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| The sand is gone |
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May take two years to fully return |
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Here you can see the remains of the pilings from an earlier pier,
maybe the one the Japanese Submarine fired on in 1942 |
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| Santa Barbara as we left on our whale watching trip |
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Thar she blows! Gray whales have two blowholes which produce this
typical "heart shaped" spout. |
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You can see most of the whale in this picture. The Grays are
migrating south at this time of year. |
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| In this view you can see Santa Cruz Island in the background |
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The intrepid whale watchers |
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A Bald Eagle sitting on Santa Cruz Island watching for dinner |
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| A better picture of same |
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Surf along Santa Cruz |
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The Painted Cave, the longest sea cave in the world. The crack
the water is streaming down is a fault that forms the cave. |
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Santa Cruz Island has a big fault that runs across the island.
It is volcanic on one side and something else on the other side. I
think the guide said that Santa Cruz was formed when two plates collided
but then broke off and is somehow now connected to the Pacific Plate |
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| More of the Santa Cruz coast |
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Some Common dolphins playing around the bow of our boat. |
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See Jon McPhee, Assembling California for more info on plates,
collisions, faults, and what California is made of, geologically
speaking. |
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| Our lawnmower-after all that rain we had to use this |
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Gail's kiosk buddy |
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A successful fisherman |
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| More rain and the creek came back up and we went back to Refugio |
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Here you can see where the creek is flowing down the road |
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With creek flooding the surf turns brown |
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And we have a nice waterfall coming down the east cliff |
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Fortunately, we only were out of the park for two nights. Back
in we enjoyed some nice sunrises |
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Elephant Seals-here one or two are nursing |
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A young male |
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| Two males arguing-the one on the right kept backing up until he was
in the water |
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The Elephant Seals are found just a few miles north of the Hearst
Castle |
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Up on the flippers |
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| Moving up to two tons on the sand is tough work |
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Up the main stairs to the Hearst Castle |
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The view from the patio |
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| The outdoor pool |
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Inside one of the guest cottages |
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| The front door |
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Flags from Siena line the dinning room |
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The standard table setting. Mr. Hearst used a lot of ketchup
and also required common mustard. |
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| The indoor pool |
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A panoramic view of Morro Bay |
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Back at Gaviota on a sunny afternoon |
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| Rain coming-this was a small storm |
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The sun no longer sets into the ocean as seen from the beach |
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The sand is returning |
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| How many sunset pictures can I take? A Lot! |
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| Surfers back right before sunset |
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With the wind out of the southeast the surf was up |
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| A later storm produced this large surf |
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The Tsunami that was produced by the big earthquake in Chile caused
the Rangers to close the park and advise us to leave. this picture
was taken at Refugio. Fortunately, the tsunami came at low tide so
it is pretty hard to see. |
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The Castillio's trailer and ours at Refugio for a few hours while we
waited for the tsunami to go by. |
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