The Secrets of Centerville Beach
Centerville Beach. Photo by Sally Dolfini.
We live less than a mile from Centerville Beach, a county park unmanageable by human governments, stormy and cold, with undertows and sneaker waves — an ever-changing, relentless presence that is the soundtrack of our lives.
Beef cattle graze around the patches of sand and driftwood, an extended beach created in this last decade when the surf broke through the dunes, claiming a thousand acres of grazing land and three barns.
The sea is rising. And — or — the land is falling. Both are true as we confront the consequences of climate change and the unceasing movement of three tectonic plates.
In the wetlands, where the marshes teem with herons and bullfrogs, is Bruce Slocum.
The old Moranda place at Centerville, circa 1940s.
Nearly 80, Bruce travels in his outboard motorboat, the “old river guy” who’s been a friend since fourth grade, and who, when the tide is precisely right and you have the cash, will take you on a a magical tour of the waterways of creeks and slough that originate in the Wildcat Mountains and that once encircled the lost village of Camp Weott.
A few years ago, he and I were riding ATVs from the Centerville Beach entrance at “the old Moranda place” to the mouth of the Eel, four miles north.
We cruised to a low spot behind what remains of the dunes, where decaying fragments of lumber and rusted metal were embedded in the soil, hosts to sprawling morning glories and evening primroses. “Old Scotia Gun Club,” Bruce said.
“PL [Pacific Lumber Company] built it years and years ago. For managers and executives. Used to hire a guy to live here during duck season to keep out the trespassers and protect the cabin.
See this pipe? Was the water pipe for a cast-iron pump sink. Before someone burned this place to the ground in the early 2000s you could still pump water here. Fresh, clean water. Only a few hundred feet from the ocean. Amazing.
I tried to buy this strip of land from PL years ago, but they weren’t interested in selling. Thought it could be a hookup to the railroad they were running down the coast. Didn’t happen.”
A mile or so farther, Bruce waved me to a stop. “See that mushroom growing straight out of that pile of cow manure?” I did. A strange, lone specimen; its long slender stalk sported an oversize helmet. At home, I looked it up in the field guide. It does not exist.
