Ocean Beach: Fog, Fauna, and Flora

by Eddy Rubin, Greg Wright (Illustrator)

Overview

A charmingly illustrated nature guide to Ocean Beach and the coastal ecology of San Francisco.

Grab your beach blanket and your puffy jacket (this is San Francisco, after all) and get ready to see Ocean Beach like never before. Longtime local surfer and scientist Eddy Rubin celebrates this magical sandy stretch through stories of its animals and plants and the natural and human forces that have shaped this coastal environment. From sand dollars and seaweed to the snowy plovers in the dunes, and stretching out to the seals and whales offshore, Rubin profiles twenty-nine local flora and fauna with wonder and curiosity. To explain the why and how, he also teaches readers about the weather and geological forces that have created this unique sandy ecology. Lifetime lovers of Ocean Beach and new neighbors alike will delight in Rubin's guide, brought vividly to life by more than forty full-color artworks by illustrator Greg Wright. With this guide, Rubin invites readers to explore the place where ocean and land meet, to learn from surfers and fishermen about what's out in the waves, and to protect this shared expanse of sandy shoreline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597146951
Publisher:	Heyday
Publication date:	08/12/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Eddy Rubin is a longtime Ocean Beach enthusiast who has been walking, surfing, and foraging along the beach for decades. When not spending time at Ocean Beach, he led the Human Genome Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There, Eddy oversaw the mapping of genomes for humans, Neanderthals, and dozens of animals, plants, and microbes. His awards include an honorary doctoral degree, membership in a royal society, and—a matter of great personal pride—election into the Ocean Beach Double Overhead Surf Association.

Greg Wright has lived on the west side of San Francisco and surfed at Ocean Beach for more than a decade. While spending his days working in technology, he has cultivated a passion for art and the beach's fall and winter swells.

Table of Contents

Authors Note

Ocean Beach

• Water and Weather
• Fog
• Waves
• Tides and Currents
• Riptides
• Sea Foam
• Sandbars and Sand Dunes

Fauna

• Hard-Bodied Creatures
• Sand Crab
• Dungeness Crab
• Sand Dollar
• Soft-Bodied Creatures
• By-the-Wind Sailor
• Moon Jelly
• Pacific Sea Nettle
• Seabirds and Shorebirds
• California Brown Pelican
• Cormorant
• Western Gull
• Snowy Plover
• Sanderling
• Willet
• Short-Billed Dowitcher
• Fully Aquatic Marine Mammals
• Gray Whale
• Humpback Whale
• Blue Whale
• Sperm Whale
• Common Bottlenose Dolphin
• Harbor Porpoise
• Partially Aquatic Marine Mammals
• California Sea Lion
• Harbor Seal
• Fish
• Surfperch
• Striped Bass
• Great White Shark

Flora

• Beach Strawberry
• Silver Dune Lupine
• Bull Kelp
• Ice Plant
• European Beachgrass

Ocean Beach Ecosystem: Looking Forward

Acknowledgments

Resources

About the Author

About the Illustrator

Editorial Reviews

"What a miraculous gift to have Eddy Rubin—world-class geneticist, lifelong surfer—as our guide to the flora and fauna of Ocean Beach, that magnificent strand separating San Francisco from the Pacific. With the serious scientist's depth of understanding and the poetic gaze of an inveterate beach comber, Rubin invites us to join him for the best kind of literary stroll—past the tiny enigmatic jellyfish known as sailors-by-the-sea, through hardy dune grasses bending in the wind, and even into the booming cold waves where surfers play and little sand crabs eke out a precarious living. This book is an absolute must-have for the first-time visitor to Ocean Beach, the long-time Bay Area resident, and anyone who just plain loves the Northern California coast." —Daniel Duane, author of Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast

From the Publisher