A few weekends ago, I went exploring Point Reyes National Seashore and its surroundings including Tomales Bay, Point Reyes Station and went all the way to Bodega Bay. It’s possible to do it in a day but we stayed overnight at a local bed and breakfast. I have included in the map all the stops where I took the images posted here, as well as all the stops we made for food and coffee. I have a saying: “no coffee no turbo” and for me, it’s really true. As for my wife, she needs her chocolate treat, so I need to find places with good chocolate cookies as well.
View Bodega Bay and Point Reyes in a larger map
It does not matter in which order you are doing this trip but for the sake of simplicity, I’m starting at the south-western end with Point Reyes lighthouse.
The lighthouse is open daily but closes in case of high winds or bad weather, so call ahead to know if it’s open. In our case, it was closing at 4:30pm. Going up the 304 stairs AFTER you visit the lighthouse down below, might make you regret to go down in the first place. But the inside of the lighthouse is worth the sweat and the park ranger will tell you all you want to know about it. Also, I always have to include some kind of workout in our trips so my wife can enjoy her cookie without guilt.
Point Reyes Lighthouse
The next stop is Inverness, to get some images of the “Point Reyes” boat. It’s right behind the grocery store. Ideally you want to get there either in the early afternoon to get full light on it or at sunset. The trick is to get there at high tide. It’s not as pretty at low tide. In my case, I was a little late and the tide was already receding. One note: bring some rubber boots, as the best spot for getting the reflection is actually in the water. It’s interesting to point out that the bay (Tomales Bay) is a submerged portion of the San Andreas Fault.
Point Reyes boat (Inverness, CA)
The next stop is Point Reyes Station for refueling the body, with two of my favorite places:
– First lunch at Marin Sun Farms restaurant/butcher shop (try the goat burger or better the filet mignon w/ frites) (Yelp link). The meat is amazing, it’s simple but so good.
– Then coffee at Toby’s coffee (Yelp link). They know how to make great espresso or cappuccino. If you have a sweet tooth, try the Bovine Bakery…
The drive between Point Reyes Station and Bodega Bay is quite pretty and there are plenty of opportunities to take more pictures.
I would qualify the ones I took as draft images (see David Duchemin’s definition)
Bodega Bay is a very protected harbor and popular among sport and professional fishermen for its proximity to crab and salmon fishing ground. I found the harbor quite interesting with a lot of opportunities for taking captivating images.
Bodega Bay Harbor
Pillar of Bodega Bay Harbor
If you are starving, I highly recommend having a bowl of clam chowder at Spud Point Crab Company (Yelp link).
Keep following the road all the way up to the West Shore beach. We did time it to arrive there slightly before sunset and the light was quite nice. I was lucky to have this woman sitting alone on the beach waiting for the sun to set.
Bodega Bay West Shore Beach
After sunset, we had a great display of red and pink colors in the sky.I’m not a big fan of these images of sunset but the colors were really bright.
Sunset at Bodega Bay West Shore
Since the sunset had nice colors, I use some motion blur to emphasize the color bands that were present (thanks to Wendy for the original inspiration). I like the concept but clearly I need to practice more.
Artistic photo of a sunset at Bodegay West Shore (West Beach). I did add the motion blur to emphasize the layers of colors.
Finally we went back to Bodega Bay to capture the blue hour with some of the fishing docks (see first image).