May, 2024
No driving today … but lots of walking today. There is so much to see and do in this small community!
Today I walked north up through the small town of Pacific Beach, enjoying lots of lovely permanent fulltime homes, and checking out rental/vacation homes as well, and taking a quick peek into a few small stores and shops here. Then I continued walking north up the hill that borders the beach. I wasn’t walking away from the beach; I was walking north, parallel to the beach. You can see how that works, it shows in photos below. But for now …
I walked up to that big white Navy radar dome installation that you saw earlier in this trip … the big white dome that I saw from the beach. Remember that? Well, I walked up there to find out what it was.
Ok, here’s a Google Earth image of the Pacific Beach area …
The RED heart at the bottom of the image above is where I was camped. The YELLOW line surrounds most of the town of Pacific Beach. The BLUE line surrounds the land owned by the US Navy … and the RED circle inside that BLUE line is the big white radar dome. Notice at the far north end of the Navy land that there’s a campground, but they’ve let the shrubs grow so large that there is no view of the beach or the ocean. But also notice that, south of the RED radar CIRCLE is a line of buildings/homes … and they DO overlook the ocean … I’ll show them to you.
Ok, here we are up at the Navy facility up on the hill above the beach.
I drove in … like I owned the place … which I do with my taxes that I pay.
And immediately to my left was the radar dome.
It’s huge!!! Larger than I thought it would be. The white “plastic” surround/enclosure protects the the radar device from the elements of wind and saltwater and ultraviolet sun rays.
I drove around the facilities here, then decided to drive to the south part of this Navy property to check out the vacation rental homes there … all of which are rented only to current or retired Navy folks (other military too?), but not to civilians. What a view they had! People staying in those homes couldn’t walk directly out onto the beach (like I could from my campsite), because under that long row of shrubs there was a cliff that was very close to vertical and a long way down, straight down, to the rocks of the beach. But these homes had stunning views.
My favorite of all of these vacation/rental homes was #305 above … with its view in the photo below. And that’s just the view from the driveway! The view from the back of the house, the back patio, must be truly stunning.
And yet, I preferred being in my camper in my campsite right down on the beach!
As I walked back down from the Navy property, I walked past this 3-bedroom home in the small town of Pacific Beach … it’s a vacation rental. Check it out on Vacasa.
Just a block or so further along was a kind of a hotel/motel type of property called “Pacific Beach Inn”. It was clean and tidy. But most of the units were in a two-story building, not my idea of a quiet space. On the other hand, there was this small building owned by them as well, just one story, three units, and each unit had a partial view of the beach and the ocean. I liked the one on the left, #16.
More walking, more walking … then I dropped down onto the beach in front of the town of Pacific Beach (below). You can see some of the buildings in the town, as well as that large white radar dome.
But my mind was drawn to the beach, and the ocean …
The woman and her dog, above, seemed to disturb the seagulls there. As soon as she moved on, the seagulls returned.
Peace in the seagull community. 🙂
As I walked away from the ocean, back towards the grass, I turned to look at the sand … fascinating dark/light … and areas filled with debris where some areas are entirely empty of debris.
As I looked closer, I realized it wasn’t necessarily debris that I saw. It was tiny, small knobs of sand, along with areas of dry sand and wet sand. What’s this about?
The photo above looks like a map … the islands off Australia? the Caribbean? Actually, the area along the upper left side looks a LOT like the island of Luzon in the Philippines … with Manila Bay … and the island of Corregidor. Ok, maybe these are lands/islands in Alaska.
Hmm, “islands in the sun”. 🙂
What really interested me were those knobs … those points of sand. All of them pointed towards the land, the grass. They hadn’t been there yesterday, or the day before. What made them? They all had a similar triangular “head” to them, and they all faced towards the land, away from the ocean. What’s that about?
Had the tide come in this far?! Or maybe it had rained overnight, such that as the rainwater drained over the sand towards the ocean, it created these “heads” around each tiny bit of debris. Hmmm.
And then I walked on, and came across a patch of sand that didn’t have those knobs on them, but that had clumps of seaweed instead.
When I got back to the campground, the kites were up again! The same five fish kites as were here yesterday were up today too, but this time I took a video. At the end of the video below, you’ll see one of the owners of the fish kites, resting on the beach right where his kites are tied to a log. I approached him after I took the video below and asked if it would be ok to include him in the video. He smiled and waved and nodded and said “be kind”. Well, he also then talked about his kites a bit, but the first and last words from him were “be kind”. And that’s my take on life too … help each other, do good, be happy, be kind. Fly kites, believe in love.
I love the Google Earth images and your maps, I can follow right along. Gorgeous ocean and beach photos. Will be interesting to see what others say about those knobs in the sand. The world is fascinating! 🙂
I love exploring the world, Shawn. It is fascinating, isn’t it?
Been boating here most all my life and never seen knobs in the sand. But then, I haven’t hardly ever walked any ocean beaches, just been busy boating on the water INSIDE Puget Sound. Cool question! The ocean is massive, amazing, huge.
Me too, Rob. Boating but not any ocean boating, nor ocean beach walking until just recently with this travel trailer. Read Mary’s comment below for THE answer about the knobs.
I know what the knobs are. Evidently, it did rain there overnight, but only enough to leave parts of the beach wet, with the rain water soaking into other parts so it looked dry the next morning by the time you took these photos. BUT, on the parts of the sand where it was still wet, there was the usual morning wind, and this wind was evidently blowing off-shore, towards the ocean, such that it blew sand around small particles of debris and hence made those knobby looking things. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I live about two blocks from the ocean. I’ve never heard anyone ask about it, other than “locals”, so I’m impressed that you noticed it, Ann, and photographed it, and then asked. Excellent!
Thank you, Mary! It’s a perfect explanation, and a perfectly reasonable reason for the knobs now that you explained it. One of the ways I learn is to wander and roam and look and listen and then notice things I’ve not seen before (or simply not noticed before) and then ask. Thanks for answering. 🙂 That was great.
Thank you Mary! I’ve been sitting here for over an hour researching those knobs online and can’t find anything, driving me nuts. 🙂
I like the two different colors of seaweed clumps. Some similar/same plants in each, but different colors.
Jamie, I tried online research about the knobs too … no results. I’m glad Mary is here! I’m glad ALL my readers are here. For every question that any of us has, someone always comes up with an answer. I really like that.
And yes, I keep looking back at those two photos of the seaweed and wondering why they are different colors since they do have some same plants in them and they came out of the same ocean. Hmmmm.
Thank you Mary. Makes perfect sense now. I’ve spent my life hiking and living in the mountains and don’t know anything about the waters around Puget Sound or the ocean. But I’m learning. Seagulls are all over the state of Washington, even up in the mountains (Mt Rainier is 14,000 feet! and still has seagulls around it). Nice to see them so comfortable on the edge of those huge ocean waves.
Oh gosh, yes, seagulls are everywhere aren’t they? I went to college over in Pullman, WA, and there were seagulls there … about 330 miles, as the crow flies, from the ocean, no saltwater anywhere near there!
Does that radar station still work? Still operated by the US Navy? And you can drive in and through the place and no one stops you? We’re amazed.
Lovely beach photos. The seaweed is fun, might make a couple of nice prints for your wall.
Good question, Marge. As far as I can tell, the radar array has been decommissioned, no longer operates, but is being maintained for possible future use, and for training purposes. There also was an “emitter” installed using underground cabling that would detect submarines, decades ago … the emitter has been removed but the cables are still in place. From what I can gather online, this facility is pretty much a recreation area for military and federal employees.
And, you know? I just might print out those two seaweed photos and hang them on my wall. Thank you for that! 🙂
I’m retired US Army, and when I look online I can rent one of those homes. Guess I’d better get over those mountains and see what all that ocean is about. Looks fantastic.
Yes, the vacation homes, and restaurant/bar, and camping facilities … all are available to active and retired military and federal employees. So get over here! 🙂
I haven’t been to the Philippines, but I looked at a map of the island of Luzon and it sure does look like that dark area on this beach on the upper left as you say. Corregidor would be on the left ot that large bay inside the island, yes? You lived there as a kid yes? I think that’s what your bio says. I hope you post stuff about that here. I fear too many people in the USA have lost touch with how we are all connected.
The top part of Luzon Island is larger in real life than the image on the beach, but it’s sure similar. And yes, Corregidor Island is a small island at the mouth of Manila Bay. Our family used to take a Navy “tourist” boat out to the island every once in a while (Dad was in the Veterans Administration so had military privileges). My Mom found an old shell casing buried in the dirt on Corregidor, wrapped her coat around it, smuggled it back on board the boat, removed the firing pin when we got home, cleaned it up … and I still have that shell casing to this day. Now that you mention it, that might be a fun blog post. And yes, we are all connected, aren’t we? Let’s keep reminding each other of that, even if it’s just talking with neighbors and people in our communities. Thanks for that, Bill.
Great beach photos!
🙂 thanks Pat.