walking thru pacifica

So you live in California, or the Bay Area even, and you don't really like beaches. What! You don't like sand? Is it because it's rough and coarse and gets everywhere?

Don't even get out of your car. Just drive down Highway 1 and admire the views from afar.

There's two halves of Pacifica. Make your way up to the northern and crabbier section first. Here you'll find a fairly pebbly beach with a concrete pier jutting out into the sea, populated by an eclectic collection of people that are united by one goal: to catch crabs.

Walking down the pier, you'll hear Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Cantonese and more as families huddle in groups in picnic chairs watching their fishing poles or crab cages carefully. One Sunday afternoon when I was passing through the pier, I saw a dad slowly pull up two crabs hooked into the crab loops.

"Appa! Appa!" his kids yelled by the side. I don't know what he said after that because they don't say those words in K-dramas.

The pier is popular for a few reasons. A: you don't need a permit to be crabbing/fishing there and B: you can keep the Dungeness crabs you catch as long as they're within regulation.

I remember my dad driving me up to Pacifica on most Sundays when I was a kid, where, week after week, we tried to catch a crab. The closest we got was a small crab — too small to take home — and the last thing that crab heard before plummeting into the white froth of the waves was a screaming and crying six year old begging to keep it as a pet.

As the sun goes down, walk down the beach near Mori Point. The sun waves goodbye as it tucks itself into the waves, giving the skies a purple kiss before going away for the night.