This final post focuses on beach basics – surf, sand and sky with a few coastal rock pictures. It generally runs from south to north.
Piedras Blancas, California, north of San Simeon
We haven’t spent a great deal of time at Southern California beaches. But Emma Wood State Beach is a wonderful exception. It consists of a tiny, rocky beach with campsites right next to a decrepit road right next to the train tracks.
Dave photographing about ten feet from our RV campsite. Later on, a wave caught him while he was composing an image.
Pismo Beach, a quintissential beach town, has all the necessary amenities: seafood, saltwater taffy, surfboard rentals, etc. It also has a nice campground (though our solar panels were stolen the last time we stayed there.) The great thing about the campground is that only a few dunes separate it from the beach. Depending on the tides, a channel can open up, providing fun for those who are willing to wade.
Oceano Beach is a little south of Pismo. There are a lot of dunes in this area and Plovers make their nests on this beach.
A different visit with another ring around the sun.
Montana de Oro is a great place to spend a day along the coast. It has fascinating rock formations.
Heading further north along US-101, you eventually reach Morro Bay. As shown in a previous post, the town landmarks are 3 very high smokestacks. The other large landmark is Morro Rock (the large lump on the right). Surfers also hang out here.
Big Sur, California is justifiably famous. It’s worth visiting but it’s getting more difficult to reach. Winter storms and rain periodically take out parts of CA-1. When you can drive it, each turn of the road displays another small beach or dramatic falloff. It is spectacular.
Pt. Lobos State National Preserve, just south of Carmel, sticks out on a peninsula that has several beaches and overlooks. There are also sea caves.
These rocks are white with bird guano. Glad we’re not near it.
Besides the crashing surf there are the strange rock formations. Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were among the many photographers who loved this area.
You probably can’t afford a house in this area, but the famous Pebble Beach 17-mile drive is worth the $12 it now costs to drive this road.
Pacifica Beach at night.
Fort Funston, south of the San Francisco Zoo.
Point Reyes National Seashore is a huge area. It’s got a lighthouse. It has Tule elk. It has miles and miles of hiking trails and lots of beaches. It’s very remote and I’d advise spending a couple of days and maybe staying in the nearby town of Inverness.
Estero Trail, Point Reyes, when the tide is out.
Klamath Beach, CA
Jumping to the northern edge of California, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park has a coastline similar to what is seen in Oregon. Dramatic!
The Oregon Coast is fascinating and in some cases, much more accessible than the Calfornia coast. This is Simpson Beach, Oregon, on a stormy day. It has wonderful rock erosion and patterns.
Heceta Beach, Oregon
Cape Perpetua, Oregon, allows cars to drive to a very high lookout spot.
So many shades of blue
Cascade Head, Oregon, is a headland and part of it is a Nature Conservancy protected area.
Cape Meares juts northwest between the Pacific Ocean and Tillamook Bay. We took a leisurely drive around it in 2022. The mudflats and bay provide lots of entertainment.
Arch Cape, Oregon
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Ruby Beach, Oregon, is rocky, perfect for stone stacking. (Check out warning signs – stone stacking is now forbidden in some locations.)
Driving across the Astoria Bridge from Oregon to Washington.
After driving a long way up the Washington Coast, we reach my favorite romantic beach. Kalaloch is a magical place with a nearby campground that encourages early morning and late night images.
As the sun sets, this is where my Pacific Coast posts end. I hope you get out there and enjoy it yourself.
We take a lot of walks on the beach when we’re camping nearby. I am always surprised by how many activities are going on. First and foremost to me is walking on the beach.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Bodega Bay, California
Pismo Beach, California
Ruby Beach, Washington
Not on the coast but near it.
Presidio National Park in San Francisco.
But there’s so many other things to do on the coast.
Playing at Pismo Beach.
Sand sculpture.
Santa Barbara, California
Fishing at the Florence Dunes, Oregon.
Presidio National Park
Clamming on a Sunday afternoon at Cape Meares, Oregon.
Sitting around, enjoying the view.
Dave and Rick Lopez at Steep Ravine, California
Kalaloch Beach Campground, Washington
Waiting for a walk
Sitting with master
Taking a nap.
Presidio National Park
Getting married on a cold and windy day.
El Granada, California
Listening to a unique outdoor musical concert, Inuksuit, by John Luther Adams, where the musicians are spread out over a quarter mile. Instruments include cable car bells, rope, ocean waves, wind, as well as more traditional instruments.
Looking at weird art works on the beach.
Fort Funston, California
Looking at my own image at a photography show at the Presidio.
Looking at a fashion shoot.
Presidio National Park
There are more active things to do near and in the water. Like playing volleyball.
Ocean Beach, San Francisco
Flying kites.
Riding bicycles.
Riding horseback.
Kayaking.
Bodega Bay, California
Salt Creek, Washington
And of course, surfing.
Pismo Beach, California
Windsurfing at the Oceano Beach. This is one of the few areas I’ve seen that allow vehicles on the beach. (I don’t approve.)
Windsurfing can be dangerous. I was on a ferry crossing the San Francisco Bay and the captain stopped the ferry to make sure this guy was okay after he was dragged off his surfboard.
Ziplining. This isn’t necessarily a coastal thing but Arcata, CA is where we went ziplining in 2013. I have no fear of heights but it was disconcerting to step off the platform high up on the redwood tree. But it was fun.
Both Seals and Sea Lions are what a lot of people think of when they think about California pinnipeds. Sea Lion Caves in Florence, Oregon gives people a chance to get a fairly close view of Sea Lions in their natural habitat.
But I think the most amazing display in California is when the Elephant Seals arrive at various beaches to have their pups. They are tired and the beach looks like it’s full of dead bodies. But one or the other of the females will raise her head to look around. And the pups are always looking for another meal from mom.
This girl is pretty beat up.
The enormous males arrive first to fight for the right to associate with the much smaller females. Their fights are impressive. The females arrive and give birth to the pups they have been carrying since the previous year.
Neither this female nor her pup look happy with her suitor. Pups can get killed if the males roll over them.
Newborn pups weigh about 75 pounds and are about 4 feet long. The pups nurse for about a month and gain about 10 pounds a day. The mothers don’t eat at all during this time. (No wonder they look so tired!)
This pup is almost as big as his mother.
Pups are always looking for another meal. If mom won’t put out, they look for a temporary mom not paying much attention.
“What did I do with my pup?”
Elephant Seals use their flippers to spray sand over themselves, protecting them from sunburn.
After a month or so, the mothers abandon their pups and return to the sea to feed. By that time, the pups weigh about 300 pounds and remain on the beach. They must teach themselves how to swim and find food.
Jellyfish
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the best places on the West Coast to examine Pacific Ocean life. In 2013 they had a spectacular exhibit on Jellyfish and we spent a couple of hours photographing them.
In my last post, I talked about the dangers of Pacific waters. My brother-in-law, Vince, who was raised out by the beach in San Francisco, once got stung in the face by a Jellyfish. How, you might ask, did that happen? Well, a close relative was involved. When he was 7 years old, his sister picked up a beached jellyfish and threw it at Vince. It hit him on the face. I quote him here: “All I remember is intense stinging and screaming as my dad tried to figure out what to do. Another man came runnng up saying something about someone getting some fresh water. Next thing I knew they threw a couple buckets of fresh water into my face and rubbed it in with a rag and the stinging was gone.” Beachwalkers beware!
Another Pacific denizen is this delicate and complex Seahorse. All the tiny branches and leaves belong to the Seahorse – used to deceive predators from viewing it as a meal.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium also has an enormous salt-water tank open to the ocean so you’re seeing whatever is in the area.
One more creature found in most tide pools is the Starfish.
Insectsand Snakes
When they’re in town, south of Pismo Beach, Monarch Butterflys can congregate by the thousands in the Eucalyptus or Monterey Cypress trees. Their numbers vary widely but they are on the edge of extinction. We tried planting Milkweed (one of their preferred flowers) in our back yard, but never saw a Monarch.
We were on a trail to the ocean in Del Norte Redwoods State Park. We finally reached the small beach. While wandering around the rocks, I found this beautiful dead Dragonfly, lacy wings disintegrating on the rocks.
This long, harmless Garter Snake was slithering along the Taylor Dunes Trail in Oregon.
Larger Animals
There are lots of Roosevelt Elk in Northern California. Many of them reside in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. There is a habitual herd grazing in the meadow next to Elk Prairie Campground. They don’t seem to fear humans unless they get too close.
Over the years, we’ve seen deer everywhere. But these deer impressed me. They were in a steep canyon, carefully navigating across a snowy area. It would soon be fatal for one of them to get a broken leg on the icy slope. We were up at the top of Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in Washington.
And then, sometimes there is a complete surprise. We were on the very remote, 75-mile-long Mattole Road aka the Lost Coast Road, north of Eureka, California. There road goes out to a remote view of the Pacific Ocean. There are various farms along the hilly road and so cattle and horses can be seen.
But then we came to a different field and found another grazer – a striped one. We didn’t expect zebras to be nibbling grass along with the horses.
I have lived near the Pacific Ocean all my life. I am not a water person. As a child, living in the Sunset District in San Francisco meant wind and fog for much of the year. My bedroom faced west and was called a “sunroom” but it was hardly that. One of my mother’s favorite sayings was that “It’s called the Sunset District because the sun only appears at sunset.” I went to sleep most nights, listening to the fog horns warning fog-blind ships away from our rocky shores.
Mom was raised on 27th Avenue in San Francisco, about a mile from the ocean. When she was twelve years old (around 1925), the sand dunes were much more extensive than they are now, rolling about a mile inland, stopping only a few blocks from her home. So it was quite a hike to actually get to the water then. The one story I remember her telling about the beach was that she and her siblings would go into the dunes to roast potatoes. She also told me that someone had pushed her head under water when she was young and that she was afraid of bodies of water ever after. She communicated that fear to me.
As an only child, there were no brothers or sisters to take me to the beach. It was my father who introduced me to Ocean Beach; my mother almost never went along on these expeditions. The big draw near the water was Playland at the Beach, three blocks of rides (the Big Dipper, a Merry-go-round, bumper cars), games like Ski Ball and of course, the Fun House, featuring Laffing Sal in front. This was a lot more fun than walking along the beach.
Image from internet
Swimming in the ocean at Ocean Beach is and was a risky proposition. First of the water was cold and the weather was usually windy and foggy. There are super strong rip currents that can drag you far offshore. Lifeguards used to be stationed there when I was a kid but aren’t now. There are warnings posted at every stairway down to the beach about the rip tides. Every so often, someone is pulled into deep water and drowns.
For me, another deterrent from going to the beach was the sunburn issue. As a half-Irish, freckled kid, Mom constantly slathered me (like a rare steak going to the barbecue) with lotions that needed replenishing often. After getting a few sunburns, I assumed the responsibility of coating or covering myself. That was an inconvenient pain-in-the-neck at our shadeless beach.
Mom wanted me to learn to swim and so I began lessons at Larson Pool. I think I was about 9 or 10 years old. i absolutely hated it. My mother didn’t drive and so we walked three blocks to catch the bus to the Larson Pool, luckily an indoor pool. Summer days in the Sunset District were almost always foggy and chilly. So waiting for bus, particularly after the swimming lesson, was a miserable trial to soggy me. After a few of these outings, I begged her to stop the lessons. She agreed and so I am able to dog paddle a little and do a dead man’s float. Not optimal for swimming in the Pacific Ocean.
When I got older, one of my high school friends lived a couple of blocks from the ocean, so occasionally, we walked along the beach. One of those forays revealed another beach danger – undertows. Undertows are strong – they can drag you from the sand into the water. In this case, a sneaker wave caught three of us walking along the edge of the water. The water only came up to our knees but the pull into the ocean was really strong. Always something to consider when traversing the beach.
An old famous feature at Ocean Beach was Sutro Baths. Because the weather is so miserable and the ocean so dangerouse at the beach, Adolph Sutro built the indoor Sutro Baths in 1894. Glass-covered, it contained seven swimming pools filled with sea water at various temperatures. It lost popularity by the 1930’s and was defunct and decaying when I was a child.
Image from internet
Now Sutro Baths are even more dilapidated. This is what they looked like back in 2016 when Dave and I went out there on a blustery day.
After Playland closed, the main attraction at Ocean Beach was the Cliff House. It use to have a couple of restaurants with a great view of the ocean and lots of junk for tourists to buy. A couple of years ago, the National Park Service who owns the land on which the Cliff House stands, ended the lease of the restaurants there. Surprise! When the restauranteurs moved out, they took the “Cliff House” sign with them – they owned the rights to the name. So now the building is a shadow of it’s former self. But the views are still great at sunset.
Behind the former Cliff House was and still is Camera Obscura. The San Francisco Camera Obscura projects an image onto a horizontal viewing table via a reflected image from a viewpoint at the top of the building. A metal hood in the cupola at the top of the building slowly rotates, making a full revolution in about six minutes, allowing for a 360° view around the building. So you get a great view of the ocean, nearby Seal Rock and environs.
Image from Wikipedia
So my favorite beach activities involved going near it (the Cliff House, Playland at the Beach, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco Zoo) but not too close and not in it. I also think that a lot of Ocean Beach in San Francisco is one of most featureless beaches on the West Coast. The northern end has the Cliff House, the southern end has some dunes but the central portion has only an old seawall and flat beach, flanked by parking lots.
Another view location that few people know about is Sutro Heights Park. The park once encircled the mansion of Adolph Sutro, a San Francisco millionaire. Now just the park remains but it shows off one of the best views of Ocean Beach.
Until I got into photography, the beach scene was not of interest to me. But forty-plus years of photography has taken me to many other West Coast shore locations and revealed some tremendously beautiful beaches and the huge variety of uses that people put them to. This limited series of posts with my images and commentary is meant to celebrate them.
Birds
Birds are found all along the West Coast. One of my favorites is the huge Brown Pelican. They fly in a stately formation along the coast, looking prehistoric. When one spots something edible in the water, it can take a spectacular dive to knock it out and catch it.
Closeup views can be had as they lurk under fishing piers like this one at El Granada, waiting for slippery fish to fall into the water or fish entrails, tossed by those gutting their fish up on the dock. The birds have a huge pouch that allows them to carry dinner home to the chicks. This pelican is waiting patiently, along with gulls and a wayward duck, for the fisherman to throw something to them.
These are elegant White Pelicans, hanging out at Oso Flaco Lake near Pismo Beach.
Another stately bird is the Great Blue Heron.
This grouchy looking bird is a Snowy Egret chick. They nest on Alcatraz Island. Their preference is to nest together, kind of like an avian condominium.
One of the most common birds found at the beach are seagulls. Many of them are California Gulls, mostly hatched on an island on Mono Lake in Eastern California. They are beautiful birds but their eating habits aren’t neat at all. They have a fascinating way to eat clams – they pick one up with their beaks and fly high in order to drop it on the sand. That often serves to break the shall and they can easily pick out the meat. Sometimes they go to all that trouble and another gull steals the broken clam before the first one can retrieve it.
They will eat just about anything and many a careless picknicker has lost food to marauding gulls. I once watched a gull balancing on the edge of a garbage bin, trying to decide if it wanted to jump inside to get a tasty treat. It teetered on its webbed feet for a while but eventually decided he might not get out once he got in.
Another tasty treat for gulls is the placenta and afterbirth of Elephant Seals. The gulls hang out, waiting for babies to be born, then chow down on the leftovers. Like I said, not fussy.
A bird species that has adapted way too well on the Pacific Coast and everywhere else is Canadian Geese. I can remember way back when seeing them was a special occasion. Now they are overpopulated and ruining parks and seashores with their large droppings. But their chicks are still cute.
The West Coast is full of small, rocky islands off the coast – a great place to raise a family. These Cormorants nest by the hundreds off Point Lobos. Safety in numbers, I guess. The breeding male develops a spectacular blue streak under their bills to attract a female. (Note the gull in the back, waiting to eat an unsupervised egg.)
Cormorants can be found closer to civilization. This bunch chose Alcatraz for breeding.
There are many species of smaller birds, making their meals at the ocean shore.
Sandpipers
Godwit
Black Oystercatchers
Plovers find safety in numbers, sometimes flying in groups of fifty or more. They dine on all the tiny crustaceans revealed by airholes in the sand as the current wave recedes. Plover nests are a little further up the beach, close to where dunes begin. Unfortunately, that leaves their eggs open to predation. California often closes those beaches with Plover nests during breeding season.
Often birds leave behind bits of themselves – delicate feathers.
There are many other West Coast ocean birds but I haven’t taken decent pictures of them. The next blog will cover some of the coastal animals and marine life that I’ve photographed over the years.
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