Purisima, Fitzgerald marine preserve

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Jacky had to monitor server alerts today, so she didn’t come with Friedrich and Petra and me to Half Moon Bay, where we first went to Purisima redwoods open space preserve and hiked the trail along the creek, out and back. Very pleasant.

Of course, I was watching for small animals.

I stirred this one up with a small stick to get a look at its thousand feet.

We also saw lots of banana slugs, but not a great deal of other wildlife.

From there, we went up highway 1 on a cold, cloudy, very windy day, to Fitzgerald marine preserve. The tide was falling, but with another two hours before hitting full ebb, and the ebb was not all that low anyway.

So we went out on the rocks, such as they were, and looked for interesting things. The wind disturbed the surface so much that there was little chance of seeing anything interesting under water. Mostly just seaweed of one kind or another,

The wind was so strong, those of us wearing shorts felt like the paint was being sand-blasted off our legs. So we retired from the beach after only a few minutes, and went into the Montery cypress forest overlooking the preserve. Still windy, but nowhere near as cold and unpleasant as on the beach itself.

From the overlook, we could see a pod of harbor seals, one of which decided to go for a swim while we watched.

Below, we see an incipient collapse of the cliff. You can see that the trail used to run there; now the barrier fence is 10 meters further back.

The other interesting thing about this forest is the red algae, not everywhere, but on much of the vegetation closest to the water. It is visible, though not obvious, in the picture above, and lends a nice touch of colour to the picture below.

Home again for naps, an early meal, and best wishes to our friends for their return journey to Munich. It has been fun!

Tags: Fitzgerald marine preserve, Half Moon Bay, Purisima redwoods open space preserve