April 21st to 28th Moss Landing and Monterey

We moved 100 miles south of San Francisco to a campsite near Monterey. The campsite itself was no great shakes and hemmed in by roads and an inaccessible hill at the back so we couldn’t safely walk outside the camp perimeter. We therefore took the camper out most days and firstly headed for the nearest bit of coast, the small harbour of Moss Landing. The lovely beach there was backed by sand dunes, and nearly deserted.

As pleasant as it was to walk along the sands and listen to the pounding Pacific surf, the real fascination was watching the wildlife. The most impressive part of that was the whales.

There’s an annual migration of grey whales from the Arctic to Mexico and back every winter and early spring, and we were lucky enough to be there at the peak time for their return journey. You would first see great spouts of misty water as they came up for air and then usually a huge tail flipped up as they dived again. Just occasionally one would breach, that is, come nearly right out of the water. We must have seen over 60 whales altogether; what an amazing experience. Unfortunately I have no photos; my camera’s digital display just couldn’t pick them up.

What the camera did catch ok were the sea otters. These were active in the estuary, just beyond the end of the beach, that let to a wildlife reserve.

There were plenty of pelicans and seal lions too. I’m sure you can work out which is which.

Another day out was to Monterey, a fairly up market town, next to Carmel which is a very upmarket town where Clint Eastwood lives and was once the mayor. The walkway along the coast and around the harbour was especially pretty.

Lots more sea lions as well on the breakwater, and an unusual starfish that you can see next to the kelp, that’s the green seaweed rising  from the bottom, that grows extensively off the coast and provides a rich habitat for the varied sea life here.

Monterey town is quite pleasant with some buildings from the 20’s and 30 like the Golden State Theatre here opened on 1926.

The main source of employment in the town was fish canning between the early years of the last century and the mid 1950’s, featuring in John Steinbeck’s famous book Cannery Row. Some of the old canneries are still there, turned into tourist shops and hotels. The photo shows part of Cannery Row that still has an original cannery name left.

Monterey had a Mediterranean feel and was a pleasant place for a day out. It had some nice parks, even a Dennis the Menace Park which we didn’t see, but then I was a Desperate Dan fan.