Donna Peck from San Francisco in the still of the morning.
“Why am I living in a city?”
The question came the first time when I glanced upward from beneath the visor of my sun-screening cap and caught sight of two white pelicans flapping slowly and in unison. Suddenly they parted company.
One hovered for a moment — and then plunged from the sky, wings pulled back, torpedoing into the water just yards in front of the kayak. Seconds later it was back up and bobbing on the surface savoring its fishy victim.
Tomales Bay and Point Reyes Peninsula
The question came a second time during a quiet moments. No talk, that is. Just the sound, like tiny waves breaking, of one paddle slicing into the water, then the other — and the cries of the nesting double-crested cormorants, abundant on Hog Island.
It came again many times last Sunday during a half-day kayak paddle in the pristine waters of Tomales Bay; while floating close to, and having a lesson on, the abundant oyster beds; scanning the shoreline of the Point Reyes Peninsula for tule elk (we saw just four, silhouetted way up on the crest of a high hill); and while peering down into the forest of eel grass, visible because of the low tide.
Eel Grass Health
The health of this eel grass, our naturalist guide and oyster expert Chris Starbird told us, was a good indicator of the health of Tomales Bay. So much healthier, it was not hard to see, than “civilization” and the city.
And wasn’t it funny that it seemed scary to think the Bay is formed by a submerged portion of the San Andreas Fault? I mean, those of us who live in the Bay Area are on top of it — or close to it — most of the time.
Please continue to Part 2 of this story
Story copyright Wanda Hennig 2009
Photos by Wanda Hennig
Comments
As an ornithologist I am a little dismayed at some of your descriptions. The pelicans you saw were most likely brown pelicans as they plunge dive, where white pelicans do not. Secondly, I have been studying cormorants for 5 years. They make no noise that sounds like a cry rather a weird guttural croaking.
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