Peter_C
Contributor
Some of the hard core club members of North Coast Divers spent the weekend camping on the remote Sonoma Coast of Northern California. Here we have no cell service :shocked2:, few people, mountain lions, and great white sharks. It is one my favorite places to scuba dive 
The storms of late have been BIG with massive swells and really high tides. Our beaches that had remained much the same for years, were altered this year. Below you will see the pictures that tell the story with some captions above them.
We started our trek from Fort Ross. The goal was to hike to Reef campground/beach, and pick up plastic garbage along the way.
You can see how beautiful and pristine our coast truly is. Check out the water vis There were actually two idiots out diving in that. When I mentioned it to the ranger to keep and eye on them he goes "Today?" He was flabbergasted someone would choose to scuba dive in these conditions, and headed off to go grab his binoculars to watch over them. See second photo to give you an idea of the entry and exit conditions. They often rescue the over zealous ab divers when they drive all the way to the coast and are not going to go home without abs.
After hiking for awhile we came to Reef Beach. This is a state park and closed due to California's budget cuts. The only way in is to hike.
Here Don is picking up garbage, with Odie on the right, who has the blue bag, and Erik in the back ground. Odie scores major points for bringing bags to put the plastic garbage in.
We ran around for only a short time collecting garbage and didn't even get 1/8 of what was on the beach. Since there was no where to dump the garbage we had to pack it all the way back out and could not carry much more. I talked to the park ranger and he said he would let us get a pickup truck into the gates if we wanted to perform another cleanup at a later time.
I pulled a few common items to show that this is stuff all of us use and discard on a daily basis. We may be good ourselves about throwing stuff away, but what about our friends and other people? Do they know about the issues that we humans are creating? Lets work towards educating everyone we can and try to slow this destruction of the earth down. It starts by picking up other peoples garbage one piece at a time. I call it my good deed for the day! Every time we visit the coast we pick up some kind of garbage from the dive sites.
Later in the day we hiked down from Still Water Cove campground to the beach. The redwood forests and all the ferns are incredible.
We sat on Still Water Beach and watched the sun set. BTW there was kelp wrapped around the picnic tables :shocked2:
Sunday afternoon Keith and I went to Gerstle Cove to see what was going on there. The waves were very impressive and the tide was just starting to come back in, so they were only going to get bigger. One of the first things we noticed on the beach was that the log we had been setting our gear on for years was now moved. Plus there was a huge torn up tree stump and some other large logs now placed into the cove. The foam also showed a strong surface current.
Upon descending down towards the beach we found the stairs are all torn up. Something is going to need to be done about them, but the legalities are huge.
This wave caused me to move from my pretty high up position on the rocks to even higher ground. (The day before I yelled at someone "Wave, your in a bad spot" and she just looked at me, then went back to looking in the sand, 20 feet below the wet sand line. Needless to say she was wet 3/4 the way up her jeans, but at least she is alive
The ocean is unforgiving with these conditions.
We sat on the bluff for a while watching the surf come pounding into the rocks. This wave was about 18' high. You can't even see a rock that sticks up about 12' out of the water.
The storms of late have been BIG with massive swells and really high tides. Our beaches that had remained much the same for years, were altered this year. Below you will see the pictures that tell the story with some captions above them. We started our trek from Fort Ross. The goal was to hike to Reef campground/beach, and pick up plastic garbage along the way.
You can see how beautiful and pristine our coast truly is. Check out the water vis
There were actually two idiots out diving in that. When I mentioned it to the ranger to keep and eye on them he goes "Today?" He was flabbergasted someone would choose to scuba dive in these conditions, and headed off to go grab his binoculars to watch over them. See second photo to give you an idea of the entry and exit conditions. They often rescue the over zealous ab divers when they drive all the way to the coast and are not going to go home without abs. After hiking for awhile we came to Reef Beach. This is a state park and closed due to California's budget cuts. The only way in is to hike.
Here Don is picking up garbage, with Odie on the right, who has the blue bag, and Erik in the back ground. Odie scores major points for bringing bags to put the plastic garbage in.
We ran around for only a short time collecting garbage and didn't even get 1/8 of what was on the beach. Since there was no where to dump the garbage we had to pack it all the way back out and could not carry much more. I talked to the park ranger and he said he would let us get a pickup truck into the gates if we wanted to perform another cleanup at a later time.
I pulled a few common items to show that this is stuff all of us use and discard on a daily basis. We may be good ourselves about throwing stuff away, but what about our friends and other people? Do they know about the issues that we humans are creating? Lets work towards educating everyone we can and try to slow this destruction of the earth down. It starts by picking up other peoples garbage one piece at a time. I call it my good deed for the day! Every time we visit the coast we pick up some kind of garbage from the dive sites.
Later in the day we hiked down from Still Water Cove campground to the beach. The redwood forests and all the ferns are incredible.
We sat on Still Water Beach and watched the sun set. BTW there was kelp wrapped around the picnic tables :shocked2:
Sunday afternoon Keith and I went to Gerstle Cove to see what was going on there. The waves were very impressive and the tide was just starting to come back in, so they were only going to get bigger. One of the first things we noticed on the beach was that the log we had been setting our gear on for years was now moved. Plus there was a huge torn up tree stump and some other large logs now placed into the cove. The foam also showed a strong surface current.
Upon descending down towards the beach we found the stairs are all torn up. Something is going to need to be done about them, but the legalities are huge.
This wave caused me to move from my pretty high up position on the rocks to even higher ground. (The day before I yelled at someone "Wave, your in a bad spot" and she just looked at me, then went back to looking in the sand, 20 feet below the wet sand line. Needless to say she was wet 3/4 the way up her jeans, but at least she is alive
The ocean is unforgiving with these conditions. We sat on the bluff for a while watching the surf come pounding into the rocks. This wave was about 18' high. You can't even see a rock that sticks up about 12' out of the water.
