Full Moon over Pismo

   It’s funny how when I travel I often find locals who have never visited the fine areas in their own location.  Last night our neighbors invited us to accompany them on a walk along the local pier in the neighboring town of Pismo Beach. It’s only a thirty minute drive, and though  I often pass the pier, it has been fifteen years or so since I’ve taken the time to stop and walk the pier. I may speed along Hwy 101 and see the posts reaching out like an extension of Man’s desire to walk on steady land while over the sea…. but so seldom do I roam these wooden slats.

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

   We had a terrible storm run over us on its way down from Alaska in 1985. It tore a large number of the boards off the pier. Several of our neighbors scavenged along the shoreline afterwards laying claim to any boards they could put into their trucks. These boards are now incorporated into a few different homes and wood decks in the canyon. 

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

      This pier is a gem for this community. Many people (including some of our neighbors) visit here often. One can fish off the sides of the pier… and the view is hard to beat.   Entire families were here, their kids enjoying the warm night air… the seagulls and pelicans giving us all an acrobatic aerial show.

 

The Full Moon rises over Pismo Beach, Jan 2009

  

   The moon coming up was full, and said to be closer to the Earth than it will be for the rest of the year. It was an impressive sight, and even out shined the lights from the town.

 

  

   Yeah, this was a nice evening. People should take the time to see the wonders around their own back yards. I could travel down to the great pier at Santa Monica…. sure, I’d have a blast, but there it is the people that gives the entertainment…. here we have a nearly empty pier… a nice (fairly) quiet town…. and the wonders of nature resplendent around us… shining in the moonlight.  Yeah, it don’t get no better than this.

 

 

   The town of Pismo Beach is not too large and has a thriving and busy downtown.
   Looking up at the homes crowded along the hill overlooking the pier… it reminded me of some of the towns I’ve seen in Europe overlooking the Mediterranean…. Beauteous.

 

  

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

This is the view looking north from the pier. The rocky shoreline further up the strand is standard for this area. We don’t have many long stretches of beach on the Central Coast. Most are small isolated beaches that require a climb down a cliff to get the the sand. This makes for a degree of privacy on some beaches… not many people are interested in a hike to see nature.

   Note also how deserted the beach is. Yet, I suppose since the water is cold, and it is the tenth of January, these are factors that keep folks away.

   Here’s another view looking north. There is a playground area for the kids.

 

 

 

  

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

    This is the view looking south from the Pismo Pier.  This was an unusually low tide due to the huge and close full moon.  I suppose once the moon is fully over us and going down, the tide will be very high.

    Note how this wide flat beach stretches on and on for miles. Before the last century this beach was widely known for its famous ‘Pismo Clams’.  There were annual clam harvest parties going on, and people would rent special forks that they would use to dig the clams out from the sand.  The tines of the forks were designed so that the young clams would sift through… if the clam was trapped between tines, it was a legal size.

   There were a large number of injuries from the forks…. many were the people who speared themselves through the foot with a clam fork.

  I am sure the local Chumash people loved this area… and under their control the wildlife was plentiful and life was probably fairly easy for them. The clam shells provided a lot of domestic uses due to their concave shape. They could be bowls, plates… and the two halves could be sealed together with tar from the tar seeps in the area… this would make for a small package to store valuables… a tiny little box to hold something precious. These are sometimes found when a burial site is located.

   We’ve even found a few pieces of these shells at our place, where presumably the Chumash camped occasionally while gathering the acorns in the hills. They seem to have had a pretty idyllic life….

 

  

 

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

 

Nice and flat beach…

Pismo Pier, Pismo Beach California

Later in the evening….
This beach curves along, leading into the Nipomo/Guadalupe Sand Dunes which have been the background scenery for films such as ‘The Ten Commandments’, G.I. Jane’, and many more.

This is one of the few places in the country where off-road vehicles are allowed onto the beach, you can see some headlights up the beach on the vehicular access area. It is tightly controlled to preserve the beach… but still there is a large and vocal group of people who have been trying to close the beach to vehicular traffic for years.