May, 2024
The photo below was the amazing view of the beach and the ocean when I stepped outside my trailer this morning …
The weather was so perfect this week that I was out on that beach every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening. The tide this time of year never comes all the way in/up to the grass, no where near! So there was always plenty of beach for walking, any time of day.
I walked up the park road a little ways in order to find an easy path down onto the beach …
Notice the fisherman out in the surf. Sometimes the surf is dangerous, but today it was calm and posed no danger at all.
I didn’t walk out to the edge of the ocean yet, but walked north on the beach up next to the grass, looking to see what I might find.
There were homes up on a little hill above the beach … and, you might see it, a white dome above the trees pretty much right in the center of the photo below. Click on the photo to enlarge it. What’s that dome all about? A space station for aliens right here on our planet?? [Ok, don’t worry, I’ll show it to you up closer in a little bit and explain what it is. 🙂 ]
On up the beach I walked, sticking close to the grass at first, but always keeping an eye out towards the ocean too.
There were lots of interesting things in the sand too.
The photo below … a dried up fish of some sort, maybe a salmon?
Nope! It was just a chunk of wood. How tricky this world is, eh? 🙂
I walked up the beach far enough to finally get closer to that big white dome. Here it is below. And here’s what it is … a dome that encloses a huge radar dish. I believe it’s operated by the US Navy. No aliens here. Well, not that we know of. Although, people from other planets would surely be welcome, yes? 🙂
Ok, on up the beach. In the photo below, I was stopped by a small stream of water that was originating in the trees and shrubs on the hill to my right.
I followed it to my right, towards the greenery and the hill.
It really did have “flow” to it, it was a tiny little stream. But as it flowed out onto the sand, then the water was absorbed into the sand and this little fresh-water stream stopped short of entering the Pacific Ocean. It was so sweet.
But this monster below! Wow, it could eat you up in a heartbeat!
When I walked up to its “mouth” (yes, I was very brave), the top part of the wood was above my head, so it was about six feet in height. I spoke nicely, and thanked this person for not eating me alive. Eventually, it just yawned (actually it finished yawning, that was a big yawn!) and it smacked its lips and apologized for yawning, it wasn’t trying to eat me alive! See how we are? We make assumptions without asking first. Whew, good lesson for me to learn, NOT to assume the worst, but to assume the best in other people, beings … and monsters. 🙂
Ok, back to the beach. 🙂
Now I wanted to go out to the ocean, to the waves, and get closer to them.
You can see in the photo above the results of a “large” wave coming many feet/yards up onto the beach. The wave was only an inch or two deep as it poured gently up onto the sand for quite a long way. As the water then receded back out into the ocean, it left fun little bubbles behind. So gentle.
The waves that smash and dash and blow and crash out further from shore might make you afraid, but there’s no need to fear.
Here’s a video of the ocean taken as I was standing on the beach. It starts looking north up the beach, and ends looking south down the beach. There’s a boat (a fishing boat?) out on the ocean at about :48 in the video, heading north. You can see and hear the crashing waves out there, and yet you can also see the small wavelets coming up onto shore, just meandering in and out. Out there where that fishing boat is, I suspect there are no waves, just swells, or small hills of water, so the boat gently rises and falls, up and down, on top of the water.
And then I walked back to my campsite and Towhee the Trailer. In the photo below, you can see a few homes on the hill on the right just south of the campground, and then a few homes in the village of Pacific Beach on the left to the north of the campground.
Just the campground below and a few kites in the air. You can see the white top of Towhee the Trailer on the left. And you can see that this campground and the campsites are right on the edge of the ocean beach.
And there she is …
I love to wander and explore. And I always love seeing Towhee the Trailer waiting for me when I come back to my campsite.
More beach walks coming, and other stuff too. Thanks for coming along with me on this beach walk. I hope you weren’t too frightened by that yawning monster! 🙂
A walk on the beach, yeah! It looks like a cool morning kind of Misty, typical of the Mayweather in this part of the world. Lovely, no crowds. I liked the prehistoric sea monster left behind by the wave running up on the beach, a couple of pictures below below your monster. Not nearly as scary looking as has the great big one.
Yes, it sure was a cool misty kind of morning, perfect for a beach walk, especially with no crowds. Ah a prehistoric sea monster, I’d missed that one. 🙂 I think both are friendly, yes?
So nice to walk along the beach with you! So good to see and hear the ocean!
🙂
The ocean is fascinating. And much less dangerous than I’ve thought. I’ve never seen it in person. But it sure is loud! 🙂 I liked that little river running down from the hills and then onto the beach.
Ah, indeed, the ocean is not dangerous unless you get into the wrong parts of it. And yes, it sure is loud. It’s a force of nature! The wind and the waves. But it’s friendly. 🙂
I got the video at the end but no photos. That makes me sad.
Nope, I just got them. Sry
When you receive the notice about a new blog post, you MUST go to the upper right corner of that notice and click on “Read on blog” … then you’ll get everything. 🙂
That new notice was confusing, to me too! Hope you can see that link and that it works for you. Let me know.
This was great. I usually follow and read web stuff about plants, but I love reading your blog and seeing all sorts of other things that I know nothing about, like the ocean! And sand! And tiny little rivers that never quite make it to the ocean. And monsters! But also life, real life.
As someone else said here, that ocean is loud. Could you hear it inside your trailer? Did it keep you awake at night?
Ruby, I worried a bit about camping so close to the ocean, and the possibility of the noise from the ocean keeping me awake at night. Of course, outside my trailer I could hear it just fine. Even inside my trailer, I could hear the ever-present roar, tho it was a distant roar. But when I went to bed at night, I never heard a thing. I wondered if maybe the sound of the ocean actually made me sleep better.
The monster is brilliant! 🙂
A lovely beach walk.
Thanks Henry. 🙂
Here in Canada, in British Columbia, the west side of Vancouver Island faces the Pacific Ocean, but it is so rough and rugged with mostly rock cliffs because of ocean storms, that there aren’t hardly any ocean beaches to go visit. We’ll be right down. 🙂
What fish is he fishing for?
Janey
Janey, I’m hoping to take the trailer up onto Vancouver Island for a full summer one of these days, and get out to that west side and the Pacific Ocean there. From the maps/charts I look at, most access by road is to harbours and bays where there are some sandy beaches, but yes mostly that coast is rocks and cliffs. Still beautiful I bet. 🙂
Mary of Makah comments (below) that the fisherman is likely fishing for surf-perch. That’s my thought too. Lots of folks do that here.
I live about 3-4 hours away, but have never been there, bad me. 🙂 It’s gorgeous! Are there rental homes, apartments, cottages, rooms in the town there?
Your video is loud with wave/ocean noise, or is it wind? Or both? The photos of people walking on the beach show them pretty well bundled up, including the dogs. It looks sunny and warm, but maybe it’s cold because of the wind? Oh, your trip here was in May, so I’d bet it’s still pretty cool that early in the year.
Yes, there are MANY rental homes, cottages, apartments, etc, in the small village of Pacific Beach. Get online, Paul, and search them out. I may share a few photos of a few of them later in this series of blog posts about the area. A few have a view, but most don’t. But even the rentals that don’t have a direct view are just a block or so away from the beach … an easy walk.
And yes, it was sunny on this trip, but it was mostly cool temps in May, early in the season. The nice thing about visiting here early or late in the year is that there are fewer tourists here. But you have to bundle up. 🙂
That fisherman is likely fishing for surf-perch. It’s very popular type of fishing off the coast of Washington. That little piece of wood that looked like a fish was fun, maybe the soul of a salmon is in it, maybe some salmon was caught and eaten by people and then leftover salmon was buried near a tree and was taken up into the tree, and now the tree/salmon is returning to the ocean. And I liked the creek that came down onto the sand from the land above … that’s how all rivers come to be rivers, after all. I love the ocean, spectacular!
Surf-perch, thank you Mary. I’ve heard that term but didn’t really know what it meant. I’ve found a number of good websites that describe the fish (large fish!) and the fishing techniques. Thank you. I also appreciated your talking about the fish/salmon and the wood/tree. Of course, no doubt in my mind, that salmon was returning to the sea. I like that a lot. Thanks for the comment, Mary. 🙂