November 4, 2002

6:14 PM

California Coastal Records Project. Rich guy with a helicopter and a digital camera posting high-resolution pictures on the internet of every mile of the California coastline, 500 feet at a time. (Related Washington Post article.)
posted by Wet Spot (16 comments total)

rich guys are cool. everybody should have one.
posted by quonsar at 6:17 PM on November 4, 2002

On a similar note, this time provided for you courtesy of the Washington State gov't.
posted by trillion at 7:13 PM on November 4, 2002

Damn. I browsed this last week and meant to post it. [tips hat]

My goal now is to get into one of these images since he hasn't done San Diego yet.

The coolest thing? You could actually create a panorama of the entire California coastline from this site. And since the images are numbered in the name this just screams for cool hacks.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:00 PM on November 4, 2002

No- not cool. He did the very tip of the Point Reyes Peninsula, which I see out my window every day. But he skipped the rest of Dillon Beach entirely, 38.2 North Latitude and 123.0 West Longitude and moved straight up to Bodega Bay. Feh! Who needs rich guys in helicopters taking pictures of the California coast anyway?
posted by Lynsey at 8:50 PM on November 4, 2002

i love stuff like this. great link. also, this same guy has an interesting story to tell about setting up a photovoltaic system (solar power) at his house.
posted by gwint at 9:27 PM on November 4, 2002

This will be useful in recreating the California's coastline if it falls into the ocean.
posted by gsteff at 11:41 PM on November 4, 2002

Randomly, I happened upon this image along the coast. It's like a fort/cylon-gorilla/lighthouse/Mad Max set. What the hell is it?
posted by crasspastor at 12:38 AM on November 5, 2002

Whoops. The site (for obvious reasons) doesn't allow hyperlinking from another site. See if you can cut and paste this in and see what I'm yammering on about:

http://www.californiacoastline.org/cgi-bin/maplocate.cgi?1,234,0,468,0,37.544167,122.520833,1440,720,127,205"

Shit. It won't even let me do that. Now I'll never know.

This appears to be as good as it gets:
N37 34.16 W122 31.36 Image 5945 Mon Sep 30 15:43:44 2002
posted by crasspastor at 12:46 AM on November 5, 2002

crasspastor: works fine if you lose the " on the end of the url you posted.
posted by quonsar at 4:42 AM on November 5, 2002

Not a big deal to you SF locals, but I drove a bunch of that section of California coastline not 2 months ago. I wished I'd known he was doing this. I could have saved so much film.
posted by crunchland at 4:59 AM on November 5, 2002

Cool! PlanetKyoto got married here at the Ole Hansen Beach Club in San Clemente, on the second floor veranda in the old spanish style white building in the foreground, to the right of the pool. Oh, look, it's my swingin' Pacific Ocean clifftop bachelor pad of 10 years ago, apparently under reconstruction (also in San Clemente, 4th house from giant corner one at left). Me and my buddy Steve paid only $400/mo. each for a 180 degree ocean view and a giant balcony overhanging the beach. No heater or air conditioner necessary.
posted by planetkyoto at 5:02 AM on November 5, 2002

What a brilliant project...go helicopter guy!

Like crunchland, I too drove up the coast recently (end of August) but didn't take enough pix so I'm happy...nice to see what the west side of Morro Bay rock looks like altho' the power station seems to have gone missing...

Funnily enough, I was discussing coastline documentaries with my better half last weekend. I remember a superb documentary broadcast by the BBC which used footage shot by an RAF pilot who flew a Hawk jet around the entire costline of Great Britain (approx. 5,500 miles). The commentary was voiced by different actors who used the dialect of the area the footage was showing at the time to relate various historical facts & local literary extracts.

Probably one of the best TV progs I've ever seen and, if it hasn't been done already, a good idea as the basis for a US/Canada west & east coast version.

[Any of MeFi TV brigade -- feel free to get in touch to work on that proposal ;-) ]
posted by i_cola at 7:58 AM on November 5, 2002

The other interesting part about the BBC film was that the camera was pointing backwards , to stop the insect strikes and dirt from obscuring the view. So the pilot actually flew one way ( clockwise, i think ) then they played the video backwards. Neat !
posted by stuartmm at 8:31 AM on November 5, 2002

Crass, when I look at the enlarged image, that thing you asked about looks a lot like the gun emplacements that dot
a lot of this part of the coast, dating from WWII. There were distinct concerns that the Japanese might attempt to attack our West Coast ports, especially San Francisco. More info here (scroll down to "World War II construction programs 1937-1948")
posted by Lynsey at 9:56 AM on November 5, 2002

crass, i've been to that thing, (whatever it is), and haven't been able to get any information on what it is.
that being said, there is an old nike missle site up on the ridge on the other side of the road, and a little south from there, so my best guess is that it has something to do with that.
posted by dolface at 10:42 AM on November 5, 2002

stuartmm: You're right...I remember thinking how weird the sea looked with the waves going out...
posted by i_cola at 11:00 AM on November 5, 2002