“I feel at my best near or on water. The ocean can be both serene and energetic at the same time and I feel at peace with this seeming contradiction. Be it pounding surf or gentle ripples, the energy of water flows to my core” – Ed Lehming

I’m sticking with the Central Coast of California for a while. It’s a region that is relatively new to me. It has its own “feel”. It’s between two large urban centres, namely, Los Angeles to the South and San Francisco to the north. Between these two cities lie miles and miles of rugged shoreline, filled with their own unique flora and fauna.

We had hoped to drive the Coast Highway (Highway 1), but as has happened many times in the past, parts of it had literally fallen into the ocean. If you have ever driven it, you would know why. It’s and old highway built into the loose sandstone of the central California coast. The Pacific shore is frequently battered by big storms that, over time, erode the bedrock beneath the highway.

In places, like Cambria, the shoreline is a series of short bluffs and wildflower meadows, with the occasional small beach. Moonstone beach, pictured here is typical of this shoreline. The land is filled with tough and dry looking vegetation and an incredible diversity of low lying flowering plants as well as some tall Cypess trees. Cambria has done an excellent job of providing access to the ocean vistas be means of a beautiful walkway that runs along the shoreline. There are also many access points where you can get down to the beach itself.

From this vantage point, the beach looks like a typical sand beach, but on closer observation, this beach is made up of small polished stones that feel like ball bearings when you walk on them. A difficult and unexpected walk to say the least. This fine gravel transitions into larger sea-polished stones as you get further up shore. The colours are magnificent and I saw many people just sitting on the beach sorting and collecting the. All the while, the surf that created this unique beach continued to pound in relentlessly.

I walked up and down this beach simply enjoying the scenes presented to me, including some wonderful tial pools, filled with life of their own.

iPhone 14 Pro Max back triple camera 24mm
1/1212 sec, f/1.78, ISO 80