High above the beach...

Today Roz and I walked the dogs on Inspiration Loop in Will Rogers State Park, about a thousand feet above the Santa Monica beach.

Just as we began, there was lightning, thunder, and rain... but later a partial rainbow and dramatic sunset.

We so seldom get huge dramatic clouds here... enjoying the beauty.

Last photo: looking south toward buildings and beach of Santa Monica with Palos Verdes Peninsula off in the distance.

Laguna Beach

A walk on Laguna Beach with Sharon Billings, Karen Torjesen, and Jeanne Sales...

Cloudy and cool... but still beautiful.

Waves too big to surf

Stormy waves arrived from New Zealand... 10-12 ft. high.

For the first day or two, no one surfed.

Then the brave ones ventured out again.

Shakey Quakey

One of the fun things about beach walking in Santa Monica--and life in Los Angeles in general--is that The Big One could occur at any time.

The 6.7 earthquake a few days ago, Oct. 21, in the Gulf of California near La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, is a reminder of this fact. If you draw a line from the fault this quake occurred on, it goes north to about where the San Andreas Fault ends.

The Pacific plate is grinding north against the North American plate, and currently the movement is occurring right about on this continuing line.

Today there was a much smaller quake near Bakersfield, not far from the Tejon Pass, site of the biggest earthquake in California since records were kept.

That earlier Big One was in 1857 on the southern half of the San Andreas with ground rupture visible from near Parkfield CA down to Wrightwood (not far from San Bernardino). It was magnitude 7.9.

Here's the info on it:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1857_01_09.php

The only buildings around at that time were Fort Tejon, some houses in Gorman, and a few ranches. Only one person died in that quake--when an adobe in Gorman collapsed.

Quakes have occurred on the southern section of the San Andreas fault about every 150 years, so we are due for another movement any time now.

This morning's 3.7 quake occurred in a field near Mettler CA on Highway 99 south of Bakersfield, 20 miles north of the San Andreas. Here's the info on it:

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/recent/ci10826277_l.html

From the Santa Monica beach to Bakersfield to Palm Springs, we will all have front row seats for the next time the Pacific plate moves five or ten yards north against the continental US.

The 6.7 Gulf of California quake on Oct. 21 occurred at 11:53 am--an hour and a half after The Great California Shake Out at 10:21. This earthquake drill was the third widespread duck-and-cover exercise in California--the first two just in SoCal but this one observed throughout the state.

The shift in Baja California was almost in sync with the scheduled drill. Good vibrations.

Big Surf

Weather from the south is bringing 20-foot surf to some California beaches, 10-foot surf to others.

I went to look at it this morning.

"Oh my God!" was my first reaction.

I've never seen such big waves on the Santa Monica Beach.

Some people were in the water with boogie boards but not close to the big ones, and at 10 am no one was surfing.

Waves maybe ten feet tall towered over people standing in the water fifty feet from them.

Hundreds of people were standing on the beach watching each one roll in, occasionally saying, "Oh my!" Many people were sitting under umbrellas.

Lifeguards were running up and down the beach holding above their heads an orange floatie with handles on it. I guess that was supposed to mean, "Stay out of the deeper water." They were also talking to people who looked inexperienced and were too far out.

Yesterday a man body surfing was thrown against the rocks of a jetty in Newport Beach and was drowned.

See http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beaches25-2009jul25,0,3538892.story

Solar Eclipse in India

By leaving India on July 18, I missed the longest total solar eclipse of the century.

Many people watched it from the steps above the Ganges in Varanasi.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4806910,prtpage-1.cms

Tribute to the Fallen

Every Sunday on the Santa Monica beach we see crosses placed in the sand for lives lost in Iraq---4,300 this Memorial Day weekend.

Veterans for Peace organizes this weekly tribute and protest of the needless loss of life.