Smell Journey Through Point Lobos, California - Natural Perfume in the Wild

Hawaii or. . . California?

Yesterday, we visited Point Lobos Natural Reserve, just south of Carmel along the California coast.   Point Lobos means "point of the wolves," not the furry ones, but "sea wolves," or sea lions.  Point Lobos has been called the "crown jewel" of California's state park system, one of our best kept secrets (and judging by the hoards of people flocking to my blog, one that I certainly couldn't be accused of revealing).   It's only a two hour drive from home, yet I'd never visited.  


This past weekend, I was on a mission to see the gray whales on their annual migration to their summer feeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico.  Once nearly extinct, the gray whales now number 20,000+.  Orcas had recently been spotted nearby.  The sun was shining, and I felt sure I was going to see whales.  Not only that, I was going to be the One to spot the whales and impress my two young'uns with my extensive (not) knowledge of order cetacae.

This did not happen.  Not a spout, nor a whale fingerprint, no breaching, blowing, nothing.  But this is not a sad story.  What we did see (I should mention, dear hubby spotted them all first) were a pod of jumping dolphins, baby sea lions, sea otters, deer, bunnies, and cormorants with striking blue plumage.  We also got an eyeful of pristine black sand beaches, adjacent white sand beaches, long ropes of floating seaweed like giant green spaghetti, many sea anemones (say "many anemone" ten times fast), and of course, the great blue Pacific.  Wow.  

Black sand beach in Moss Cove

Fragrant blue ceanothus underscores a jade green cove.

But beyond all the sights, there were the smells.  Ocean air is, in itself, a scent that if one could bottle, one could retire early.  It's that salty, seaweedy, wet sand, just-after-it rains fresh and alive scent of what could be and what has been.  How else to describe?  Mix with that the scent of Monterey Cypress, Monterey Pine, California Poppies, Douglas Irises and California Wood Mint, with its purplish flowers and camphorous, green perfume.   Our wandering down the cliffside walkways revealed hundreds of species of plants, identified by myself as "Look, an orange puffy ball thing!" and "check out that at that cobwebby stuff."  Naturally, I stuck my nose in as many as I could.  My nose led me to one, in particular, a tree/bush full of purple/periwinkle clusters of flowers (again, a botanist would have been helpful here) that smelled just like hyacinth.  I admit, at this point, I fantasized about tippy toeing back along the narrow cliff pathways with branches of this tree on my back but being a law abiding citizen (not to mention someone afraid of being poisoned by what could be on the purple/periwinkle clusters of flowers branches), I just took a picture of it.  

Do you see the sea lion?

Here s/he is!

This is the deer.  Fine.  It's not easy to take a picture of a deer.

My son's using the binoculars to study ants.

Looks like an aerial shot of the trees and a clearing but can you believe I'm looking straight down into the water?   The "trees" are algae.   See the crab?  The white spot in the crevice is the crab.

Douglas irises

Cobwebby lace lichen on a Monterey Cypress.

China Cove

"Yellow popcorn flower"

Poison oak, more commonly known as "stay on the path."

They say memory is processed by the same area of the brain as olfaction.  Smells remind us of our history.  If that's true, I will have a lot to remember about this day.