Ganymede's Darkroom - 2007 Photos (February)
20 February:   (I had my first free day in a while that was neither a weekend day nor a holiday, so I took advantage of it to go hiking along the coast at Año Nuevo State Reserve, a coastal reserve that sits mid-way between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz on the California coast. My parents and I used to visit it all the time to hike, fish, and have a picnic by the waves. In fact, we relaxed in the H.M.B. area at least twice a month when I was growing up - it was barely twenty minutes from our house on a good traffic day! - and most of the time we drove the extra twenty-five minutes down to Año Nuevo's northern border because it was more remote and less touristy. The day was gorgeous, but more importantly: I ran into two elephant seals! Many elephant seals inhabit Año Nuevo but they almost NEVER come up to the northern end of the reserve where I prefer to hike, so even though I've been hiking there all my life this was the first time I saw elephant seals in this area! I've seen marine mammals before but this was the first time I saw them totally alone, and I was only about four meters away from them. I didn't notice them until I was very close to them because they were nestled in mounds of seaweed; in fact, had I noticed them sooner I wouldn't've dared get so close! Unfortunately by the time I saw them my digital camera's battery had died as I'd already hiked and snapped photos for four hours, so I had to resort to using my cellphone camera. The three crappy pictures I have are shown above, and they're crappy because the cellphone can't snap good photos when the sun's going down. Figures that when I really needed my camera and actually had it with me, its battery would be 100% dead! But still, what a great day! Meeting the elephant seals was quite literally life-changing.) Taken from my cellphone, a photo from Princeton Harbor, where I had lunch before going to Año Nuevo. This photo proves that my cellphone can take semi-decent photos if there is enough light available:  The public bathrooms at Princeton Harbor (...and they say racism is dead in the San Francisco Bay Area):  Here are five more cellphone photos I took while driving (... *cough*) from Half Moon Bay to Año Nuevo: The Pacific Coast Highway, though we locals usually just call it Highway 1. *shrug* More scenery along Highway 1. More scenery along Highway 1. More scenery along Highway 1. More scenery along Highway 1. Then I got to where I was going, so the cellphone was put away for the real camera!       Look for the snake bones in the second photo:       The day was exceptionally clear! Look how well you can see the buildings on Año Nuevo Island in the background of the third photo:          That's not my empty beer bottle in the third photo. I was picking up a bunch of old litter that some asshole(s) had left near the water, and I threw everything away after I left the reserve:    And no, that bottle of Clamato *gag* ain't mine either. Also, note the line of foam in the second photo and the gorgeous clouds in several of the subsequent photos:          Look how far out from the water's edge I seem to be in the second photo! I love climbing over rocks that jut out far into the ocean so that I can pretend I'm in the middle of the waves:    The dead crab in the third photo freaked me out so much that I actually yelled in surprise when I saw it. Normally crabs don't frighten me, but this one did because crabs as large as my foot NEVER come up that far out of the water (it most likely was dropped by a bird), because it wasn't there when I passed by this area just a short while before, and because I nearly stepped right on its crunchy-gooey self. And if you stood downwind of the thing, the air reeked of boiled crab (yum yum!):       I love this photo of the sediments exposed at low tide. You can see the translucencies of both colorless and green glass, the red of old brick, the slightly nacreous shine of shell fragments, the opaque/muted green of serpentine, the occasional faded purple of a sea urchin spine, et cetera:  - SPECIAL: A short movie clip of me walking into the reserve, towards the ocean. Part 1 of 1. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: After I arrived at the water I shot a short clip of an incoming wave! Part 1 of 1. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: A movie clip of waves jostling the water about very powerfully. Part 1 of 2. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: A movie clip of waves jostling the water about very powerfully. Part 2 of 2. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: A movie clip panning from some cool rock formations over to the waves. Part 1 of 2. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: A movie clip panning from some cool rock formations over to the waves. Part 2 of 2. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) - SPECIAL: A movie clip of waves, taken from far out in the middle of the water. Part 1 of 1. (.avi format, 3.7 MB) |
Ganymede's Darkroom
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