I went across the street this weekend to see how the beach was doing with the fall storms. The windy weather has certainly whipped up the waves, and the waves have seriously rearranged the rocks. I will have to go back with voice recorder to capture one of the most striking things about the beach in the storm: as a wave pulls back there is a gurgling, grinding noise of the cobbles of the beach settle back after being pushed up by the water. It doesn’t come out in pictures if you’re not familiar with the beach, but big piles of rocks, up to softball size, have been pushed up toward the high tide line.

I was hoping to find lots of fabulous new treasures on the beach, and I did find one cool thing: a license plate from 1961!

I took a bunch of pictures of the waves, but it’s hard to capture them as photos when what makes them cool is the whole sensory experience – the sound of crashing water (and the rocks!), the feel of the ocean spray and the wind, watching the water rolling in and in and in…

Want to know how waves work? All the particles of the water are moving forward together, pushed by the wind, then as it reaches the beach the lowest layers catch against the bottom. Meanwhile the top layers are still going full bore ahead, and they run out into space without the base of the wave to hold them up. Foom, the wave breaks!

It’s like if you are running and trip–your feet suddenly stop, but the rest of you is still moving. A wave is the ocean falling on its face, over and over.

So here’s a bit of Sitka Sound tripping onto the beach. If you look close, you can see some black spots in the water off the point.

This picture is pretty good because there was a sunbreak.

 Here, we can look closer together. I took a zoomed picture. Hint: not seabirds!

Sitting in the swells.

Both Saturday and Sunday there were hardy folks out in wetsuits, appreciating the waves in an up close and personal way. Now you can tell everyone that yes, people do go surfing in Alaska.

Surf’s up!