Hello from Carmel Valley, California! Woohoo!!! It’s taken a couple days, but I’ve just finished editing a whole slew of new photos (eighty-nine, to be precise). After being underwhelmed for so long, it’s been very nice to be overwhelmed for a change. It’s been an amazing few days. I’ve had good light, big waves, and great clouds, and occasionally all three at the same time. I’ve taken nearly 3,000 photos in the last week, and had a blast doing so. Seascapes are my favorite subject to photograph, and the constantly changing ocean often means it takes more shots than usual to get the image just the way I want it. It’s probably just as well that I live in land-locked Salt Lake City – I’d have to replace the shutter mechanism in my camera every couple months at this rate!
After leaving the gloom of Point Reyes National Seashore last Wednesday, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that despite the cloudy forecast for San Francisco, the weather was absolutely beautiful. I spent the afternoon following the coastal drive through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, stopping at various overlooks to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge and Point Bonita Lighthouse before heading to Rodeo Beach for sunset. Unfortunately, despite the good clouds and great potential, the sunset left much to be desired. I did meet a very nice fellow photographer, James, a hair stylist from Sausalito, on the beach and enjoyed chatting with him while we waited to see if we might get any color in the sky (we didn’t). He helped me navigate out of the park, and was also most helpful with suggestions for where to catch the best night shots of the bridge.
After catching sunrise from Battery Spencer, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, Thursday morning I caught the boat out to Alcatraz Island…yes, I actually found Fisherman’s Wharf this time (without any trouble at all, I might add, unlike my 2006 fiasco), and was even lucky enough to have decent weather when I first arrived. I hurried to get all the shots I wanted outdoors before heading to the Cell Block for the 45-minute audio tour. This wound up being a smart move since it had clouded up quite a bit while I wandered through the prison listening to recordings by former prison officials and inmates describing life at Alcatraz and the various escape attempts (one might have been successful, though it’s believed the three convicts drowned while getting off the island). I tried to get some photos from within the prison, but even for having taken the first boat of the day out to the island, there were just too many people around to get decent shots.
The rest of the past week has been spent more or less in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, where I used the New Brighton State Beach campground as a home base of sorts, and even got to shower regularly. I lost count of how many times I stopped at Panther Beach, and the neighboring Hole in the Wall Beach, accessible only through, you guessed it, a hole in the rock, though it was also visible from the cliffs above. I screwed up and didn’t go to Hole in the Wall my first sunset in Santa Cruz, when my tide was lowest, and high tides and big surf seemed intent on thwarting my efforts to get there. I finally threw on the hip waders I borrowed from my mom and waded through yesterday morning since I kept feeling like I would so regret leaving Santa Cruz without having been to Hole in the Wall (I had a great shoot, and had the whole beach to myself!). And as I was leaving, I met a nice gentleman in the parking area near the road who once he learned that I was from out of town, pulled a Rubbermaid tub out of his car and insisted on sharing some of his lovely shell collection with me. I know I’ve said it several times, but I really do meet the nicest people everywhere I go. It’s also worth noting that the only reason I’ve even heard of Panther Beach, or Hole in the Wall Beach, for that matter, is through a Flickr page belonging to Santa Cruz photographer Jim Patterson. I stumbled across his gallery while doing my trip research earlier this year and he’s quickly become one of my favorites. What’s funnier is that I met another photographer, Tom, while shooting sunset at Natural Bridges State Park the other night (when I was Supposed to have been at Hole in the Wall) and we got to chatting, and it turned out that we were both big Jim Patterson fans.
After finding myself bored by a lackluster sunrise at Panther Beach on Saturday, I headed up to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse and was amazed by the size of the waves there. As I was working my way back down towards Santa Cruz, I happened to run into a gentleman on one of the coastal trails at a beach I stopped at, and he commented that he’d never seen waves like this, and that he’d heard on the news that there were supposed to be fifteen to twenty-foot swells down in Monterey. I didn’t need any more encouragement than that, I hopped in the car and headed fifty miles south. I can’t tell you exactly how big the waves were, but they were Big, and they were beautiful. All of the parking pullouts right along the shore in Pacific Grove were closed due to the potential for high surf, but I was able to find parking along the roadside and spent a couple hours wandering along the beaches and rocks, watching the waves crash. I was in heaven. And to top it off, the weather was beautiful, not the wind and storm you’d expect to accompany such big waves. I also found myself chit-chatting with a lovely couple from Gilroy (though I’d suspect from their British-sounding accents that they aren’t originally from the San Jose area), which just added to my perfect day.
After spending hours editing at the Starbucks within Safeway up in Santa Cruz yesterday, I hurried down to the Point Lobos State Reserve, just south of Monterey. At first I thought it was going to be too overcast to be all that pretty, but I wound up having a grand time hiking the short Pinnacle and Sea Lion Cove trails, and was rewarded with a flare of bright pink for my patience after sunset. Sunrise this morning at Asilomar State Beach was just as lovely, though from the windows here at this lastest Safeway Starbucks, it appears that it’s fairly overcast now. This makes me feel quite a bit better about the fact that I’m still sitting here updating my website, and not already down at Garrapata State Park searching out my sunset location.
I’m down to my last two weeks on the road…seems like it just started, and at the same time, Isle Royale and Maine and everything in between feels like a lifetime ago. I’m continuing my way down the coast, spending the next couple days in Big Sur and then I’ll be in the Los Angeles area before I head for the Salton Sea and Grand Canyon. With a little luck, I’ll find some more good weather and finish the trip off with a bang!
Oh, and check this out! My sister was reading through the comments on the page I linked to the other day for the guy who is getting ready to drive around the world, and noticed that someone from Toyota had left their email address and wanted to contact him about his trip. Amber emailed him on my behalf (how cool is that!) and told him about my own trip, and I’ve since been in contact with Todd myself, and may be writing a short article for Toyota Trails. If it works out, the piece would give a run down on my 4Runner adventures, and feature some of my landscape shots that happen to also include my car. Could be some good exposure, we’ll see…
I’ve had to rearrange the California album and add some new sub-albums. New photos can be found in Point Reyes National Seashore (the last couple lighthouse shots), Golden Gate National Recreation Area (includes the Golden Gate Bridge & Alcatraz), Pigeon Point, Pacific Grove (waves, waves, and more waves), Panther/Hole in the Wall Beaches, Point Lobos State Reserve, Asilomar State Beach, and a couple oddball shots in the much neater California album.