The world has been stressing me out and I needed something to take my mind off things so I headed down to The Wedge in Newport Beach.
The Wedge is a famous bodysurfing & bodyboarding spot that produces huge shore break waves that can reach up to 30' high! It borders a long jetty that protects the harbor behind it. I believe this is part of what gave the Wedge it's famous break. This day the break was small so there wasn't much to see.
But, on a good day this is what the waves will look like.
(Source -https://www.change.org/p/rush-hill-end-blackball-at-the-wedge)
Waves or no waves it's still a nice beach.
The jetty was calling my name that day so I decided to finally walk out to the warning beacon at the very end.
Doing some research I found that the jetty was built in the 1920's and is 1900' long.
About half way out this is the view looking back into the harbor.
At 2/3 of the way out the rocks become much harder to navigate. There are dangerous crevices where you could easily break your leg if you slipped into one.
The rocks out this far are different than the granite that makes up most of the jetty. Many of them are conglomerate or stone other than granite, probably some local material. Being the rockhound I am, I got excited to see the conglomerate boulders with chunks of quartz and other minerals in them.
Almost to the end I started seeing these old posts out here that probably once held up a power line or lights maybe?
After about 20 minutes of walking, jumping & climbing I made it to the end.
The large concrete slab that holds the warning beacon was poured in 1940.
I honestly didn't know this structure was that old. I thought everything out here in California would be newer like from the 1960's.
The views out here are really nice.
It seems the fishing out here is good too. There were 3 people fishing and two more arrived while I was there.
Mission accomplished I started to make my way back.
Some seagulls hanging out, painting the rocks. 💩
That's one of the bad things about the end of the jetty, the amount of bird crap. It was hard to find a place to sit down and relax, but I did.
Watching the waves break and the sun slowly sink into the horizon.
My troubles lightened a little. After a few minutes I decided to make my way over to a new Japanese "broth less" ramen shop for dinner. I'll blog about that tomorrow. Until then, when things become overwhelming, take a break and remember how beautiful our world can be.
