Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation: http://sdcc12.ucsd.edu/xm16
Visitor Center at the end of Gabbiano Lane in Azure Cove off Batiquitos Drive
Carlsbad, California
(In this home page, you can always click the image to get a larger image you can actually read!)
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Once I found the Batiquitos (baa-ti-keetos) Lagoon, it was all I expected...shore birds and a good trail. I entered at the Aviara Cove west parking lot. Since it had 'Aviara' connected to it and since it was a very nice lot with lagoon map (picture) and fancy sign, I surmised that it was by the 'Aviara' company which built houses all over the surrounding hills, even a Four Seasons Resort which we'd visited earlier in the week. |
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The Four Seasons is the most expensive resort I'd seen since the Princeville Resort in Kauai, Hawaii. I'd asked for a rate card and found that the most expensive night there cost $10,000 and included pickup and return to your home via lear jet with other equally unimagineable perks. Hey, I'm just here for a walk along the lagoon. The view of the lagoon from their property (p) was on the front of their brochure. |
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The trail dropped abruptly to a level trail along the shore some 20 feet below. The trail seemed to have been a road along the lagoon in the past. Sandy and unpaved, it ran left or right, east or west, I elected to follow it west knowing there was a 'visitor's center' in that direction, yet Mariedoris had said it wasn't open. It was low tide and the water was way out from the trail. To the right of the trail, eucylyptus trees hugged the base of the hill that rose to a few feet above the trail. The ground at the edge of the lagoon was very dry...cracked and hard. I walked across it toward the water, then up on a dry sand bank. I looked back east and saw varying shaded of green moss on the shore with the light coming over my shoulder from the west. (p) I returned to the trail and followed it to the closed-trailer visitors center. It remained level and easy to follow. As I approached the west end of the trail, I saw arching marks in the ground between the trail and the water...evidence of previous dredging? A rusting 'Batiquitos lagoon' sign, some 6 feet tall, lay cast aside the trail rusting. Other 'artwork' was along the trail, made of concrete, and various colored pebbles. The only thing I learned from the trailer was the web site for the 'Foundation' raising money for...? |
Some shorebirds were in the water, but too far away to get excited about.
Return to San Elijo Lagoon.
Return to Buena Vista Lagoon.
