Wednesday, November 11, 2009

More About Surf and Foam and the Big Swell

On Saturday I did go back out with the morning's low tide, to see how things were at Rialto Beach. The high tide at the height of the swell had swept right over the berm and down to the picnic tables where they lay the disability access pathway in summer. Some wood carried across from the beach side had piled up around one of the tables, and battered it somewhat. A really big log had shifted right in front of the beach access path.

Big wood on the move (Click for larger image.)

In fact, it looked like all the logs were moved and shifted. I couldn't recognize which was the one I sat on the day back in August I watched the white foam wash around below me and thought, "This log doesn't move." It does, it did. Not sure how often there's high tide and heavy surf the way there was on November 6-7, but clearly Rialto Beach would not have been a safe place to be at 2 PM Friday or 3 AM Saturday, and clearly in winter storms the big drift is continually remade.

As to foam, alas, it was not the clean white stuff that sinks right away into the sand. The whole ocean surface in the surf zone carried the unpleasing foamy trace of the algal bloom, persistent ecru-colored evidence on the beach that offshore the waters are still not well.

After a while I headed home. The snow level had come down with the pouring rain Friday night. Lake Crescent was looking splendid.

Lake Crescent, 11/7/09 (Click for larger image.)

1 comment:

Sky said...

that photo of lake crescent should win an award! stunning, mir.