Cama Beach

Two weeks ago, I headed up to Cama Beach to give a Friday night talk.  I've always like Cama for its accessibility - 75 minutes or so, door to door, no ferry to catch, in the middle of the night when the wind is howling and the waves are breaking over the seawall. Which I've done.  But late on Friday afternoon, there was a slow wall of traffic moving north through Everett and it took forever! Somehow I made it in time to get the laptop set up and still had time to wander down to the beach for the sunset and a chance to gather my thoughts.

I've posted from Cama Beach many times and there's no particular geologic message buried here, but the light was nice and the beach always looks different.

Note the band of sandy gravel a couple of feet above the water line.  It corresponds roughly with the morning high tide.  Because subtle differences in wave action sort sand and gravel so differently, and do so differently on rising and falling tides, mixed beaches often record small details. This band is bracketed by two tiny beach ridges - I can picture two boats, maybe 30 minutes apart, going past between 9 and 10 in the morning as the tide was beginning to fall.

The big slide at the north end can be seen in the background of the photo with the two boys walking on the beach.

AERIAL VIEW