Mile 116 - Seven Devils cliffs, Cape Arago South Cove - 03/09/2025

Report Details

Was a beautiful Saturday at the Cove. I had planned to do the spring report in January, but was not prepared for the road out to the cove being closed. I thought I would see more human visitors this time, but I did see more than some of my Winter reports. I thing South Cove would be a good place to monitor the disappearing sand. I see more and more rocks poling through the beach, it seems. I thought I might see some dramatic erosion in the cove, but really, I don't think there was anything out of the ordinary. South Cove continues to erode as it must. I forgot my bag I sometimes bring to put trash into, so I wasn't looking to collect any, but I did find a decent sized piece of plastic "wood", with a smaller piece screwed into it. Someone had gotten quite a little pile of land based plasticky garbage built at the base of the main access trail. I hope their intention is to bring it up to the top soon. The seaweed and algae growth was in it's Winter phase, so the going was fairly easy. I made a game on the last fourth of my mile out of seeing how swiftly I could navigate the boulders. I did notice a few things even at that pace, guano covered slopes and rocks, the ever-present erosion and old piles of bull kelp. I walked through a cloud of gnat enjoying a patch of sunshine.

Conditions

Temperature: 55 F. Cloud Cover: Sunny. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Tide Level: 0.59 feet.

Activities

Number of people: 6. Number of dogs: 2. Walking or running: 6. Sitting: 6. Tidepooling: 6.

Other Activities: One person did have a small bag she was using to gather something or other. Everybody, including myself covered quite a bit of ground, traversing tidepools, stepping on anemones, algae, and teeny tiny snails..

Notable Wildlife

I was disappointed by NOT seeing any Harlequins. Hopefully our visits will coincide with my Spring report. I did witness the usual Crustacean population, but did not notice any chitons, apart from the gumboots I saw in the tidepools on the North side. I saw crab, anemones, ochre sea stars, one of which only had four arms, a variety of snails, etc.

Wrackline Content

The wrack line on the sandy part of the beach was very light. Up high on the beach, especially on the North side of the Cove had several large knots of old bull kelp.

Natural Changes

I really thought I would see some obvious signs of erosion given the heavy rains experienced in early January, but the only "dramatic" erosion happened on the access trail. My photo of that includes a little pile of garbage someone created at the bottom of the trail. I believe they intend to come back for it with a large trash bag...

Report Images

If you expand this picture, you will se I have drawn the area of the trail collapse, I also indicated the pile of garbage to the right.

Here's another one I modified to show the areas of rock peaking through the beach sand. I think a study of sand loss could get some easy data here.

I think the North side of the cove may have experience more erosion than the South side, pictured here. An old major slide seems to be having it's base spread and thinned out

The old major slide

I have to think this an ordinary thing happening here. This star appeared health otherwise. I have not submitted a sea star observation. This report has taken too much of my free time. Technology problems!

Green and blue anemones.

I didn't know Sea Palms could be so big. Rangy from not enough sunlight?? IDK

Report Images

Elaine C

CoastWatcher

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