Moss Landing

📍 Moss Landing, California

If you’ve been here for a while, you know I have deep roots in California. It’s where so much of my childhood was spent, particularly summers in Santa Cruz with my grandpa.

Every other year, when we’d make our way to to Santa Cruz, we would take a day to visit Elkhorn Slough-kayaking through quiet water, passing sea otters, stopping by fruit stands, and driving past endless artichoke fields. I used to dream about what it would be like to live in nearby Moss Landing.

The last time I visited felt a little bittersweet. But it stayed with me. Enough that I started digging into the history… and the stories.

Between the silent marshes, abandoned docks, and the looming smokestacks, Moss Landing doesn’t feel haunted, but perhaps a little supernatural.

Tucked along Monterey Bay at the mouth of the slough, this small coastal town holds layers of history: Ohlone homeland, colonial violence, restless water… and the shadow of the power plant rising over it all.

Then there’s the story of Eric.

A man rumored to have died working at the Moss Landing Power Plant decades ago. There’s no official record tying it all together but the story lingers anyway.

Some say his presence still moves through the building. A figure in the windows. A feeling you can’t quite shake.

Maybe it’s grief. Maybe it’s folklore. Or maybe some places hold onto their dead a little longer than they should.

Because in Moss Landing, when the fog rolls in and the marsh goes quiet…
you might just catch a glimpse of someone watching,
staring out over the Monterey Canyon trench below.