The Traveling Widower

Tag: Capitola

  • Exploring Ano Nuevo: A Elephant Seal Adventure on the California Coast

    January 13th/14th, 2026

    View from Capitola cliffs
    View from Capitola

    After a full month of boredom at home, I really needed to get out of Dodge for a while. I had considered going to Yosemite, but decided to head to the coast to see the Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo State Park. It was snowing quite a bit in the mountains, and I just did not feel like dealing with a long drive in winter conditions. I have chains for the Subaru, but really don’t want to use them. Wimp.

    I had visited Ano Nuevo many years ago, when we lived in the South Bay – I remembered the long walk to the beach, and wandering around the huge seals which were sprawled around the trails. I did recall that it was a complete waste of time in terms of photography, but that it was amazing seeing the huge seals up close. So, I went ahead and booked two guided walks, and try to figure out a better way to photograph these weird beasts. And while I’m in the neighborhood, visit some friends I have not seen in a while. 

    It was a relatively short, 30 mile drive from the hotel I stay at in Scotts Valley to the park, along an incredibly beautiful stretch of US 1 Highway. But then again, almost all of US 1 is beautiful. 

    The park is open all year long, but access to the beach is restricted during the pup/mating and molting seasons, when there are just too many seals on the beach to allow visitors to wander around unattended. The males are enormous – about the size of a mid-sized SUV. You just don’t want to have tourists flattened by one of these behemoths. So you have to reserve a guided, docent tour to get down to see the seals. 

    The guided tour is about 2.5 hours, and requires 6 miles round trip of walking, mostly on graded trails. It’s a pleasant walk down to the shelter where the tour starts. 

    Trail leading to the beach at Ano Nuevo State Park
    Ano Nuevo State Park HQ buildin

    And sometimes if you are lucky, you might see some other creature other than seals.

    Black Tail Deer having breakfast

    The docents take you the last 2 miles along the beach trails, which get you up close and personal with the seals. It’s pretty amazing. There are hundreds of male, female and newborns pups scattered around the beach, with some of the huge alpha males hauled up on the trails. It’s quite noisy with the big males trumpeting, and the pups all shrieking to be fed. From a photography viewpoint, it’s pure chaos. The seals are pretty much sand colored, except for the black pups, and they cover themselves with sand to maintain their temperature when the sun is shining. So most of what you see are masses of large, tubular, sand colored bodies lying on sand, and throwing sand on themselves.

    Once in a while, the weird males prop themselves up and start trumpeting, and then flop back onto the sand. If you are really lucky, you get to see the big males fighting – sort of looks like dun colored sumo wrestlers, bashing against each other. 

    If you are more than just a casual photographer, this mess of seals and sand is a real challenge, and if it’s a beautiful sunny day, the lighting will be awful. As it was the first day. Even in the morning, the glare from the ocean is intense.

    The seals pretty much do nothing most of the time – the pups move around a bit, and the adults throw sand up every now and then. Not exactly photogenic or very exciting. I did learn my lesson from my last experience to:

    1 – Use a tripod/monopod

    2 – Look for interactions between the females and juvenile males – they are all more active then the huge alpha males. The females get into arguments over the pups, which make for interesting action shots. 

    3 – Focus on the pups – the newborns are tiny, and scattered all over the place. Most of them are sheltered next to their mothers, so you can get interactions between them.

    4 – Head shots of the males are interesting if you can get their eyes open. On the other hand, blob shots are not interesting. 

    And my plan to experiment on day one, and make some approach changes on day two worked out well. Granted, the seals were more active on Wednesday, but I also changed some camera settings, and set up the monopod before we got to the viewing points on the trail. I have spent some time curating some of the images with Adobe Lightroom, mostly just cropping and changing exposure setting. Here are some of the results (double-click on an image to expand it):

    Alpha male elephant seal with a female peeking over him
    Very young elephant seal pup
    Alpha male elephant seal, throwing sand on its back
    Two female elephant seals arguing about something.

    And a few more…

    After the tour on Tuesday, I decided to visit Capitola, hoping to get a few shots on the beach, but more importantly, visit the ice cream shop (Polar Bear Ice Cream) in the village. I was pretty tired from the hike, but I always enjoy wandering along the beach there. But…tragedy. The ice cream shop was closed! They only open on weekends in the winter. I was really bummed. I wound up heading back up to the car, and stopped at a Diary Queen instead. A Blizzard was not really what I wanted, but it tasted pretty good. And I did get to climb some stairs once again. It has become an obsession.

    Steep stairs at Capitola Village

    The second day I was more successful with my post-hike extensions. I stopped at the wonderful gelato shop in Los Gatos. A successful and tasty end to this little adventure.

    Great gelato at Dolce Spazio Gelato, in Los Gatos.

    Cappacino chip and vanilla bean from Dolce Spazio Gelato. A million calories and worth every one.

    This turned out to be a pleasant, short trip – perfect weather, two nice hikes on the beach, and met with friends I have not seen in a while.

    And if you ever wander through the Westfield Valley Fair shopping center in San Jose (went to a restaurant there), you might walk by one of the strangest store displays I’ve ever seen.

    There is more strange stuff inside, including a robot which was dozing when I wandered through. Apparently, she does get quite animated.

    If you are wondering what this place sells….upscale eye glass frames. Sorry, I’ll stick to Warby Parker.

  • Tariffs, Camera gear, and Hummingbirds

    Allens Hummingbird

    I mentioned in a previous post, that I had been planning to purchase a new long, telephoto lens sometime in the summer, before I went on the Alaska trip. Along came “Independence Day”, and excessive tariffs on just about everything that is not made in the USA. Almost all quality cameras and lenses are made in either Japan, Korea or Germany – we just do not make these things in the US. I currently have two Sony mirrorless cameras (A7II, A7RII), and a bunch of lenses for the two bodies – the equipment is pricey but you get what you pay for. The tariffs when announced, on Japan, were 39%…ouch. That made me think that buying now would be a good thing. So, I researched a few options, and wound up with a 100-500MM lens from Tamron. I was planning to buy a Sony G 150-600MM, but the beast just weighed too much to hand hold on a moving, small boat, so I opted for something a bit more compact. OK, enough technical photography stuff.

    Once I had the new equipment home, I decided to go somewhere to test the lens. and I really wanted to try it on wildlife, since that is what I bought it for. Since elk and moose are not an option nearby, I decided on a trip back to the coast, to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. No, not to take pictures of trees. The arboretum is a nice place to wander through in general, but the sections dedicated to South African plants are a haven for hummingbirds. My wife and I used to go there every spring for a few years, to see the little buggers buzzing around on the flowering plants and trees. So, I packed up my gear, and headed off to the coast (Campbell actually, where I stayed.)

    The peak of “hummingbird season” at the abroretum is in March, when all of the trees and bushes are in bloom. I missed that by a month, but there were still a lot of Allens and Annas hummers buzzing around. The secret for photographing these hyperactive, blinding fast birds, is to find one (or two) that have a territory they are protecting, and setup shop (tripod) at one of the places they roost to rest. You can then position the tripod and focus the camera on that spot, and just hit the shutter whenever it stops for a while (usually a minute or two). I was lucky right off the bat to find a male Allens that rested in two, really great spots, where the background would be a dense tree. I then spent a pleasant few hours, photographing one or two of the birds, and then just wandeed around in the arboretum, which has some amazing flowering plants. It really is a beautiful place. 

    The combination of the new lens, and the Sony camera with a huge sensor (44MP), and a little bit of luck, resulted in some remarkable shots. 

    The level of detail and sharpness of the birds neck feathers was amazing, given how small the birds are.

    I went back the next day and spent more time in the same location (and probably the same birds). The lighting was better that day, so I was able to get a few more good shots. I then wandered about taking a few picture of some of the strange flowers.

    Later in the day, I spent some time visiting friends in Capitola, and wandered down to the beach with their mutant golden retriever (huge). I so miss being near the coast. My wife and I spent lots of time visiting our friends there when we lived in Campbell. Sigh. Better times for sure.

    Capitola Wharf from below
    Old railroad bridge across Soquel Creek

    I did manage to help the local economy while I was there. My favorite camera store is in Campbell, so I decided to stop by and see if there was any gear that I absolutely needed to buy. I was amazed to see the front of the store covered in plywood. Apparently, someone drove a car into the store, and cleared out a lot of gear. Smash and grab. How sad. But while I was there, I decided I needed a a new monopod and ball head, for my upcoming trip to Alaska. I knew I’d find something. And I beat the tariff’s again.