Dive Bomb

Reading Time: 2 minutes

With temperatures hitting the low nineties in Escondido, I decided to take a cool walk on the beach toward Flat Rock. Torrey Pines State Park remains closed as of July 18th but the parking lot is open and the lifeguards are manning the towers. The weather was perfect, just right air temp for hiking barefoot in the shallow surf, the skies clear, and the water warm enough for a comfortable swim though I don’t have an exact measurement to give you.

Looking North at Torrey Pines State Beach

I was shocked at the crowd, or rather lack of it. See https://www.thetembo.com/clip/2020/05/17/1102/ for my earlier experience. On the north side of the river, there was a decent crowd with people practicing some sketchy social distancing. But past the first lifeguard tower on the south side, the distance grew to about a hundred feet of social distance, and once past the last lifeguard tower, the beach was as empty as I have seen it on a summer day. Not much of a surf so no boarders to be seen.

Porpoising Seals

The beach is none the worse for lack of a crowd. I saw several surf-feeding corbinas, small stingrays, and sand sharks lurking in the shallows. I watched a corbina catch by a fisherman working the shore with five poles. The shorebirds seem happy (what you can’t read the facial expressions of a shorebird?) Seagulls never do mind people, but some of the other birds are a little more skittish. An osprey patrolled overhead from his nest in the honeycomb cliff tops. Brown Pelicans dive-bombed for fish. I didn’t quite capture a water-breaking impact but nevertheless, I think dive-bombing makes for a dramatic picture. I was lucky enough to snap a small seal porpoising into the air and now that I’ve seen it, I wonder why the porpoises don’t seal?

The activities down on Black’s Beach are interesting as always but I won’t comment any further on that other than to report that naked social distancing is a real thing. I’m sure my like count would jump from my four likes to substantially more if I captured and shared some of those photo-ops on social media. I’m equally as sure my providers might register a few short and final dislikes as well.

If you like to see some of my pictures from recent hikes in San Diego County, check out https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fe_aaIGs6lIdSr45Kvnmm6WLY3zGPj9j?usp=sharing