hard times

The Point Reyes, stranded on the shores of Tomales Bay north of San Francisco, near the town of Inverness and a little grocery store selling fresh barbecued oysters. The oysters are brought in daily from Tomales Bay, by a boat just like this.

Tomales Bay, the body of water visible in the back, runs along the San Andreas fault. We are on the west side of the bay, looking east, so the boat is sitting on the Pacific plate, slowly traveling northward relative to the land in the background, which is on the American plate.

The piece of land Inverness is located on, called Point Reyes, and mostly under control of the National Park Service as a Point Reyes National Park, shares its geological origin with the Santa Barabara mountains way down south, and has slowly traveled up here in the past few million years.

The big San Francisco earthquake of 1906 originated a few miles from here, and when it occured, the Point Reyes peninsula moved a total of about 5 meters further north.

In a few million years, the Point Reyes thus will reach Alaska, silent testimony to some long forgotten human purpose. Or more likely, it'll be fragmented into its constituent molecules and spread across the globe. But for now it's stuck in Inverness, looking gorgeous.