Four fun facts about Santa Cruz. If you're local you may already know these facts and if you're not and you're just thinking about Santa Cruz or like Santa Cruz, this should be pretty fun.
#1 Did you know we have tsunamis here? Our earthquake, the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 is super famous. It is a big deal. We had a few deaths unfortunately, and we had some buildings fall and we also lost some very iconic buildings.
We've had fires. We have even had a mudslide, that was a result I believe of the earthquake in Ben Lomond, Love Creek. We've also had mudslides on Highway 17 that have closed the road. And we've had tsunamis and I thought that was kind of interesting because when you think of all the things that go on in the world, so many of them happen here. Japan had an earthquake March 11th, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan. That generated a massive tsunami that tore across the Pacific and came right toward Santa Cruz Harbor, which is this tiny little inlet it came up, got trapped and bounced around a little bit in there and did some significant damage. We've had a few more after that and we've had some warnings even this year. If you go around the Santa Cruz harbor, you'll see these blue and white signs say tsunami zone.
#2 Surfing was not actually invented here, or I think even maybe even in California or even surfboards themselves, but some believe surfing was born on the main land here. They called it wave sliding. It was three princes from Hawaii that came here in 1885, I believe, or in that time frame, it is hard because the history bounces the years around but 1884-1885. They had redwood boards made for them, surfed the river mouth, which is a thing everybody loves to surf the river mouth when it comes up San Lorenzo River. Sometimes it's a big swell event when that area is doing well, but because the harbor has changed the coastline, the river isn't surfed as much I believe as it used to be at one time. But anyway, the three princes surfed there on a very warm day. So three Princess actually had some redwood boards out there and brought surfing here.
#3 We have very, very cold mornings. In 1990, we got down as low as 19 degrees Fahrenheit. And when I was driving to Monterey just recently, I saw snow on the ground in Soquel. It happens, we get super cold. It doesn't stay, it does warm up throughout the day, but I can tell you just lately here in 2022, the minute the sun has been going down, it has just been getting super cold. I mean like the minute the sun drops down, it's like boom, cold. So we do get cold here. Despite the surf city beach image that we have. We do have our highs and lows.
#4 And lastly, we have all kinds of animals here. We have bobcats, foxes, coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, boars, mountain lions, and incredibly little cute wild rabbits.
We rode our bikes through the Seymour Marine Lab. Very large acreage out by the lab and you can ride and walk it. It's a very nice trail. It is lovely and mostly not very crowded. One day we were there, and it was covered with these little, tiny rabbits. And we also have seen coyotes and our last ride through there, we saw a very large adult coyote in the middle of the day and we didn't see any rabbits. But the other thing you need to know about coyotes, and I will tell you if you're moving here with lots of little animals, you need to beware. Especially on the west side near the, arroyos or the upper West side, the coyotes come down and unfortunately their meal choice is fluffy little animals, which may be your dear beloved Kitty. Those are a few fun facts about Santa Cruz.
Posted by Michele Replogle on
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