Welcome to what locals call the “stinky beach.” Located near the end of Almar Avenue, the smell varies depending on the day. Coincidentally, the City of Santa Cruz Wastew...
In 2009, Surfer Magazine named Santa Cruz, California as the best surfing town and extolled Steamer Lane as a “world class right-hand reef-point.” But do not...
The sediments at the top of this cliff face along West Cliff Drive are generally referred to as recent from a geological perspective. They are from the Quaternary Period,...
In the late 1800s you could take a street car to West Cliff Drive and then gamble, dance and stay in a hotel all right there! The top photo is a postcard circa 1920 of th...
Cover photo by Matt Walker, NRB Photography. Whales, dolphins and porpoises are divided into two groups: toothed and baleen. Baleen whales, such as gray and humpback whal...
We are lucky in Santa Cruz to be visited annually by sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus) as they make their spectacular circum-global migration of 40,000 miles: the long...
Seagulls are by far the most common bird along the coast near Santa Cruz, California. There are dozens of different seagull species, and you need a keen eye to tell them...
Settlement in the area of today’s Davenport got its start in 1868 when Captain John Davenport, a sea-based whaler by trade, built a 450 foot wharf off what became t...
If you look in the northern most cove at Bonny Doon Beach, (yes, it’s the clothing-optional section), you will see a tall skinny dike of sandstone that cuts across...
Most Santa Cruzan’s know the Louden Nelson Community Center. Do you know the story of Louden (London) Nelson? London Nelson was a black man born in 1800 on a North...
