Alexander Stuart

Photograph  copyright © 2016 Alexander Chow-Stuart. The waves, and the light, on the beach in Santa Cruz for these moments in my brief YouTube video were awesome.  The wooden posts only appear in winter - remnants of an ancient jetty, although there were also old railroad tracks that ran literally at the water's edge, all the way up to San Francisco, I believe.  The posts are only visible in winter. In summer, they are buried by the sand, which the ocean tears away in winter months, completely reshaping the beach and filling the harbor mouth (if it weren't dredged). If you enjoyed this post, please follow me on Twitter  @alexanderchow .   And please  subscribe to this blog via email by clicking here.

P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Glorious fun flying a beautiful kite that a complete stranger gave to Hudson, Paradise and their best friends. He also gave them an intricate kite shaped like a ship with sails. Hopefully pictures of that to follow in future - it's more difficult to fly! P hotograph Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart.

P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart.

P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Our six year old daughter Paradise had a big day this week. On Tuesday morning, she wrote (or dictated) four stories in a row, each one quite magical. In the afternoon, she learned to balance on her bike - and rode for two or three miles with us a couple of days later. Of her stories, my favorite was this one, about Whitey, her pet mouse, who sadly died recently...but who lives on in this beautiful tale of her ocean adventure in a coconut and her friendship with Whistle the Dolphin. Paradise and I actually found a coconut washed up on the beach last year, and imagined that it might have sailed across the great Pacific from Hawaii or some South Seas island. Perhaps it's the very one that Whitey the Mouse traveled here in! P hotograph Copyright  ©  2014 A lexander Chow-Stuart P hotograph Copyright  ©  2014 A lexander Chow-Stuart

A squadron of pelicans in a feeding frenzy. All p hotographs Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Living and writing by the ocean - in a spot we like to call Aldabra (which in reality is a remote and very beautiful atoll in the Indian Ocean) - the beach figures large in my thoughts and daily routine. Usually I wake early, and on occasion I walk at dawn through the waves, past the occasional fisherperson, enjoying the darkness slowly transforming into light, the spray of the breakers, the pull of the tide around my feet, the constant barking of the sea lions, the damp of the ocean mist - and the sight of the sun breaking over the horizon to the east. Dawn panorama on the beach. P hotograph Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Running from the waves. P hotograph Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Recently, a few days before what would have been his birthday, I thought of my father as I trod the beach at dawn. He came from a tiny Scottish fishin