July 29, 2012 Cape Lookout to Netarts Bay

It had been a long hard week so we decided to just do a short 10 mile day hike on the beach. It was a bit overcast in the morning when we hit the beach at Cape Lookout State Park at about 10. There weren't many people either so it was off to a good start!  We donned our day packs and off we went!

The sun did come out in full force shortly after we left. I shed my pant legs (ya gotta love those zippered pant legs) and shoes and socks. I did almost all the hike in my barefeet. Not recommended. I blistered my feet so bad. I hope they turn into tough calluses that will prevent blisters and tender spots in the future, but there's got to be a gentler, less painful way to do this! I also spent a lot of the hike walking in the water (the coolness felt good on the feet) so my legs and feet got nice and pink. But I don't compare to Jeff. He got a major (and must admit funny) sun burn. He was wearing his buff so his head is white, but from his forehead down, he's RED. Poor guy. He not only hurts, he's getting a lot of teasing to boot. We both learned valuable lessons for next time. I won't torture you with photos, so you'll have to trust me when I say we hurt. But, we're still happy!

In our first 1/2 hour we collected 4 bags of debris and left it on the beach to pick up on our return. When we came back, some wonderful person (people) had picked up 3 of them for us. That was almost as nice as a glass of water in the desert! Thank you whoever you are! There was so much debris on the beach. We found tires, a dishwasher door, 5 rubber floats, lots of plastic bottles (including a Coke bottle), a whole fluorescent light bulb, and some Styrofoam chunks that were too large for the bags. We hope more people will take an interest in helping out and collecting this stuff. It's a fun way to get some exercise and help our environment. It's not dirty or hard. If you want to help, here's the State Park Tsunami website. (Now I've also done my plug for my job!)

As usual, we hope you enjoy our blog and the photos. Thanks to David who pointed out I had my dates wrong on the last post. I got 'em right now!

Happy Hiking!
Jeff 'n Sue

Our destination--Netarts Bay at the end of this beach. WAAAAAAAAAYYYY down there!

These kayakers are brave. No way I'd go out in that big pond with those little boats. It was fun to watch them though as we'd never seen them take off in the ocean. They sit on the sand and wait for a wave to float them out.

Yup. You guessed, it. We had to pick up Japanese Tsunami debris. We collected 4 bags full in about 1/2 hour and could have spent the entire hike picking stuff up. We need help!

We called this the "Tsunami Shrine" as it was someone's clever idea to pay tribute to all the stuff washed up.

Didn't need much proof that it wasn't local garbage!

Another view of the "shrine"

The mouth of the bottle below. Interesting little sea creatures!

Looks like someone's bad hair day!

Almost to the bay!!

We made it to the bay!!

Once we rounded the bend to Netarts Bay, we saw seals. They were more skittish than the ones at Nestucca.

Looking at our beginning point. That's the problem with walking the beach--you can see your destination!

We found lots of debris, but this one was still washing in. We didn't wait for it but it was interesting to watch it ride in.