In my mind there is no finer place to swim than the lagoons of Humboldt County. The people are fabulous and the scenery is beyond compare. I truly feel at home when I'm there. The Humboldt Lagoonatics are a dedicated bunch of swimmers that frequent these brackish waters and every year they have put together a fantastic adventure swim/hike crossing Big Lagoon, Dry Lagoon, and Stone Lagoon. This year there was another great group of people hiking and swimming. We all started out just before 9am. The hikers headed north on the sand and the swimmers followed along in the water. The waters have a wonderful feel and the taste has just enough of the ocean without the overwhelming fish odor and just enough of the freshwater without the overwhelming algae funk. After about 2 hrs we all met up at the north end of the Lagoon and paused to rest and have a snack. We also had the treat to watch a group of whales traveling north and several harbor porpoises feeding in the surf at the beach. Some of the lagoonatics also came upon a marbled murrelet (an endangered seabird) sitting on the shore at the tide line. The bird did not move but occasionally opened its eyes. Karin called in her contacts to see if there was anything we could do to help and in the end it was decided to leave the bird where it was.
NEXT we walked about 3 miles past Dry Lagoon and up through the coastal forest and down to the cove at Stone Lagoon. From there the hikers hopped in kayaks (that we had placed out there the night before) and swimmers put back on their suits and headed about 1/2mile across to the parking area on the east side of the lagoon. When all had returned we piled into our cars and returned to Big Lagoon for a potluck BBQ celebration.
