David Howell Travel Photography and Map Blog

When you think of California beaches what images do you see?

Crowds, bikinis, surfers, smog, traffic jams, heat, noise, fun, in-line skater, muscle builders, palm trees, sand, or what?

The far northern California beaches have the surfers, the fun, the sand, but the rest? Not so much….

It is now the heart of summer in the northern hemisphere and the heart of winter in the southern. But winter can feel like summer.

If you have harsh winters you may long for winters that look like the beach in this photo.

The beaches of Rio de Janeiro are normally sunny and warm throughout the year. Although as I write this they are having a cold snap.

This photograph was taken in the month of July so this is as ‘wintry’ as you would expect Rio to be. Typical winter daily high temperatures are around 75 degrees F (24 C)….

At low tide this small tidepool is a world apart.

The attached organisms have the small, sandy basin to themselves again. The sprinkling of shells on the rock are exposed to air between tides….

Dreaming about travel. Savoring travel. Remembering travel.

Decent and kind people who you don’t share a common language with. Unexpected challenges. A smile. Patience. A comfortable seat at the window on a long train ride deep into the Alps. Curiosity with rewards. Quiet narrow country roads. Wind rustling the leaves of trees along a river whose name you can’t pronounce. Sheep bells. A muddy river in spring flood flowing out of a Mexican jungle. Birds with impossible colors….

Is it warm where you are? Do you have sand on your feet?

Do you have time for a leisurely stroll down the beach? Can you hear the samba and the waves washing over the bright sand?

Can you sit for a few minutes and watch the football and volleyball matches on the beach?

In the northern hemisphere it is supposed to be spring….

What are you looking for under the haystack?

Do you need a long walk on the beach? Will it be time alone to sort through your thoughts or a chance for an uninterrupted talk? Are you going into town to get salt water taffy? Do you need a book or a maple bar and coffee? Are you going to look at the current art on display or to buy a kite? Is the tide low enough to get around the points and get in a long run to the south? Are you going dune-jumping, or playing hide-and-seek in the beach grass, or are you building a classic sand castle with a moat?

No strolling beach vendors, no high-rise hotels, and no traffic. Just the beach. And agates!

The edge of a continent without the commercialism. The Pacific washing soft sedimentary deposits. The slow immense pressure of the subducting Gorda tectonic plate pushing under the North American plate lifting up more material for the beach. Deep under this beach the Gorda plate is pushing from left to right.

This is Agate Beach in Patrick’s Point State Park near Trinidad, California, USA….

A practice field in the heart of football country.

Copacabana is a 4 km (2.5 mile) long beach. In the early morning it is used for excercise before work and school. During the day and until well past dark it is used for football and volleyball as well as relaxation and sunbathing….

The Carioca of Rio de Janeiro love to be on their beaches. The photo above is from the west end of Copacabana looking east. Everywhere you look as you walk the beach there are soccer balls and volleyballs flying….

Shallow tide pool or abstract art?

I know a local painter who loves to paint rocks. She paints rocks in various settings, many of them under or near water. I thought of Julia Bednar when I was scrambling over this intricately jointed pink granite at low tide on the north shore of Brittany.

This is the Côte de Granit Rose, the Pink Granite Coast, near the village of Le Diben, France. The shore is very gently sloped so when the tide goes out, it exposes huge fields of tide pools….

When I went for my morning walk today the traffic and honking was hard to ignore. The geese are heading north along the Pacific coast!

The coastal overcast provided a neutral gray background for low-flying flocks of geese. They were very low and very loud….