Cayucos Pier

One of my (many) favorite beach towns on the Central Coast of California is Cayucos.  Last weekend I took a friend with me who had never been there, mostly because we wanted to visit the Brown Butter Cookie Co. (if you’ve ever had their Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies you’ll know why that alone is worth the drive) but also because its a beautiful place and I love walking on the beach or out on the pier.

After sampling & purchasing cookies we walked out to the pier only to find that it has been partially closed. Apparently it is in desperate need of a renovation. Fourteen crucial pilings are missing and many others have been weakened by worms and years of storms. Most of the pilings, headers and attachments are more than 60 years old and some are as much as 130 years old! All of these factors lead experts to believe that the next big storm could condemn the pier and cause it to be permanently closed.

Although most of the pier was closed, we were still able to walk out about halfway – that is where I snapped the photos below (leaning over the railing and angling my camera around the fence). While it was cool to capture the images below without other pedestrians in the photo, a pier should be loved, and walked on, and enjoyed by everyone. I’d hate to see this landmark go away!

Both HDR (high dynamic range) photos above were captured handheld with my Canon 7D and 24-105L Lens. Processing was done in Lightroom 5, Photomatix Pro, Topaz Adjust, Topaz Clarity, and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. (Exclusive coupon codes for my readers are available in the left-hand sidebar of my blog for Photomatix & Topaz products.)

This is the sign posted at the entrance to the pier explaining the defects and what needs to happen to get the pier fixed:

To see how you can help save the Cayucos Pier visit savecayucospier.org.

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