Rain, Rain and More Rain

 According to the local paper, the Del Norte Triplicate, we have gotten 9 inches of rain in 4 days, while just a few miles up the hill, they got 18.  Unfortunately their water quickly flooded down hill through us on its mad dash to the sea.  Fortunately this area is good at absorbing water and the salmon and redwoods thrive

 This is really a tiny creek meandering over a sandy beach.

 Here the waves were breaking over Whaler Island, really a peninsula where the Coast Guard are stationed

 This was the soccer field where my boys used to play, funny, we called it flock of seagull soccer because the teams of 4 and 5 year olds ran and turned in unison, rarely following the ball.

 Often this is a beach where you can walk, and where the community sets up camp to watch the 4th of July fireworks from the pier.

 The sad "Star" a sailboat which washed onto the rock retaining wall.  A lot of that wall is chunks of concrete and tile from the old swimming pool, destroyed by the March 28, 1964 tsunami which killed 11 people and tore up the town.

 Every area has dangers which only the locals really understand. Growing up in Yellowstone the "tourons" would stand on a thin crust over boiling hot water, or try to pose their children next to a bear or buffalo. Here they want to get close to a basking sea lion, 1,000 pounds and teeth like a wolf and can move fast on land

or

this is the jetty, a breakwater built after the tsunami in March of 1964 killed 11 people and flattened most of the town. On sunny days its wide concrete top looks like a good place for a walk or even to drive your car out and watch the whales

I've lived here 23 years and lost count of the tragedies, when a pedestrian, or even a volkswagon full of people, are suddenly swept off the wall and onto the rocks by sneaker waves like this, and yet the power and beauty of the sea draws me back over and over

With our intense storms lately, there have been huge waves breaking over the wall continuously for days, and yet, there were two grey bearded windsurfers out just in front of me too.

I mock the stupidity of the tourist, yet in some ways I think better to die in the act of loving life than to die, old and afraid and never having dared the wind and the beasts.

God!
I need coffee and to gat awake enough to do some work, this half dreaming mind of mine is strange this dark, stormy morning

 Seriously, don't drive around the danger sign to park on this jetty.

 I love crabbing on the B street pier, or just talking to people there.

 See the sailboat on the rocks and the windsurfer, an old graybeard, in the mid ground

 after this March 12, 2011 tsunami, our harbor was devastated, but the crabbing has now resumed and there are some places to dock the boats.

 This sea lion can move amazingly fast and his teeth resemble a wolf's, but isn't he cute?

Crabby snowmen waving hello