#567 Garrapata

This shot was taken at the Garrapata State Park in Big Sur, California.
This is a beautiful place to view, and photograph. It’s a particularly dangerous place. The loose terrain, and soft shoulder of the cliffs are dangerous enough, but the beautiful beaches are very inviting, and very deadly.
In this area, “rogue” waves” which are unpredictable large Tsunami type of waves often roll all the way up the beach, pulling whoever is on the beach into the water. The water is around 50 degrees F. Extremely cold. The strong tide makes it very difficult to escape, and get out of the water. Every year there are numerous drownings, especially tourists. I personally witnessed this happen to a couple of Japanese tourists back in 2001. The husband was able to escape, his wife drown on Garrapata beach. It was a horrible thing to witness.