Perspectives seem from mountaintops when standing on the benches and marine terraces of California’s Gaviota Coast. From bluffs averaging only dozens of feet above sea level or from gently elevated slopes several hundred yards inland, openness is everywhere; the Gaviota Coast stretches her wings. Like a natatorial bird, the land here appears able to both fly and swim.
The Pacific’s west-east littoral sweep gnaws at the layered ground of Gaviota. Pushed gracefully south at stream mouths into cobbled point after point, her full length is sharply bowed opposite 90° by the headlands of Central California’s Transverse Ranges at Conception and Arguello.
On the horizon, reptilian island profiles are as changeable as hallucinations. Skies, weather, birds, plants, animals, sea life and ocean currents congregate, merge or seem to pass through from all directions.
Incredible depth, expansiveness, space and a remarkable sense of place and belonging can be experienced at just about every corner and contour of elevation.
My ancestors were among the first foreigners to greet this place and her native people by land. They and the countless others who followed have disturbed much. A lot has changed. Some things have not. These are most remarkable.
