Day 8 - Doran Beach, Bodega Bay

We woke up to a beautiful, clear sunny day after a restless night. Luna began having diarrhea last night so had to get up once in the night to take care of that and she puked two other times. Her stool was bloody in the morning so I looked up the local vet and was able to make an appointment for 11:30 am. She has some kind of Colitis and is on a special diet for a few days as well as some antibiotics. I believe it is from some stream water she got in to yesterday in Fort Bragg. The vet thinks it should clear up in no time, here’s hoping he is right! Despite her predicament, Luna was in wonderful spirits this morning! Duran Beach is dog friendly, however dogs are required to be on-leash, which I obeyed at first until I realized I was alone on the beach with one other person who had his dog off-leash, so I decided to risk the fine and let her have some fun. Luna took full advantage of this glorious time, running up and down the beach with reckless abandon, chasing birds (which she had no chance of catching), running alongside the other dog (Spot, the Basset Hound/Border Collie/Lab type mix) and romping through the water. I walked and chatted with the dog’s owner for quite some time before I had to head back to get to my vet appointment. I put Luna back on leash on the way back as the beach had begun to become populated with surfers and other people enjoying a nice walk.

After the appointment, I returned to Duran Beach, having decided to stay another night at this beautiful place. I settled on the beach with a book for a little while and then went for another walk, spotting sea lions playing in the water just off the beach. As we walked in the water a big wave came up and Luna had to swim to keep herself afloat, she was not impressed and avoided the water as best she could after that. She was dragging a little bit, so I cut the walk short and headed back to camp. I settled back on the beach and watched for sea lions as I munched on saltwater taffy that I had picked up at the store in town.  An older gentleman came over with his dog and chatted for a few minutes, I learned that his name is Ira and he used to have a business that built the bodies of a certain brand of cars. His little dog, Benji was a Yorkshire Terrier mix of some sort, a cute little fellow. I took one more walk along the beach as the sun set and ran in to Ira again, we spoke for a couple more minutes, then he shook my hand and gave me a hug “from California”. Everyone here is so incredibly friendly, everywhere else there’s been a mix of friendly and very hostile people, here in Bodega Bay, everyone is so kind! As I settled down to a dinner of Indian food and buttered bread, a woman got out of her car and approached me; she had a load of wood they needed to get rid of and wondered if I would like it for a fire, they wanted to give it to someone “bare-bones camping” rather than someone with a fancy RV. I took her up on the kind offer and attempted to light a fire, but it had become too windy for someone with my level of inexperience at fire building to get a fire going and I didn’t want it badly enough to keep trying, I am sure the wood will be harvested by some very happy person soon.

 One of the Sea Lions, unfortunately I didn't have a zoom lens with me to capture a more discernible photo but you can see how close they were to shore here.

The happy faces of an excited digger

Serenity