Desert Shores

Coasts where an arid interior meets the sea with nothing in between — no vegetation line, no farmland, no town. The contrast between dune or gravel plain and open water is the whole subject. These coasts have no shade, no fresh water and often no phone signal, and several require a permit and a guide rather than merely a vehicle. What they offer in return is the sharpest landscape contrast in the register, and in three cases an ecosystem — Namibia's lagoon birds, Oman's turtles, Peru's seabird colonies — that the aridity itself produces. Access to most of them requires a vehicle and self-sufficiency, and the register records what is and is not available on each rather than assuming. The absence of vegetation is what makes the contrast between land and water as sharp as it is here.