Newport Beach Back Bay Drive

Author's Comments

The bay surprises you. You expect ocean here, the standard Pacific glamour, and instead you get this quiet inland estuary where the water goes flat and silver and the hillsides hold the light long after the coast has gone cool. Back Bay Drive runs along the eastern bluff, and on the weekends when the road is closed to cars you can walk the whole length of it without meeting much of anything except cyclists and the occasional heron working the mudflats below. Winter is when this place becomes itself. The light in January and February comes in low and clean, the marine layer burns off by mid-morning, and the migratory birds are everywhere - egrets stalking the shallows, raptors riding the thermals over the bluffs, the great blues standing motionless in the reeds. Golden hour does the real work. The mudflats turn copper, the water doubles the sky, and the hills on the far side go from sage to amber in a span of maybe twenty minutes. Park at the North Bay Drive entrance and walk south. The bluff gives you elevation without effort, and the panoramic views come one after another, each slightly different from the last. Bring a tripod if you have one - the closed road means you can set up in the middle of the pavement without worrying about traffic. A wide lens for the estuary itself, something longer for the birds. The reflections work best when the wind is down, which is usually the first hour after sunrise or the last hour before sunset. Most days you will have more of it to yourself than you expect.

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