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| A Half-Dozen Deer, Mt. Tamalpais |
I was hoping to do some tidepooling on Thursday after checking up on my trail cams. I'd checked the tide tables and saw that Duxbury Reef would have a good minus tide around 3 p.m. What I forgot to check was the wind forecast. If I had checked, I'd have waited until today to go.
Even on Thursday, there was almost no wind on Bolinas Ridge, where the day was spectacularly beautiful. The ocean in front of Stinson Beach also looked fairly calm, but there were whitecaps on the ocean in front of Bolinas, on the side where the reef is. I thought about just heading home, but since I had all day I drove on down the mountain, on the tiny chance that tidepooling might still be possible.
The wind blew my hat off as I walked down the trail to the beach. You could still look at tidepools, and maybe even see something through the turbulent and murky water, but there was no point trying to do any photography.
No big deal. A spontaneous trip to Duxbury Reef that doesn't work out, I can live with. Plus it was a nice day for a drive.
Last week I'd been planning to head down to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to hopefully catch some early desert wildflower action, but as my departure date neared, the forecast turned to "blowing dust" and gusty winds. I wasn't going to drive more than a thousand miles round trip to get skunked by the wind, so I didn't go. This coming week looks promising though, so I'm looking forward to getting back down there for the first time since 2010. I can hardly believe it's been so long!
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| I had my DSLR gear, but the only pictures I took were with the FZ80 during my hike to the trail cams. |
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| I managed to get off one frame of this varied thrush with a bay nut in its beak before it flew away. |
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| The bear's head fungus was still alive! |
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| Muddy water and howling wind at Duxbury Reef. |
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