Monterey

Monterey

We left Half Moon Bay on September 24th and arrived early evening to Monterey. We motored initially but then had a fabulous sail reaching across the bay the last 3 hours. Sails were put away right before entering Breakwater Cove. We were greeted by many seals, sea lions and sea otters on the breakwater, it was LOADED with all of them. In Seattle our breakwater had the usual seagulls, then in Half Moon Bay they were full of pelicans and now we had a change of crew. Hmmm, what is next?

The sea otters are as cute as they are like to take mussels and break them on the bow of the boat causing quite a bit of damage. We noticed all the boats kept fenders low on their bow to protect it from these mischievous creatures. They were all over the marina and fun to watch as they are playful. We did try to discourage their behavior when we saw other boats being assaulted. 

Stephen and I did stay at a marina as we had some laundry and showers in our future after anchoring out the last time. I had some nice runs on the trail on the coast. We used to come to Monterey quite a bit in the past to paraglide on the dunes so it was fun to arrive by a different mode of transportation and with different activities in mind. Despite all of our frequent visits, we never went to the aquarium so that was achieved on this trip. Additionally, we decided a dive at Breakwater Cove in the Kelp Forest would be cool and since we had dive gear on the boat it seemed proper we check this out. This "checking out" include 7mm wet suits ( we only have 3mm on board so we rented these) and then it was told to us for the weight we needed 10% of our body weight and additional 10lbs just to get down. Holy Moly HEAVY dive gear!! I have never done a shore dive and oh boy with all this weight it was pretty funny to watch me WADDLE across the sand just to get to the water. 

Visibility was fair obviously. 

Uggh!! Heavy tank, lots of weight, 7mm suit -can I just step off a boat???  Soon....

1st dive in a while! Nice to feel good about your gear and look forward to warmer water dives

Steps down to San Carlos beach at the Breakwater Cove

Out to Sea is a great dive shop/fishing shop next to the cove and on the marina grounds.  Chris and Erin, the owners, were ridiculously helpful. They gave us information on the dive and they will cart over your gear to San Carlos beach and refill your tanks. They treated us like we were paying for a big charter even though we had our own gear and really would just get refills. Stephen and I dusted off the cobwebs ( I had not dove since going to Australia 6 years ago) and Stephen was 10 years ago when we both dove in Thailand. We did some mellow shallow water dives and check out the kelp forest and appreciated the decorator crabs and some cool sand dollars.

I loved the Jelly display in the Aquarium - Jellyfish are gorgeous animals and very hypnotic with their movements. I found them tranquil to watch but I can sure say this is NOT how I feel about them when I see them in the water with me!!!

Ethan gave us generous pours and we enjoyed some wine! 

Cribbage, yummy wine thanks to Alise and Adam, and very rare Yeti wine glasses ( ha!). Stephen FINALLY plays cribbage with me - yahoo! 

Tomorrow we will take off for Morro Bay and catch up with Dave and Kelly SV Arctos. We have a good friend Larry there and will spend some time enjoying the area.

Sorry about the video that would not post! I am over trying to download it- Blogger is not always user-friendly :(