August 6th

Different years. Same date.

Aug 06, 2026

Friday August 6th 2004

In the last six years sea lions have once failed to turn up. The American public were not very understanding. Last year the sea lions were nowhere to be seen, not even on the islands. Normally sea lions wouldn’t be here after May 1st - too busy breeding. One bull may have 12 cows in attendance. After the breeding season the bull has a rest. In the cave huge mossy yellow bodies lie around. The roar of incoming waves and gutteral snarls, bleats and growls fill the half light. The caves are owned by three families in perpetuity - they also own around 140 acres of Oregon country from the shoreline back.

Sea Lion Caves, off the 101 near Florence, Oregon, USA

The guide, Joe aged 82, is very concerned about people’s lack of interest in facts. He started his job at the Caves about five and a half years ago. He made it his business to read up about sea lions. They are now endangered - the state once offered a bounty. In fact they only take a small percentage of fish.

We’re staying at Driftwood Shores - a grey 4 storey block overlooking what is today a grey beach, sea and sky.

In a small gallery in Florence the woman owner tells me that the glass floats are art works. Occasionally the blue and green originals on which they’re based will wash up on the beach, fetched on the currents from Japan where they are used by fishermen to mark their nets. Once in a while the nets are lost, dragged to the bottom (where sea lions feed on crustaceans, skate, shrimp). The nets slowly rot and eventually floats that remain bob to the surface and begin their Pacific journey. During the winter to encourage tourism Florence hides 7 floats a week on the beach. She wasn’t sure if they had all been found.

BJ’s Ice Cream parlour - different flavours include huckleberry (bilberry) and bing cherry. Salt water taffy. My son Joseph and his friend George give me a sample telling me it’s apple flavour. It’s actually jalapeno.

Driving along backroads from the hotel to Florence Old Town you suddenly see across the creek by the bridge a huge pale hill, a bald dune. It seems out of place and strangely scary. What’s this, you wonder, what does it presage? It hangs there in your consciousness, alien, curiously worrying, suggesting a boundary so severe it contradicts nature. Yet this is nature - and so are the men and machines that ride the dunes.

Later we drive down the coast and call in at Sand Dune Frontier. We decide to take a buggy ride - all seven of us, although l felt some reluctance from one or two .of the party.

We climb into what looks like the skeleton of a VW minibus, rear engined, arched over by roll bars, 3 rows of seats. I drop into the centre back between Joseph and George.

David, our driver, is a dry but mellow frontiersman with a voice like melted chocolate. He asks how we want to play this - start off easy and see how it goes? The group has a boy’s outing feel and we all shout yeah!

David fires up the motor and a gravelly metallic roar surges behind my head. lt will stay there, at varying levels from raucous to cacophony to scream for the next 45 minutes. The rib cage truck waddles forward on the dirt road up to the woods. The dirt is sandy and the trees facing the coast are dusted sandy brown.

The track gets steeper and we head towards a gap in the trees. With a disorientating suddeness we shoot out from the track. We all gasp and yell as a massive alien landscape is revealed. Pale buttermilk coloured dunes as far as the eye can see. Occasional islands of trees. All across the undulating terrain of sandhills the tyre tracks of vehicles and a constant traffic of tiny figures on quad bikes - or ATVs - each with its own mast and pennant. They look like bandits.

Before we can take a breath our skeIeton coach lunges forward, motor screaming. We plough down one dune and up another at a terrifying angle of pitch and yaw. We slew round promontories of sand, bounce down valleys, acelerate idiotically up precipices, rocket over ridges. It’s a beach buggy rollercoaster. A sandy switchback ride. Exhilarating. Breathtaking. Fun. Frightening.

We stop. Emily is in tears, scared out of her wits. David stops the engine and turns round to face her, holding her gaze with his deep brown eyes, mesmerising us all with his chocolate brown voice.

Emily, look at me Emily.
Do you know how many years I’ve been driving the dunes? Since 1964. I started drivinq here when I was about your age. Do you know how many people have been injured in all that time? He holds up his gloved hand thumb to forefinger. Zero. I promise you I’ll not hurt you. Why don’t l take it a little easier and see how you feel?

I suspect Emily, like the rest of us, has fallen in love with this skillful man, or if not with the man at least with his voice. In his short speech is years of experience dealing with freaked out small passengers, resolving the awkward dilemna of being out in the midst of the dunes and needing to avoid aborting the mission.

Sand Rail David our driver.