I get to enjoy the beach every week, so you get to enjoy it on my blog. It is getting cooler, I didn’t want to tempt Westley with the water, so I suggested we go and walk on the pier.
Yes, the sky and the ocean were that blue. Yes, there is a certain haze on the horizon, is it from the fires (there is now a fire burning in Orange County.) Is it just part of normal pollution around here? I don’t know. I’ve never walked the full length of this pier, the boys always want to be on the sand.
I know, cameras foreshorten things a lot. The town looks smaller and much farther away, it is really very close and IRL, you can see a lot of the details on the beach. Which is why real life is always better.
There were quite a few fishermen out. And although I didn’t get pictures, they were successful, this guy right here pulled out 30 fish in about 15 minutes. They are very small, like sardines. He and all the others have five flies on the fishing wire, this guy caught five at a time, more than once. Others were standing very close and they were getting maybe one or two. I don’t know his secret.
Then there was the fisherman who held one rod and had two in reserve. I saw this setup a few times. Fisherman are smart. I asked this guy if he was fishing for dinner, he said dinner and lunch. Others were cleaning fish on the tables with faucets set up along the pier. Although the pier was probably for docking boats when it was built originally, today it is a fishing pier. Many people, like me, just love to walk the pier, or sit on the benches and watch the birds.
It was low tide. As we entered the pier we passed the life guard station. They have a board with the days information, weather, tide times and the temperature of the water. So 2 pm was low tide and there we were. All these little shellfish are exposed at low tide, millions of them. They are mostly buried in the sand, walking on them simply pushes them in further. This must be part of their cycle, since twice a day and night they are exposed like this.
I need to improve my video skill. My purpose here is to capture these tiny birds and they run faster than a roadrunner. I captured much more, you can see how low the tide is, the people enjoying the water (64 degrees) and the other birds swooping around.
Back on the Strand, I’m always looking for interesting things. Right now, Halloween is in full gear. I’m pretty sure this has been here for a while, but how could I not share tile graffiti with smurfs!
Leah