Darlene and I dropped in to see the Polynesian Festival and Outrigger Races at the Santa Cruz Wharf on Sunday morning. Apparently anyone can sign up as teams in advance and compete in the races. We also stopped into the free Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center. It’s a small center with some nice exhibits and videos, including a tank where you can drive around a remote-operated submersible.
Hoan and Quyen came up to visit for a few days with their kids Samantha, Sebastien and Sarah. We went to Moss Landing to kayak on Elkhorn Slough, to the Santa Cruz wharf and boardwalk, to the farmer’s market in Aptos (plus a quick stop to see the dancing chickens at the Glaum Egg Ranch), to hike in Big Basin and then hang out at Four Mile Beach in Wilder Ranch State Park.
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Pictures from a visit of Darlene’s friend Kathy and her daughter Jordan and friend Adrienne – we went kayaking at Moss Landing/Elkhorn Slough, visited the Santa Cruz wharf and boardwalk and visited the redwoods at Big Basin State Park. Click through for the gallery:
Two weeks ago, Darlene and I enjoyed a weekend stay at the Vision Quest Ranch in Salinas, CA. It’s a facility that keeps and cares for a host of 100+ various exotic and domestic animals. Their prime business used to be training and providing animals for use in the film and television industry, but with the increasing use of computer-generated, all-digital animals, they’ve turned more to adopting at-risk or retired animals, doing more educational programs and training programs and transforming the facility into a fully, open-to-the-public zoo, “The Monterey Zoo”. This effort is still in progress and so they’re now only open for short, daily, guided tours while they build out larger, more engaging enclosures for their animals. However, they also run a bed and breakfast service based on several cabin-like tents situated on the property and provide a number of up close encounters with various animals, particularly a couple of retired circus elephants who greet you at your cabin as your breakfast is served.
You can read more about the history of the facility, stories about their numerous animals and information about their various educational efforts on their web site.
A video montage of our visit.
Click through for the full gallery of pictures:
It was just one day’s ride… but it turned out to be something of an epic ride: from the bottom of Pogonip in Santa Cruz, up the Emma McCrary trail and the U-Con trail to the UCSC campus trails winding this way and that and up and back around, then all the way down through Wilder Ranch and over via Old Cabin trail, round Enchanted, a short stop for lunch on the bluffs and then down and around Zane Gray’s Cutoff before starting the climb back up Twin Oaks, past the eucalyptus grove, back around behind campus and all the way back down Pogonip.
Mostly single-track but thirty-two miles in all! Whew! Who’s idea was this again?? (I had in mind a full day with lunch along the way like doing Hole in the Ground up in Tahoe… but I see that’s *only* 16 miles! Though, at altitude of course.) Anyway, we all survived to ride another day!
I put together a little video montage from the ride:
Also, check out our attempt to create a new sport: Disk Golf Biking!
Click through below for the full gallery from the day, mostly courtesy of Rick – thanks, Rick!
There’s been loads of humpback whales in Monterey Bay this summer and Darlene and I finally had a chance to go on a whale-watching tour by kayak out of Moss Landing this past Sunday with Dave of Venture Quest Kayaks. Thanks once again, Dave! We had a great time and encountered numerous humpback whales diving and feeding together, once even coming up between our kayaks, as well as saw plenty of others off in various directions, blowing, diving and even breaching in the distance. After a snack break back at the boat launch, we headed in to the Elkhorn Slough with the aid of some handheld kayak sails.
In addition to all the whales, we also saw plenty of other wildlife: lots of harbor seals, sea lions, otters, egg yolk jellyfish, starfish, porpoises, pelicans, gulls, terns, sandpipers, cormorants and even an egret. A couple of people saw a mola mola pass under, but we missed that. D’oh!
However, our kayak was boarded in the slough by a sea otter “patrol” – apparently inspecting us for goodies… or contraband? (Check out the video below.)
We had so much fun on Sunday that we decided to sign up to come back the very next morning. On Monday, the entire bay was incredibly calm but we really had to work to find any whales. We had to paddle out nearly three miles into the bay to find them, but find them we did! Or perhaps they found us…
A short video montage of our two days of kayaking (4.3 minutes, 70 MB)
Click through for the full gallery of images from both days:
Earlier this week, Darlene and I made a little two-day, round-trip bike excursion to Monterey and back from Santa Cruz. It worked out to about 101 miles round trip from my place in the hills near Scotts Valley. We had actually intended to go down on Monday, hang out on Tuesday and return Wednesday but as we weren’t really ready to go until late Monday afternoon, with two hours of sunlight left…. oops! So, Tuesday morning we finally headed out.
It’s a common route and except for a couple of miles around Moss Landing, you stay off of Highway 1. And in fact, there’s a great bike trail that runs from Castroville all the way into Monterey which we didn’t know about until we stumbled on to it en route.
We had great weather both days and a lovely ride and stayed overnight at the inexpensive but nice Cannery Row Inn – across from San Carlos Beach and The Breakwater (a popular SCUBA diving spot).
Some video and pictures from a visit to the Año Nuevo State Park to see the elephant seals.
Some pictures from an evening at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk with Darlene:
Pictures from a bike ride this past Saturday with my favorite pink biker chick, Darlene — 28 miles out to Año Nuevo State Park (and the elephant seals) from my home near Santa Cruz (with a nice little detour along Swanton Rd):
Pictures and video from a day of giving stand-up paddleboarding a try from the Santa Cruz marina. The water was so calm that day we even ventured out into the bay.
Another fun day out kayaking in Santa Cruz with the Bay Area Outdoor Adventure Club and guided by Venture Quest Kayaking. We started out from the Santa Cruz pier and went around the lighthouse to Natural Bridges State Park to stop for lunch before returning with the help of some handheld sails. Saw lots of sea otters among the kelp along the way!
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A bit of kayaking by moonlight in Santa Cruz courtesy of the Bay Area Outdoor Adventure Club
and guided by Venture Quest Kayaking:
Click through for a gallery of pictures from a day cruise out for whale watching in Monterey Bay, California with Glenn and Michele:
Click through for a small gallery of pictures from a day of kayaking with Adrena along the Elkhorn Slough, near Monterey Bay:
