Daily Times

Point Reyes Seashore lies just an hour north of San Francisco. During the past four decades, I must have visited it half a dozen times. Every time I go there I encounter something different.

Sometimes the fog is heavy, sometimes the wind cuts through your clothing and sometimes the weather is perfect.

On one of those perfect weather days, we decided to walk the trail that goes from the old Point Pierce Ranch to Tomales Bluff. It offered pristine views along the cliff of the Pacific Ocean.

One time we got lucky and spotted a herd of Tule elk on the hillsides across the road facing the ocean. The national park service tells us that they are native to California and not found anywhere else. They are the smallest elk to inhabit the North American continent. Adult males weigh between 450 to 550 lb. and females weigh between 375 and 425 lb.

TheTule elk inhabited the Point Reyes area until around 1850 when they were extirpated due to hunting or in order to accommodate the grazing of cattle.

In 1978, they were reintroduced to the area. Ten elk (eight females and two males) were relocated from a wildlife refuge near Los Banos in central California. The herd now is about 300 strong.

The elk were totally undisturbed by our presence. But we had been told they were wild creatures and it was best to stay from them.

On one of those perfect weather days, we decided to walk the trail that goes from the old Point Pierce Ranch to Tomales Bluff. It offered pristine views along the edge of the Pacific Ocean

Some of the elk looked majestic wearing a full set of antlers.

I began taking pictures. The 300mm zoom lens on the Nikon D7200 came in handy. The rutting season had begun. The elk were bugling and some of the bigger males were pushing each other around. And one of them had his eyes fixated on me.

Another time, we kept looking for the herd. It was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it had gone to forage the grass towards the ocean.

So we drove about for about 45 minutes to Drakes Beach. As we parked and got out of the car, we saw birds and seals on the beach. We took in the fresh air, rich with ozone. It felt so good.

All of a sudden, the sea gulls on the beach stopped looking for food.

A kind of stillness had descended upon them. Then I discovered the cause of the stillness. Their eyes were fixated on the beautiful Willets (from the Sandpiper family) that had just taken flight.

Elsewhere on the beach three Elephant Seals lay soundly asleep in the afternoon sun, oblivious to the ebb and flow of the waves. But we too were rendered onto stillness. It was simply not possible to avoid training our eyes on the graceful flight of the Willets.

Then we turned our eyes back to the Elephant Seals. The sign at the entrance had told us to stay away from them. But another couple was doing their best to awaken them from their slumbers.

They were monstrous. When I first sighted what looked a large piece of debris on the beach about a hundred yards out, it looked like a congealed mass of seaweeds that had drifted ashore. But a look through the binoculars confirmed that the large mass was the fur coating of a seal. Alas, we could not get there since a stream of water stood in the way. The water was coming downhill from the cliffs and rushing headlong toward the sea.

Another time we had arrived at Drakes beach. The weather was gloomy and the wind fierce. The beach seemed abandoned, even by the birds and the seals. We attempted to walk along the beach but it was too cold and uncomfortable. We thought of checking out the visitor centre. A sign said closed. Amazingly, a group of friends and family were having a picnic lunch on the two tables that lay in the patio. They had spread blankets on the tables and were all covered up in thick jackets and woollen caps.

In a town called Inverness we stopped for lunch at a Czech restaurant called Vladimir. The food was delicious and the service awesome.

Another time we had stopped for brunch at the Privateer at the Tomales Bay Resort. We decided to sample the traditional fish and chips. It turned to be incredibly tasty.

The fish was exceptionally good. It tasted fresh, moist and tender. The very friendly server informed us that it was a white Sea Bass from San Diego. I said I was surprised it was not locally sourced. He said the seas had been rough during the past few weeks and the local fisherman had been afraid to venture out in their small boats. Somehow my mind turned toward Hemingway’s story about the Old Man and the Sea.

We had been to Chile twice the prior year and had had some difficulty finding Chilean Sea Bass over there. That was interesting, since one could find them readily all over the US. I wondered if we would be unable to find local Sea Bass in San Diego. One time in Hawaii we had ordered crab and been served crab from Maine. I remember saying to the server, surely you must have local crab, and he had replied that it did not taste good.

Still hungry, we ordered French toast with black berries for dessert. When it arrived, it was really pretty to look at. When we ate it, it was even tastier then it looked. Maybe we were super hungry. Or maybe the food was truly exceptional.

Point Reyes is always full of surprises and never disappoints, even when the weather is downright clammy. One time nothing was visible. So we decided to go for a walk in the woods.

What pulls me there every now and then is what John Masefield called Sea Fever. It opens with these inimitable lines.

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume and the sea-gulls crying.”

The writer can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com