Monday, November 17, 2014

You were the ocean when I was just a stone.



The beach scratches a few itches for me. It's super frustrating to get cell coverage, and it gives me immense comfort. It's probably because I spent so much time being a beach bum growing up. And I mean that in the most literal sense. I don't get out there as often as I like these days. So when I take the time I want to go to pretty unusual ones.

I'd been wanting to visit this one called bowling ball beach for a while. Since it was my anniversary with Mr S. we thought we'd stay up in Mendocino to visit it. It has some of the most unusual geology I've ever seen. It's known for these sandstone concretion balls that lay on the beach. I imagine they use to rest on the ocean floor until the earth was tipped skyward.

We got there right at low tide, but the beach balls were nowhere to be seen. Mr S. was able to get some elevation and could see people on the other side of the cove we were in. So I set off to find a cliff path. The great thing about the beach is no matter what - someone has cut a cliff path.

By the time we found the area - the balls were pretty submerged but you can see beautiful photos of them here. You have to get there right at low tide to get the full effect. And there weren't that many,  They're all clustered in a small area. So the beach is a little oversold. It's still a really unusual beach to be sure. But if the tide is too high the cliffs are almost more interesting than the beach. You can see the balls in the cliff side.











This part looked like a boat ramp.



Modern cave art.



There were more full abalone shells on the beach I've seen since I was growing up. I thought they'd been harvested so much maybe you didn't see that as much anymore. You still find pieces, but this beach had the full shells everywhere.



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