After the Dodger game on Sunday, we picked up Peps from Manhattan Beach and he spent that night with us at the beach, Cheryl having moved on to the home of other friends. Peps had just finished serving as support crew for his friend Todd in the Catalina Classic Paddleboard Race. This is the 39th consecutive year of the 32-mile marathon, which attracts paddlers from all over the world and is known as the ‘Grand-Daddy of all Paddleboard Races.’ It begins at Isthmus Cove, Catalina Island, and ends at the Manhattan Beach Pier, and Peps and his friends had been on Catalina for several days prepping for the race.

Out of a hundred competitors, Todd came in third!

On Tuesday, we left Playa del Rey and headed south to San Diego. We are now camped at one of our favorite places, Fiddler’s Cove FamCamp just south of Coronado Island.

There are so many military installations in this area that I had assumed this ribbon of land that connects Coronado Island to Imperial Beach to the south was built for military purposes. But no. Coronado is what’s called a tied island, an island that is connected to land by a tombolo, a spit of beach materials connected to land at both ends.

Tombolos are formed by wave refraction: as waves near an island, they are slowed by the shallow water surrounding it. These waves then refract or bend around the island to the opposite side as they approach. The wave pattern created by this water movement causes a convergence of longshore drifting on the opposite side of the island, and the beach sediments that are moving by lateral transport on the lee side of the island will accumulate there. In other words, the waves sweep sediment together from both sides. Eventually, when enough sediment has built up, the beach shoreline, known as a spit, will connect with the island and form a tombolo. (Until 2007, Martha’s Vineyard and Chappaquiddick Island were connected by a tambolo called Norton Point Beach. In April 2007, a strong storm breached the beach and the two islands became separated by a 300-yard channel.)

However, the connection between Coronado and North Island Naval Air Station IS man-made by the military: originally Coronado was separated from North Island by a shallow channel called the Spanish Bight. Development of North Island by the Navy during World War II led to the filling of the bight by July 1944, combining the land areas into a single body.

I started not feeling well on the drive down and spent a couple of days lying low on the couch, during which time we did laundry, bought groceries, and saw a couple of free movies at the base theater. Feeling better now.