our stay there. She loves to wander by the water’s edge and poke around the beach debris looking for crabs and other interesting smells.  But she has never shown interest in jumping into water.  In fact, if a large wave rolls in, she runs away from the water.

One day at the dog beach, a river otter came out from behind the rocks and ran across the sand out into the ocean surf  (fortunately nowhere near Angel).

Pretty cool.

Noyo Harbor is a working harbor so there are lots of boats around, one of Hector’s favorite photography subjects.  Fishing is the main focus with both commercial and sport fishing boats.  There are also some wharf side restaurants and a fresh seafood market.

Part of the campground property is the World’s End Rowing Club. Dusty rows regularly and loves to introduce the sport to others.  

He also restores beautiful rowboats and has a huge shop full of works in progress, antique boats etc.  The rowing club runs programs to introduce at risk kids to rowing and boatbuilding.

Several buildings contain more boats, parts, wood, and tools.  We really enjoyed the informative tour Dusty gave us of what is obviously his pride and joy.

But one of our main interests in the area was the famous Glass Beach in the adjacent town of  Fort Bragg.

Residents threw garbage over cliffs in the area in the early 20^th century, and referred to it as “The Dumps”.

Oddly, this has now become a major tourist draw in Fort Bragg.

Three different areas were used as dumps over the years.  People lit fires to get rid of the trash.  And, after the practice of dumping trash stopped, waves cleaned out some of the trash.  But glass was more resilient and was tumbled into sea glass.  Lots of it.

Afterwards, still years ago, the beaches had many layers of colored sea glass (we’ve seen photos), but some party poopers used big buckets and such and hauled away pounds of it.

Many of the rare colors are now (mostly) gone and the beach is considered picked over.  What remain are mostly the more common white, green and brown pieces.

Even so the beach still has more sea glass than we’ve ever seen. Other glass beaches we’ve seen have bits of glass scattered along the shore.

This one is almost entirely covered by sea glass so smooth you can walk on all the glass pieces in bare feet without feeling a scratch.

People are discouraged from taking sea glass, which I fully understand. But many still do and there were many collectors on the beach, including us, I must confess.  Although we tried to be very selective and not pick up too much.

The fun for us is in the beach combing aspect; hunting for special individual pieces.  And we were able to add some nice pieces to our collection.

We now have quite a special little collection of sea glass from Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and California.   These are some of our favorite pieces. 

Glass Beach was also very scenic, set amongst cliffs with lots of kelp and driftwood in addition to the sea glass. 

We visited Glass Beach several times.

We also visited a couple of other beaches in MacKerricher State Park adjacent to Glass Beach.  The park has a nice boardwalk and other trails.

MacKerricher State Park also has a very cool display of a gray whale skeleton, and one of the days we visited, there was a group of schoolchildren attending a ranger program in front of the skeleton. Love those park programs.

We also drove over to the neighboring town of Mendocino, a very manicured and pretty town, but quite touristy. With lots of interesting arts and crafts, though.

And yet another day, we took a short hike on the beautiful Jug Handle State Natural Reserve nearby, walking along the coast, then through forest and then down a large staircase to yet another gorgeous beach.

 

 

Back at the campground, we had cocktails and appetizers out on the private pier and were joined by our hosts Dusty and Linda who told us about the history of Noyo Harbor and how they came to live there.  It was great to get to know these warm and friendly folks.

We’re really enjoying the northern coast of California.

~ Brenda