About eight miles into our day we approached Seal Rock (yes another rock with that name) State Wayside. I did not expect the shore to be interesting so I headed for some offshore rocks. Those turned out to be definitely uninteresting but from there the shore looked fun. There were small stretches of white sand between black rocks and I regretted missing out on the rock gardening. Eventually we turned and spent some time paddling perpendicular to our path to get close to shore and check out some of this area. Another six miles into our day we passed the mouth of the Alsea River. This was the first “natural” river mouth without a jetty that we recalled passing.
South of the Alsea River I started seeing whale spouts ahead. Eventually we found ourselves in the middle off a small pod of gray whales! I counted at least three individuals. One single whale could have been several breathing at different times. Then there was a pair that always surfaced together. I followed the single guy and at one point he doubled back and came by almost underneath me. I saw the long white line of barnacles on his jaw underwater before he broke the surface! I had set my camera on infinity so that it would take pictures faster and this whale was only twenty feet away from me! I worried that this was not far enough for the far focus on my camera. Turns out it was and I got two great pictures.
Later as we approached the town of Yachats we saw two more gray whales surfacing again and again in the same place near an old crab float. Several times I saw large bursts of bubbles rise to the surface a minute before a whale surfaced. This is a behavior I have never seen before. We paddled past Yachats hoping to find a secluded beach to hide on but found none. The wind was starting to blow and wind waves larger than the mild swell were crashing into the rocky shore. I paddled up to the mouth of “Devils Churn” to take a picture from the sea. I had seen this slot from the shore and wanted to see it up close.
The wind started making us work to point our kayaks where we wanted to go. We chose a beach with a creek and braved the chaotic wind waves to land. We walked up the creek under Highway 101 and found a side creek coming down through a salmon ladder that created “bathtubs” for us to wash up in. We replenished our drinking water supply and rinsed the salt off our gear. Despite this being a day-use picnic only park, we set out tents up and were left alone for the evening.