Here is a panoramic view of the shoreline at Santa Cruz, California. It was stitched using photos taken from the municipal wharf. However, the wharf itself (and business located at the foot of the wharf) do not appear, because I cropped away my foreground. The result looks as if I were on a boat.
Above is a highly reduced thumbnail. The actual image is enormous. You can load it at the bottom of this page. First, a description:
Starting from the left (southwest) end, you can see the Abbott Memorial Lighthouse, on the cliff above "Steamer Lane" surfing area. This lighthouse is not a navigation beacon (even though it has a lamp). It was built as a memorial, and nowadays contains a surfing museum. The building appears on official city logos, and it is where most tourists want to go when they ask for "the lighthouse." Interestingly, techies with GPS are often misdirected to the downtown area, because that's where the surfing museum's mailing address is registered, in a city office.
Steamer Lane has a bottom profile that often mounts useful surfing waves even when the sea is relatively calm. You can see a couple of surfers in the photo. When waves are good, the place is crowded. Above the cliff, among the trees, is a park preserve.
Continuing to the right, West Cliff Drive goes past the Shrine of St. Joseph, then some private housing, a white condominium complex, and finally a large hotel. This hotel was formerly named the Dream Inn, then the West Coast Hotel, then something else; locals still call it the Dream Inn, and probably will for a long time. In front of it is the start of the city's "main beach." News flash, February 21, 2008: The owners have decided that due to popular demand, it will be retro-named "Santa Cruz Dream Inn."
In this photo, there is a gap between the former Dream Inn and the Ideal Bar and Grill (low building with beach umbrellas outside). The gap marks the area where the wharf and some businesses would be, northwest of the camera, if I hadn't removed them from the image.
The main beach continues to the right, in front of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which is a privately-owned amusement park. Just past its eastern end, the San Lorenzo River empties into Monterey Bay. This region has a wet winter and dry summer. During the dry season, the river entrance is often blocked by sand, since there is not enough flow to sweep it away; the river can drain through the sand.
On the opposite side of the river, marked by the re-emergence of a cliff, is the East Cliff Drive region of Santa Cruz. From the start of the photo to this point, the shoreline curves around the camera's viewpoint, so objects in the foreground are all about the same distance away, even though the panorama has rotated through a large angle. In the distance behind the east cliffs, the flat-topped ridge is Mt. Umunhum.
As the view looks more to the right, the shoreline rapidly become more distant. Further eastward, and relatively inconspicuous in this photo, is the navigation lighthouse at the entrance to the yacht harbor. Beyond it is the unincorporated Live Oak area, with Pleasure Point jutting into the ocean. This is also a popular surfing spot.
The shoreline is indented past Pleasure point, so the beaches at Capitola and most of Aptos cannot be seen from this view. Fading into the mist at La Selva Beach, the shoreline begins its long curve towards the south. It is only seven miles away, but the sunlight and mist make it appear more distant.
Santa Cruz is located at the north end of Monterey Bay. Here, the bayshore runs in a generally east-west direction. From most parts of town, the closest beach is towards the south. The panorama spans about 270 degrees of view, roughly southwest to east. The remaining 90 degrees would include the distant Monterey Peninsula (not visible on the day of the photo) and open ocean.
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