Every day on the beach is a good day. And today was no different. Sunny and mild, light breeze, mid-60s–a perfect March day in Southern California. Where I live, it’s important to pay attention to the tides if you want to walk any distance. High tides=no beach for walking. So when my time and tide times don’t match, we often head south to walk near Torrey Pines State Reserve.

There were lots of people out on the beach today, not unusual for a sunny weekend day. And warnings were abundant–although they seemed to have little impact on beach goers.

I noticed the shark sighting sign early on.

Shark warnings have become pretty commonplace. When I pointed it out to my husband, he told me about the drone images this week of a great white hanging out off the coast. (Check the link for the news story) Yikes! But there were still surfers out–I watched this group climbing up the cliff after their surfing session.

Had they not noticed the shark warnings? What about the danger signs about the unstable cliffs? Just last week there was a pretty major cliff failure not too far down the beach.

Even the train seemed to know about the warnings. I watched it creep slowly along the cliffline, gingerly traversing precariously close to the edge, perhaps trying to avoid any more cliff damage.

But still, there were people walking just feet from the bottom of the cliff and others sunbathing too close for my comfort. Do they not know that the cliffs fall regularly and give no advance notice? Are the warnings for others? Not for them?

It seemed today that at every turn there was a new warning. Most warnings seem to be for public safety. Watch out, stay away, be careful. Some are designed to keep people from doing silly, dangerous things like climbing through a drainage tunnel. And still others to make clear where dogs are allowed and where they are not allowed. This may be another public safety issue–we do have some beaches that allow dogs. This beach has a stretch that allows dogs and then when you get to the state reserve, dogs are no longer allowed.

But I have to say, in spite of all the warnings, it was still a perfect day for a beach walk. And no one was harmed during the photography of all the warning signs!