Here’s a closer view of the sand loss and escarpment at Tamarack. August, 2026. Shifted to black and white out of habit.
Composite photograph showing an image from 2026 with a black and white inset from the late 1980s to early 1990s.
California Coast Rephotographic Project: Carlsbad Seawall
After Tamarack State Beach made the news for losing a bunch of it’s sand in the last couple of weeks, I managed to get down there for a few comparative photographs. The composite above shows a stretch of the seawall that’s at the end of Sycamore Avenue in Carlsbad. This one was pretty easy to relocate and photograph. I found the historical image, which dates to the late 1980s or early 1990s, via the Carlsbad Library:
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Image taken in May 2024.
Failed Seawall, Cabo Pulmo 2024
Seawalls and other forms of armoring or ‘hard’ stabilization are common responses to shoreline loss and coastal erosion. Seawalls can last for decades, but it depends on how they are built and what kinds of forces they are up against. It’s pretty common for a lot of seawalls to fail within a relatively short period of time. This image shows a stretch of beach in Cabo Pulmo that has seen a lot of erosion and numerous attempts to stop that erosion via seawalls and riprap. This particular seawall failed about a decade ago and its remnants have been sinking into the sand ever since. It shows one of the long-term and often unintended consequences of not-so-well-planned coastal armoring.