A Whodunit at Port San Luis

About 18 months ago my wife and I took a trip down to Pismo Beach along the Central Coast of California. A short distance away to the north is Port San Luis, a small harbor with a working pier. A good pier is irresistible and my wife and I kept trading the camera back and forth. I can't tell you which one of us took the picture above or even which ones of those we took later. In any case, as anyone can see, some guys were moored at a working dock conveniently located just beyond the side of the pier.

Last month we returned to find some changes. It's a beautiful area and it's rather cool to see that wildlife is thriving these days. In the picture below you can see some pelicans being followed around by sea gulls and on the right you can see the pier we were heading for. Between the small boat by the pier and the large boats in the distance you can see the working dock, sort of.


Now the next photo just gives an idea of what the area looks like. My wife and I are on the pier looking toward the large boat shown above on the far left side (it's the bait boat and there's a tank next to it). Everything in the picture below, including the bait boat, looks normal. Now the working dock is on the right and out of view. We'll get to that in a second.


Okay, like I said, wildlife has been doing well in the area. Pelicans are recovering from the DDT fiasco of four decades ago. Sea lions are no longer being hunted into extinction. The sea lions are doing so well in fact that people have to be careful. All those blobs stretching out on the working dock in the picture below are sea lions. Obviously, the working dock has been rendered temporarily unavailable.


Now here's a closeup of the sea lions and a sign that gives an indication of what the problem is:




P.S. You can click on the pictures to get a bigger view.