Photography Day

We knew it would be a grey day as we started out, still dark, at 7 a.m. to head north with our cameras, coffee, and delicious coffee cake.  As dawn lit the sky, we knew it would be a chilly and overcast morning. 

Our first stop was at the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, which we were surprised to see was wrapped in plastic for renovations.  Although the lovely lamp gleamed with its many facets, the picture-taking opportunities were limited because of the rennovations, but the setting is lovely.



We pushed on, wanting to stop at the Pudding Creek Trestle Bridge to see it in the emerging light.  The trestle is laced with lichens, giving splashes of orange on the slate grey pilings, with the estuary flowing quietly beneath it, to spill out the mouth of Pudding Creek into the crashing surf.

The estuary was filled with floating algae and foam, with birds swiming, wading, or moving in the sand along the water's edge.  A snowy egret slowly waded along, strking his beak into the water and quickly gulping down the catch, many of them, as we watched.

No one else was on the beach, and only one young couple strolled across the bridge itself as we moved across the sand, snapping our pictures.  Once, while we studied the bridge, a juvenile gull in turn was studying us before finally running across the sand toward the water.

The sand hill we climbed was steep, but on the other side was a flat beach with dried algae draping across the driftwood, all leading to the wide mouth of the river.  Past the river, to the west under the leaden sky, were rocks with high surf crashing up and over the outcrops, looking like small waterfalls in the grey seas.

Our next stop a few miles north was at the lake at MacKerricher State Park, where a gaggle of geese swam among the mallards and the coots.  Three mallards thought we brought food, and quicky emerged from the water to run up to us.  Two of them were particularly enthusiastic as they encircled our feet, and hoped we had something in our pockets.

 

 

 

The iceplant that covers much of the sand dunes, while invasive, is lovely as it slowly turns crimson with the chill evenings. 

 



We moved to the parking area by the Boardwalk, where another car or two were parked, but still the morning was quiet with only an occasional jogger or other early morning nature lover on the trails.  The Boardwalk led us to oversee churning waters, some with streams of foam so thick it looked like rolls of cream on the grey sea, others with more cascading waterfalls, and solitary birds flying by.

 

 

 

Our next stop was trying to find vistas near Westport, and beyond. 

At one we met a delightful man from the Southern US on a trek across the Nation, and today was heading south to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.  We hope he enjoyed the coffee cake.  Lovely seascapes--more monchromatic than a sunny day would provide--abounded.

But the unusual juxtaposition, such as a coil of rusty cable and dried wild flowers, still make for intriguing photographs.












We headed back to Russian Gulch State Park, where the photographc opportunities were terrific--whether it was the reflections in the small stream, golden leaves floating in a calm eddy,  the interesting bark of a tree, or the reflected silhouettes of trees in the sea. 

 

 

 

 

We ended the day a little after noon, and headed home.