Sorrento Back Beach Birthday

This Sunday I found my perfect beach -- I am in love. We pulled into the parking lot, walked up to the edge of the cliff, looked down and gasped.
The cliffs descend sharply to a narrow, sandy beach. The beach ends at a long ?limestone? shelf that drops off dramatically into the ocean. At high tide the water comes up to the sand, at low tide the shelf is exposed and the waves crash wildly against the edge. The spray can go as high as a 2 story house!

The exposed ledge is a maze of tidal pools that heat up and become warm and inviting.
The tidal pools are amazing. Some have wonderful sandy bottoms. Some are small and full of sea stars, seaweed, small fish, crabs, and shellfish. The larger ones are big enough to swim in! The pool right in front of us is a medium size pool with a sandy bottom. By the end of the afternoon lots of kids were jumping off of the rocks and into the pool.


Here I am walking along one of the largest pool on the shelf... it was about the length of an olympic swimming pool and incredibly deep. So deep that it contains an amazing kelp forest! I really wished I had brought a swim suit and snorkel.


The rocks lining the beach are eroded and form arches, grottoes, and caves. If you look at the foreground carefully you can see how clear the water is in the tidepools and the seaweed that line some of them.


The view from the shelf back towards the beach.


Tokay, sunshine and surf... this birthday will be hard to top.