Beach Wrack

San Onofre State Beach faces South Southwest like the Piers, and stretches from the Power Plant to the beginning of Camp Pendelton...parking for campers and day visitors is on Old Highway One which has been made into the Park's long Parking Lot...over against the hills is the freeway, the only coastal route to San Diego (and only one of two routes!), and to get to the Beach one traverses the bluffs, and walks down the cliffs...watching a lone surfer below, (I only stayed atop the bluff, perched on a bench thereabout), I remembered how the beach is...sand, and then pebbles, lots of pebbles...'ouch ouch' on bare feet...like the Merced's bottom!...and the surf is a shore break, sorta, and an outside break...between is a kinda wide hole, or lowness, where one drops into the water over one's head..so as one walks out, water is at knee level, then over one's head, then again at knee level, and thankfully, sandy again!...the outside break breaks soft, like Huntington, but on big days it is fine surfing...north of the decommissioned now Power Plant, are famous surfing spots like Trestles...and there is always a strong south to north current, and as it takes awhile to paddle out, one can expect a long walk back to one's towel covered plot of sand after a few rides!...Beach is a longer and bigger version of Crystal Cove, and is what San Clemente Beaches once were before devolopement...a minor miracle it was saved from development...and its simplicity, no stores, just campers and cars parked, and beach goers, makes it seem a way out of the way place, and Beach has some of the atmosphere, the feeling, of being out and about in the Mountains, or anywhere outside of Towns!...a favorite place...return is always a misery on the freeway, which I took yesterday...evening traffic on 5... and sat a long while there too...hmmph...oh..Kelp pic is from the evening at Huntington day before...in or out of the water, Kelp is always fun for pics!