I don’t like that my blog posts are all out of order now, but that’s my life…out of order. Before the fair (the last three blog posts) I took Kirby to the Marine Mammal Center on the Marin Headlands.

I had signed up for a tour at 11:00. We got there early enough to spend about an hour at Rodeo Beach before the tour. Notice all the surfers spending their Sunday morning in the water.

I have been to the Marine Mammal Center only once before. I found my blog post from 2011 when a few Farm Club members visited.

This same sea lion is in that first blog post. This time I learned that sea lions have longer flippers than seals and that is how they are more mobile on land.

The elephant seal was also there earlier.

On this visit I had signed up for a tour. It was well worth the modest amount that cost. We had a good tour guide who has been volunteering at the center for years. She described how the Center began–three friends wanted to help the mammals they found (sea lions?) and started the effort in 1975 with bathtubs enclosed by a fence.The Center is entirely privately funded and has rescued over 24,000 marine mammals. The Center’s goal is not to keep animals but to rescue and release them back to the wild.

We had a look behind the scenes at the enclosures where animals are monitored and rehabilitated. The people in the pen are using a PVC and net contraption to move a sea lion out of the water.

They are moving the sea lion to a scale at the end of the pens and using a SealBarrow for transport.

Kirby wrote her name on a sea otter cut out and put it up on this wall.

After our tour we sought out a whale skeleton I’d read about. A blue whale washed up on Ocean Beach in 1988. It was buried and after five years arranged in this outline of a whale. This has not been maintained and there is no sign although I saw one at this link for the Park Service. The part at the front that looks like wood is baleen–the filter-feeding system of this whale.

On the way back I took the one way loop road that provides views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate when its not foggy. The dirt road in this photo was below the paved road and was closed to traffic. If we’d had more time and energy we could have walked a couple of miles to Kirby Cove at the water’s edge. I told Kirby that she’d have to plan for that on another visit.

It was just a few days before that we had been to Fort Point which you can barely see at the south end of the bridge.

We were able to park on the edge of the road to walk out the path to the overlook. It was extremely windy and cold. On the path I was surprised to see two vendors selling some kind of hot sandwich or wrap. We passed them, to Kirby’s annoyance.

From a Google Search: “Fort Baker, the final “Post-to-Park” conversion in the Golden Gate National Parks, is a 335 acre former 1905 US Army post located immediately north of the Golden Gate Bridge. There are more than 30 historic army buildings, many clustered around a main parade ground.” I was surprised that there were so many buildings and remnants of buildings throughout this area and they are left wide open. There is a lot to explore in the Marin Headlands and I hope that Dan and I will make it back for more exploration.

A final view of the bridge. This is as clear as it got while we were there.

Back home. Kirby is always followed by Jade and Hazel and a couple of others.