Sea otters weren’t meant to land
On most mammal watching holidays we hit a day when we overdo it. This was that day.
It started really pleasantly, with some early morning sea otter watching from the shore at Elkhorn Slough. There was one dozing on the sand less than five metres from us. Because it was grey and cool we gave up our original idea of more kayaking and headed inland, to the Pinnacles National Park for a short hike. We finally saw some more chipmunks! The hike was good too, up through talus caves formed by the gaps left when huge boulders tumble down in a jumble into a ravine. Our third activity was a bit of surprise wine tasting; there seems to be a tiny wine region north of Pinnacles and we stopped at Calera – a winery that does export to the UK – to try their excellent pinot noirs. Apparently their biggest export market is Japan, after a character in a manga did a blind tasting of Calera vs some French wines and declared the Californian upstart the winner. There’s a manga for every subject, clearly! Now visiting Japanese on business in the bay area will hire a car for the day just to come and visit the winery.
Merriam’s chipmunk
For the record, we did identify two species of kangaroo rat, one kind of mouse, and we may have seen a San Joaquin kit fox but unfortunately not well enough to be sure. We also imbibed loads of dust, spot-lighting on a dirt road on a windy night. Oh, and just as we were getting home I discovered that something at dinner had disagreed with me. Well, it happens once every holiday almost without fail (except for Japan). And I had steak for dinner, so can’t blame the seafood!
The otter was this close!
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