25 November 1998
(transcribed from my diary)
I saw Jake off to his bus to San Jose' and walked to a little island thing and took lots of pics of water variations as the waves sloshed and slathered around the island.
Took pics of these little pyramid shaped shells that have worms or something in them. They were up until they sensed me and slurped their shells down.
Found a Huge HUGE huge awesome crevice with 50 metric tons of water ramming itself in and out of the crack. Talk about an enema!
15m x 3m x 2m = 90 cubic meters =~ 100 cubic meters = 100,000kg = 50 metric tons of water
This was a huge awesome display of oceanic force as water breathed in and out of the tunnel-chasm thing, blasting spray and froth with dragon's breath thundering intensity.
I watched for several hours.
After this time, and many pictures, I recognized that I was tempted to jump into the water as it was 3 meters deep and rushing back out toward the sea. Certainly the depth of the water would keep me safe, and by this time I could easily predict which gushings of water would be the deepest (and therefore safest??)
I recognized the same time of thought process (I know I can do it!) that resulted in my inline skating head injury and I knew no one would find me for a while if I did get hurt.
So I walked away.
Headed back toward land and holy shit I was trapped!!
The tide had risen by about a foot or 2 and I couldn't possibly negotiate the rocks without falling and getting my camera soaked.
The waves gushed a foot deep back and forth every 10 seconds over the rocks - no way could I zip across them that quickly and keep my balance or whatever. So I waited.
I took a nap using my water bottle as a pillow and tried to take a self portrait of myself, but my camera wouldn't. Maybe it was too dark or too close or something.
Woke up and I was still on the island and still waiting. I recognized that I could get back to shore easily without my camera.. I wondered about throwing my camera the hundred or more feet past all the water..... um no.
I considered going across and leaving my camera until low tide at 1am... Not that desperate yet. So I waited.
Many people walked by. Many people took pictures and pointed at the pelican in the tree on the top of my island. I did not.
Finally a man yelled, "are you okay?" and I shook my head exageratedly no. Few minutes later a man came close and I dangled my camera bigly and he didn't understand, so waded in toward me. I explained that I needed a plastic bag for it to go across. He waded back, and returned a few minutes later with a plastic bag. I wrapped it so that two layers of plastic protected my camera. I tied two knots in the bag and put it in my pocket and just waded to shore.
My camera pretty much made it without getting wet at all. Thank you thank you to everyone that helped. I didn't recognize the original man who asked if I needed help. Talked to a couple and told them about the awesome water thing.
Okay, so the above was taken from my diary. Here are the pics from the "island." The amazing thing was the wave motion. Each of these pairs of pictures are of the same spot, but at high -vs- low wave. (Not high vs low tide...) These undulations were just moments apart.
looking into the crevice
water gushing out
looking down at the crevice
same with water
mouth of the crevice
medium
high
And, saving the best for last... These two pics are of the same location, just seconds apart. After the second pic, I feared for my camera's survival. It survived.
low
high
