We made our nearly annual trip to Gaviota again this year arriving at Gaviota on the 31st of December.  As usual, the early months provided us with some spectacular sunsets and sunrises.  Here are a few of our favorites, starting with sunrises which to the surprise of many, rise out of the ocean.  This is because the coast of this part of California runs east and west so in the winter when the sun is to the south, both sunrises and sunsets occur over the ocean.  The rest of the year neither does which definetly confuses some beach goers at the end of the day.

An early morning cell phone shot of an early visitor and his cell phone.		As seen across the campground
Red sky in morning, leads to a pretty day at Gaviota
		February led to more orange and fewere sunrises photographed as the changing time of sunrise didn't corespond with a time that I was out and about.
And into March

And now a few sunsets.

Early January
Almost a green flash	Nice clouds
Great suset color on the east end of the beach along with the shadow of the pier	Into February and the sunset is nearing the land.

Sunset colors over a lot of the horizon

	Sunsets are now behind the coast line	A long time exposure

And now on to some odds and ends pictures.

WE had a Cooper's Hawk hanging around the campground.  It was pretty comfortable with people and you could get quite close to it before it would take off.
A warm weekend in February led to a lot of visitors using the beach
The beaach looking east at low tide.  At high tide the water is up against the cliff.	Looking west.  At high tide the water is up against the rocks under the pier.	We had some unusally large surf in February.
	The high surf cut away about three feet of sand.  A few weeks later the sand was back.	Ther were a lot of undernourished, young sea lions found on the beaches of Southern California this year.  This pair was lucky, they got picked up by the Marine Mammal rescue organization.
Peter capturing the young ones.	Some sea lions are happy the pier is not being used this year.  They take use the boating platform to do a little sunning.	A close up.
Another pair that got rescued.		March and anotehr busy weekend.
One of the other campgrounds had a well problem so they closed it and opened our campground early (normally it opens on the 1st of April)	They held the annual tryout for lifeguards on our beach one Saturday.  Here they are sprinting into the water to start their long swim.

 That's all folks.  We had a good winter down there and hope you enjoyed the pictures.