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Sightseeing in Shelter Cove
Aug. 6th, 2025 01:00 pmNorth Coast Roadtrip travelog #8
Shelter Cove · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 11:30am
Sunday morning after visiting the Black Sand Beach(es) just north of where we stayed for the night on the Lost Coast we drove back past the inn to the small marina on the south end of town at Shelter Cove.
The first thing you notice at Shelter Cove, after driving past an airstrip— I guess flying is an easier way to get here than driving the steep mountain roads— and a shockingly packed "campground" that is just a parking lot full of RVs and trailers parked next to each other, is a lighthouse. And it's a short light house. Like, the lamp in it (which has been removed) wouldn't have been much higher than about 22' (6.5 meters) above the ground. Why not a tall lighthouse like the classic ones seen all over the Atlantic coast and even around the Great Lakes?
The answer is explained in a historical marker outside the lighthouse. This lighthouse wasn't originally located here, on this flat field atop a low cliff. It was originally built for Cape Mendocino 30 miles north, where it sat atop a cliff 400' above the ocean. It didn't need to be tall since it was already high. Its light could be seen 28 miles out at sea.
The lighthouse went into operation at Cape Mendocino in 1868. It served for over 100 years before the Coast Guard decommissioned it due to its clifftop perch become unstable and becoming too expensive to maintain. The lighthouse was moved here and restored in the 1990s by a nonprofit group.
While we were at the cove we also climbed down the stairs to beach to see the cove. There are rocky shallows here where the innkeeper this morning boasted that, if our timing was right, we'd see all five kinds of starfish in the tide pools. Five kinds of starfish? WTF, they come in 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-armed varieties in addition to the standard 5 shape? 😂
Well, it was a bad day for starfish as we saw exactly zero of them in the tide pools. These were frankly very lame tide pools, just stinky water and weeds. It's nothing like the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. And the grim weather here is nothing like that beautiful sunny day in February we enjoyed in San Diego.
Of course, it is a sunny day here. It's sunny above the fog layer. As one of my high school guidance counselors years ago loved to say on rainy/cloudy days, The sun is shining, you just can't see it! 😎
Shelter Cove · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 11:30am
Sunday morning after visiting the Black Sand Beach(es) just north of where we stayed for the night on the Lost Coast we drove back past the inn to the small marina on the south end of town at Shelter Cove.
The first thing you notice at Shelter Cove, after driving past an airstrip— I guess flying is an easier way to get here than driving the steep mountain roads— and a shockingly packed "campground" that is just a parking lot full of RVs and trailers parked next to each other, is a lighthouse. And it's a short light house. Like, the lamp in it (which has been removed) wouldn't have been much higher than about 22' (6.5 meters) above the ground. Why not a tall lighthouse like the classic ones seen all over the Atlantic coast and even around the Great Lakes?
The answer is explained in a historical marker outside the lighthouse. This lighthouse wasn't originally located here, on this flat field atop a low cliff. It was originally built for Cape Mendocino 30 miles north, where it sat atop a cliff 400' above the ocean. It didn't need to be tall since it was already high. Its light could be seen 28 miles out at sea.
The lighthouse went into operation at Cape Mendocino in 1868. It served for over 100 years before the Coast Guard decommissioned it due to its clifftop perch become unstable and becoming too expensive to maintain. The lighthouse was moved here and restored in the 1990s by a nonprofit group.
While we were at the cove we also climbed down the stairs to beach to see the cove. There are rocky shallows here where the innkeeper this morning boasted that, if our timing was right, we'd see all five kinds of starfish in the tide pools. Five kinds of starfish? WTF, they come in 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-armed varieties in addition to the standard 5 shape? 😂
Well, it was a bad day for starfish as we saw exactly zero of them in the tide pools. These were frankly very lame tide pools, just stinky water and weeds. It's nothing like the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. And the grim weather here is nothing like that beautiful sunny day in February we enjoyed in San Diego.
Of course, it is a sunny day here. It's sunny above the fog layer. As one of my high school guidance counselors years ago loved to say on rainy/cloudy days, The sun is shining, you just can't see it! 😎
