The day after our Pinnacles visit was filled with wonderful memories including classic California goodness. We started our day at the Sand Rock Farm B&B where we'd been staying - highly recommended, the breakfasts are fantastic - and wended our way slowly northward to Half Moon Bay.
Here's a shot of the open air "wine cellar" that was accidentally discovered underground at the farm, and is now put to good use as an event area.
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| Wine Cellar Dance Floor |
We visited "The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park" in Aptos to see some tall Redwood trees. The park did not disappoint. Here are a few shots looking skyward!
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| Going Up |
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| Branches in the Clouds |
We headed over to the area known as Steamer Lane on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. We went to see the lighthouse with a "surf museum", but the main attraction was the view of the surfers from a high cliff relatively near them. These are
extremely experienced surfers enjoying their sport by surfing the remarkably large Santa Cruz waves. I was amused to see several photographers, some with tripods, and all with
very large lenses, lined up photographing the surfers. I wasn't sure if I dare join the crowd of experienced photographers. Deb encouraged me to take the time and grab some pictures, and I'm glad she did! I changed lenses from my 12-40mm to my 75-300mm (150-600mm equivalent) telephoto to have a chance of getting worthwhile results.
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| How It's Done |
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| Carving a Turn |
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| Riding It Out |
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| Pointing In the Desired Direction |
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| Tip Up |
For reference, here's a quick shot from Deb's cell phone:
Her Pixel 2 normally takes outstanding photos, but this subject is just too challenging for a general purpose cell phone wide angle camera. You can see how far away we are from the surfers, and why having a real camera with a real telephoto lens is quite necessary to get good surfer photos!
After the surfer photo fun, on our way back to the car, we stopped for a few moments to admire some birds sitting in the Ice Plant groundcover very close to the sidewalk. I still had the 75-300mm lens on my camera. So I grabbed some shots of these friendly flyers. These were all captured at a 179mm focal length. I was delighted with the sharpness of this lens - my least sharpest Olympus lens - in rendering the birds' feathers.
I'm pretty sure these are all Brewer's Blackbirds. The mostly black ones are males, while the brown ones are females or juveniles.
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| Sheen |
For this and a few other bird photos that follow I've decided to share a closer cropped view as well so you can get an even closer look at these feathery creatures.
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| Sheen (cropped) |
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| Resting |
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| Resting (cropped) |
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| Lost in Thought |
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| Right Back Atcha |
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| In the Ice Plant |
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| In the Ice Plant (cropped) |
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| Gruff? |
We then made a quick visit to nearby Natural Bridges State Beach before heading further northward up Route 1.
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| Natural Bridge |
This next photo was taken outside the hostel at Pigeon Point:
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| Bloomin' |
We arrived at San Gregorio Beach in time to appreciate a true west coast sunset. San Gregorio holds a special place in my heart as I have fond memories of bringing my son to play in the sand and enjoy the natural beauty of this Northern California beach.
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| Looking Back |
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| Oceanswept |
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| Sunset Loving Dog |
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| Beach Hills |
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| Sunset Path |
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| View North |
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| Beach Twilight |
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