The Stink at La Jolla Cove

Starting with its dozens of mile of coastline, San Diego offers unlimited spots for seaside adventures and relaxation. The city may be most renowned for the sandy beaches where Arizonans like me - we're not so affectionately referred to as Zonies - descend en masse during the hottest months of our long, baking summer. Even COVID-19 didn't keep us away this year as we masked up in the large crowds visiting the coast. But it turned out the masks would come in handy for another reason: the stench.

A well-known area of the sprawling coastal city is La Jolla - Spanish for The Jewel - noted for being one of the most expensive communities in the United States to buy a home in. But it's also famous for its geography, situated on a rising bluff over the Pacific Ocean where spectacular views of the sea are one of the reasons for the astronomical real estate costs. Much of the neighborhood's coastline includes cliffs punctuated by cozy, sandy beaches.

But one tiny sheltered bay, La Jolla Cove, might draw most of the tourists, along with the marine life that's so interesting. The cove sits below some of the town's highest cliffs, under grassy, palm-filled Scripps Park jutting westward into the sea. The shore-hugging communities of Torrey Pines, Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad and even Oceanside twenty miles away frame a panoramic vista of the coastline looking north. Much of the nearest seascape in the foreground, just below the cliffs, is protected as part of the La Jolla - San Diego Underwater Park Ecological Reserve.

But the scenery probably won't be the first thing that strikes you on a visit: it's the smell. Not the fresh sea air, cool and misted, but the noxious reek that makes you wonder if you've stumbled by a dog park where owners don't pick up after their pooches. La Jolla Cove's location adjacent to the preserve puts it near the center of a thriving undersea ecosystem that nourishes a vast array of marine life, most notably a plethora of sea lions, seals and birds. In a way, the animals are in the business of methane production. Hence the stink.

I remember my visit to the Amazon rain forest last year when my small tour group and I sloshed through the mud in our calf-high Wellington boots, exploring an especially dense area of jungle. "What's that smell?" I asked. "The jungle," replied our guide. He might just as easily have said, "It's life." Trees, plants, birds, lizards and insects surrounded us: from the leaves rotting in layers in the mud, to the philodendrons creeping around tree trunks, to the butterflies landing on flowers, to the oropendulas squawking from high in the canopy. In every cubic inch of space: life.

Later, in a nearby clearing, poling a raft across an oxbow lake, we observed a common bird in the equatorial rain forest, the hoatzin, or stinkbird as it's often called. It's known for the stench resulting from a unique form of digestion that is similar in some ways to that of cattle. Just another sign of life.

Ah, the smells of the jungle, and thousands of miles away, the beach. Or at least the cove the weekend that I was there. Joining the dozens of sea lions cramming La Jolla Cove's tiny beach and the surrounding rocks, hundreds of sea gulls, cormorants, and pelicans flew overhead, roosted on the adjacent cliffs, and dove into the sea beyond. All this air-breathing life made me wonder - or maybe gag - at the variety of underwater fauna sustaining it.

Seaweed and kelp accumulate on all the area's beaches, marking the high tide line in green and rust-colored piles. Fisherman casting their reels (outside the Ecological Reserve) and sea shells churning in the surf are other reminders of the life teaming just feet away in the ocean. There's a vast hidden world where only the sea lions and sea birds can dine.

The orange-colored Garibaldi damselfish is one of the most distinctive fish that snorkelers and kayakers observe throughout the reserve. Halibut and yellowtail are a couple of the popular game fish protected here from humans but not from animal hunters. Sharks are also common, especially the leopard shark that is small and harmless to the many swimmers and divers. Sea urchins, lobsters and a multitude of mollusks populate the sea floor.

The marine life has a buffet ready for the picking just a few flipper strokes or one easy glide off shore. An odorous reminder of this seafood feast wafts through the air all around La Jolla Cove. It's a sign of life. And a second reason to mask up this summer.