RETURN TO THE BAYOCEAN SPIT

Yesterday was one of those unexpected sunny, calm dry days here in Netarts.  It happens often in the Fall and Winter. The forecast calls for rain (and yesterday even thunderstorms), but to our surprise a beautiful day is delivered!  Dusty and I were in the office until 5pm after a very full day and could have easily kicked back for the night, but decided it would be shameful to waste such a nice evening.  By 5:15 we had our bikes in the back of the truck and were headed for the Bayocean Spit, about a 10 minute drive from Netarts.  You could see rain in the distance driving along Tillamook Bay over Garibaldi and some high rising cumulus clouds over the coast range, but so far no rain overhead!  We were just one of two cars in the Bayocean parking lot, which means we would practically have the place to ourselves.  One of many bonuses of Summer coming to an end!

Quickly we were on our way, with the intent of peddling to the South Jetty and mouth of Tillamook Bay (about 7.5 miles round trip).  As we headed up one of the first inclines not even a mile into our ride the right pedal of my bike suddenly snapped off underfoot.  I am under every impression this could have turned out much worse!  Fortunately we weren't too far from the truck and the only casualty besides the broken pedal was a scrape on the inside of my ankle.  Our attempts to repair the pedal were unsuccessful, so we backtracked just a little bit and ditched the bikes for a walk out one of the sandy trails to the beach.  

I stripped down to a t-shirt heading out the trail, realizing it was actually quite warm out for this time of night!  The beach revealed its glorious self as we came up over the dune.  The tide was heading out from eight feet at 2pm, which meant there was plenty of beach available for walking.  And, still no rain!

 As we walked toward the water Dusty spotted a crab pot in distance.  It appeared to have just washed up and be in decent shape.  Sure enough, as we got closer we knew it was worth taking a closer look.

Walking past the buoys and along the rope it was obvious this pot hadn't been in the water long. To our surprise once we reached the pot were live crab inside!  

Well, some of them were alive.  At closer inspection there were a couple half eaten in there -- likely the victim of cannibalism!  The crab that were alive (though moving slowly) were good sized.  The smaller crab stuck in the pot I'm pretty sure became the meal of the big guys/gals!  We decided to do our good deed for the day and release them all back to the sea.  

The tide eventually carried all of them away.  The last one was pretty sluggish, but still had a little life left in him.  Beautiful night for a rescue, right?

Once the crab were released we gathered up the rope and carried the pot back to where we'd left the bikes.  Dusty found a way to balance the pot on the handlebars of his bike and we made our way to the truck with ease.  Just as we reached the parking lot it started to rain.  I mean really rain!  We quickly loaded the bikes and our beach treasure feeling pretty fortunate to be back in the truck!  It rained all the way back to Netarts and into the night.  

While we weren't able to complete our original idea of fun for the evening, I'd say it turned out pretty good all in all.  I have some bike repair to do, but there were definitely multiple silver linings to the trip: I wasn't injured, we were only a mile from the truck when the pedal broke, we had a nice walk out to the beach because of it, enjoyed a spectacular display of cloud reflections over the beach and ocean, saved some crab from certain death, acquired a usable crab pot and made it back to the truck just as the rain arrived.  I can't wait to return -- roundtrip, or not!

p.s.  It turns out the forecast for today was correct.  The wind and rain are upon us!

See you at the beach!

~Wendy

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