Alexander Stuart

Photograph  copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. One of my all-time favorite shots of our family on the beach at Santa Cruz at high tide.  The beach in winter is fascinating to listen to and observe. The waves pound the sand with a force you can hear streets away.  They would entirely block the harbor mouth with sand if not for constant dredging by the harbor authorities throughout the winter - which redistributes sand onto the beach, where an earthmover works pretty much constantly to shore up the road side of the beach against natural erosion.  It's strange how we take our California beaches for granted, yet most of them (the ones people use, anyway) require management in some way.  I remember in Miami Beach, after Hurricane Andrew, when the lifeguard huts were swept 100-300 metres across the sand and the seaweed piled high in mounds you could climb, I realized how much work daily went into keeping the beaches manicured, evenly leveled and seaweed-

Not quite the 40 foot waves at Mavericks yesterday, but fabulous to watch.  Photograph Copyright 2014 Alexander Chow-Stuart. 

All photographs Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. As we enjoy our lives on this magical island of Aldabra - which might be located in the Indian Ocean somewhere between Madagascar and the Seychelles, or might equally be found in the mighty Pacific, along the California coast - we experience exceptionally beautiful events such as this high tide, one Friday evening a few weeks back. Tugged by the gravitational pull of an almost full moon, the waves came far up on the beach and created tide pools that were glorious to wade through. The waves were spectacular, the weather was perfect, the light and the sea air offered pure natural enjoyment. I never tire of the ocean. All photographs Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart.