Piedras Blancas Tag

The view of Hearst Castle from Highway 1. Photo by author Steven T. Callan.
March 13, 2020
in Fish and Wildlife, Outdoor Adventures
by Steve

In the Shadow of the Castle

The view of Hearst Castle from Highway 1. Photo by author Steven T. Callan.

I tried to find the most interesting view of Hearst Castle from Highway 1. The huge rock on the left made the difference. Photo by Steven T. Callan.

Kathy and I have always been fond of California’s Central Coast. We try to make the trip down Highway 1, from Monterey to Morro Bay, at least once every year. Weather permitting, we do it during late winter, when most of the tourists are away and the gargantuan beachmaster elephant seals are rumbling up and down the shore, chasing would-be suitors from their harems.

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Steven T. Callan at the helm of the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin
June 26, 2014
in Fish and Wildlife
by Steve

Those Amazing Elephant Seals

Steven T. Callan at the helm of the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin

Author at the helm of the Fish and Game patrol boat Marlin, 1959. Photo by Wallace Callan

My first opportunity to see a northern elephant seal was in October of 1959, as an excited eleven-year-old passenger aboard the Fish and Game Patrol Boat Marlin. My father, California Fish and Game Warden Wally Callan, was the Marlin’s rookie boarding officer, responsible for patrolling California’s offshore waters from the Mexican border to Point Conception. The previous summer, he had returned from a patrol to San Nicolas and Santa Barbara Islands with tales of the massive elephant seals he had seen hauled up on some of the isolated beaches. I hoped to see those amazing creatures for myself on what was to be the ocean adventure of a lifetime.

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