Further adventures with the boathouse

Dan Devin called this morning to thank me for posting the photos of the collapsed boathouse. But he had a problem to report as well: a wall of the boathouse has now floated loose, and is lodged against the pilings of his house. He was thinking of calling the Coast Guard for assistance, but first we thought maybe we could all go out there and chop it up and burn it at low tide (apparently the owner's house is in foreclosure, so it's unlikely he'll be doing anything about it).

But Renee Sears pointed out that there's a burn ban on so I called the fire department, thinking this might be a good practice burn for them to manage. I did manage to fight my way through all the menus to a real person, who seemed interested, but he informed me that I would need to call back on Monday and speak to either the fire marshall or the chief.

Unfortunately some of the pilings have been floating loose as well, and we are all concerned that with each high tide the probability grows of pieces floating loose and either blocking the lagoon, impacting someone's house pilings or damaging someone's boat as they leave the lagoon, so we are back to square one and Dan Devin will be contacting the Coast Guard to see if we can solve the problem any sooner. Stay tuned for more information!

Sandspit Sea Lion

I promised the Sears I would post these pictures of the sea lion that visited us last month...

It was March 12: I was taking Nemo for his customary walk, and he turned right off the boardwalk instead of left as he usually does. Okay, I thought, no problem, I can be flexible about this. But when we were in the middle of the Meacham's portion of the beach this lovely lady lumbered out from behind the giant driftwood stump that sits in front of Joanna and Jerry's house.

Though you can't tell from this photo, she was close to seven feet long, and almost four feet high standing up (if you can call it that). What amused me was that Nemo -- who (as many of you know) believes he owns the beach, and exerts his authority by barking and chasing anything else that dares to step on it, whether human, bird or dog -- was struck speechless. He stopped dead in his tracks, planted his butt firmly in the sand and just stared -- and mama lion stared right back.

Eventually I was able to drag him away, but he kept looking back as we headed home. You could almost see his doggie wheels turning: What WAS that thing? Should I be defending my beach? Is it coming after me? He was so stunned he forgot to pee, and Chris had to take him out again later. I went along, of course, with my camera...

And up on the roof there arose such a clatter...

...that I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter!
And what to my wondering eyes should appear...

This morning I noticed a lovely fog dancing across the surface of the lagoon and went out to take a picture. It wasn't all that photogenic, but the sunrise was, so I turned to photograph the sunrise just as a seagull flew into the image, and I got this perfect shot.

But this post is not about the perfect shot, but the one that got away.
Because while I was taking this picture, I heard a huge clatter, and turned to see two eagles who had apparently been battling -- or perhaps mating -- in mid-air and had gotten tangled up and plummeted onto the roof of that boathouse just across from us, by the entrance to the lagoon.

I wasn't quick enough to photograph them on the roof -- I turned just as they were sliding off into the water. One of them managed to extricate herself before she hit the water; I got this (very bad) shot of her sitting on the ladder of the boathouse watching the other eagle trying to extricate himself from the water (have you ever watched an eagle try to swim?). So I got another shot of the waterlogged eagle sitting somewhat bemused and bedraggled on the bank after crawling out.


End of story -- or so I thought -- until 2 hours later I heard another huge crash and banging, and thought perhaps the eagles were now battling it out on my roof. But Nemo started barking and wouldn't stop, so eventually I went out into the living room to see what was up. It still wasn't obvious, but he was staring fixedly at a point just beyond our boardwalk so I stood next to him to see what he was focused on and couldn't believe my eyes: the boathouse had just completely collapsed into the water!

I called Joanna, but she hadn't seen it happen (though she'd heard it), so we decided to call 911, as we didn't know who owned the boathouse. We worry that if it were to float loose from its moorings it could effectively seal off the channel. So the police came by to investigate, and I showed them the before and after pictures. Pretty funny -- I heard the dispatcher ask the policeman over his walkie-talkie if he had gotten the license numbers of the marauding eagles! My policeman assured him that if he caught the perpetrators he'd be sure to haul them in...

I tried tracking down the boathouse through Google maps with no luck, but found what might be the owner by going to Zillow, the real estate site and called the agent who is listing what I think may be the house that owns the boathouse (the listing does say it has a boathouse, though there's no photo). Such fun to be a detective! And so I've done my best to notify the owner. If anyone knows for sure who it is, they might want to call and find out what the plan is to take care of the problem...

Like the song says -- My Lord, what a morning!