Day 52 – May 1 – Point Arena and Point Cabrillo Lighthouses

The leaking water line seems to be fixed!  Before we left home I had fixed the sink – it was leaking and then the water line leaked, so we have had water issues for 50 days and I think they are gone.  We will see.

It was a bright, sunny day and we all had on jeans.  We were headed over to the coast to see a couple of lighthouses and we know how cold it can be on the coast with the wind off the cold Pacific water.

Our first stop was the Point Arena Lighthouse just north of Point Arena, California.   This is from our book on lighthouses (“American Lighthouses – A Definitive Guide” by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones)

“The point’s rugged topography was created by the San Andreas Fault, which lies beneath the lighthouse.  The legendary fault slipped in 1906, flattening much of San Francisco and, no surprisingly, devastating the Point Arena Light Station.  Fatally cracked by the shaking, the original brick tower had to be replaced.”

We had to travel south on highway 101 to state highway 253, and then west to the lighthouse.  We were talking about how the road curved a lot, but was good road.  About that time we hit highway 128 (the same one that we drove through Napa Valley, just farther south) and then we came to Booneville and had to turn on another state road to go to highway 1 on the coast. 

Well, this new road we were travelling on was narrower and had more twist than a good mystery novel.  We went up and up, winding our way up and then winding our way down.  The road was carved in the hillside – they removed only trees that were growing in the roadway.  Many trees had a reflector in front of it to warn the drivers that there wasn’t a shoulder at that point, just the big tree.

We had 80 or so miles of twisting and turning before we hit the coast.  Finally we came to highway 1 and followed it a couple of miles south to Point Arena Lighthouse.  As were entered the area around the lighthouse we saw people standing with cameras or binoculars looking out at the ocean.  The gate to the lighthouse had a sign that it cost $7.50 a person to enter – just to get closer to the lighthouse.  We decided we could see just fine on the outside of the fence and parked to take pictures of the lighthouse and to try to find out what everyone was looking at in the ocean.

Point Arena Lighthouse

Gray Whale

Sea Arch

It turns out people were seeing one or more whales just below the surface of the water.  We took some pictures of the whales and the sea arch on our side of the fence from the lighthouse.

We returned to a spot we had passed on our way to the lighthouse.  We had brought a picnic lunch with us and we ate it while watching the waves.  We walked out to the surf to take more pictures.  We spent about 2 hours just watching the ocean, taking pictures and looking in awe of the power of the waves pounding the rocks.

 

We loaded up and drove about 35 miles north on highway 1 to Point Cabrillo Lighthouse.  We stopped in the main parking lot where a sign said it was half a mile walk to the lighthouse.  Dorrie and I walked the half-mile while Rick and Mary drove to the handicap parking area much closer to the light. 

Coming down the road to the lighthouse it looked so small and more like a little church or school house than a lighthouse.  It is still a working lighthouse and we took some pictures.

 


The building was originally the engine room for the foghorns on the roof of the building.  We talked to the volunteer in the gift shop and he told us the local merchants use to know when the light keepers or their families came in for supplies because they talked in 20 second bursts - they were so used to not being able to talk when the fog horn went off.

We returned home to a meal we had let cook all day in the crock-pot – pork chops covered with cream of mushroom soup (with a little red wine mixed in).  Served with rice, it was a good ending to a great day of sightseeing.