We had a small earthquake yesterday in So Cal and it reminded me of this.

Back about 10 years ago we were anchored on the back side of Catalina Island fishing off the palisades. It was a flat calm day, very few boats, and sunny skies. We were anchored only a few hundred yards off the steep cliffs. Then we started to heard clacking sounds. The clacking sounds were a few seconds apart but not in a regular pattern. We looked around and there were no other boats, just a flat glassy ocean around us. We kept hearing the sounds and kept looking around to try to figure out what was causing them. I looked at the shoreline thinking that a wake might be breaking along the shore and causing the sounds. But there was no wake. Then I noticed a splash along the shore and realized that big boulders were tumbling down the steep cliffs and slapping into the water below. Since we had just had an earthquake a few days before, we figured there had been another one. We looked at our watches and noted the time. Sure enough when we got back to shore we learned that there had been another pretty good size earthquake that caused the cliff to crumble. The boulders tumbled down for about a minute and then a big cloud of dust rose up into the sky. After about 10 minutes the dust cleared and you would never know anything had happened. I don't think I will have that experience again.