La Jolla Cove Surf

We stopped for a look on our way to lunch.

Event Report 20160212

The Experience

La Jolla is sometimes referred to as the "jewel" of San Diego. Indeed, the name la jolla (or la joya) means "the jewel" in Spanish. Happily, La Jolla is just a few miles from our home. And, also happily, we do not live in La Jolla. The traffic ingress and egress can be a nightmare and indeed we were sitting in traffic for 20 minutes just to get from I-5 into the La Jolla Shores area. Kathleen and I elected to have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant so we had to drive right by La Jolla Cove so we elected to stop and see the surf.

These photos were taken with a Sony A7RM2 body and a Zeiss 50mm manual focus lens, all photos at f/8 and ISO 100. This camera/lens combo produces outstanding images assuming you are willing/able to manually focus on each shot. And, since the combo does produce good photos, I have increased the size of the images displayed in this page from 1000 pixels wide to 1200 pixels. I used to worry about "page loading times" but now the internet is generally fast enough it is a non-issue.

The photos below are what we saw.

We were lucky enough to park right on Cove Blvd and get easy access to the cliffs. This is looking east from the cliffs.

To the northeast, we could see the Scripps Institute pier, Torrey Pines cliffs as well as some sea kayakers in the cove.

The surf was pounding the cliffs. Usually a popular resting place for seals during the day, the high waves had caused most of the seals to go elsewhere. Note the 2 seals at the bottom right of the photo above.

The waves were crashing hard against the cliffs.

Wave impact generated great splashes of spume.

When the wave timing was correct, the water was funneled into a narrow channel creating huge geysers of spray.

Not ever wave generated focused impacts, but when one gets it right it results in an explosion of salt spray.

Were a swimmer to get caught in these waves it would likely be fatal.

Most of the seal resting areas were getting washed by the waves. The washing action is not a bad thing, particularly since the whole cliff area reeked due to the combined essence of seal and seabird feces. The stench of "recycled fish" was overwhelming.

The upper section of the cliffs had a few resting seals basking in the warmth of the noonday sun.

Some of the seals were fully crashed-out, others "bottling" (resting with nose in the air).

The seals were taking a break from swimming in the cold ocean waters.

Pelicans are fond of the cliffs as a resting area too.

This photo made me realize something that I did not know: seagulls have claws on their webbed feet.

Another kind of bird came by our location. This is a Robinson R-44 helo and is similar to one owned by a Unimog buddy. Note the fellow in the front taking photos out the window. This photo is a "crop" and therefore not full-sized.

Animal stench notwithstanding, La Jolla cove is a great place to visit. The views from the cliffs are unique to San Diego. We are lucky to live so close to La Jolla and really lucky that we don't have to deal with the traffic on a daily basis.

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