Tim's Birthday, Monterey & Santa Barbara

It's easy to get behind on the blog - there is so much to do at each stop! The weather is warm, the sun is out and the sky is clear; what a great day here! In the past two weeks we've been making our way down the coast to head to San Diego, the final stop before we head into Mexico and then down the Pacific Coast outside of the US for the rest of the trip.

Here is our current itinerary and where we've been lately:
10/6: Sausalito/San Francisco, CA to Half Moon Bay, CA
10/7: Half Moon Bay, CA to Monterey, CA
10/7: Monterey,CA 
10/11: At sea, an overnight from Monterey, CA to Santa Barbara, CA
10/12 : Santa Barbara, CA

10/17: Ventura, CA

10/18: Oxnard, CA

10/19: Marina Del Rey, CA (where we are currently)

10/23: Avalon, Catalina Island  Long Beach/Alamitos Bay

10/25: Dana Point, CA

10/30: San Diego, CA

From San Francisco, we went to Half Moon Bay, CA for a day. The local fishermen were again selling fresh albacore tuna off the dock - for $4.50/lb! They also had fresh crab. Our buddy boat, Osprey, was able to grab the last few decent sized crabs; Brian made an unbelievably delicious dinner of crabcakes! One thing we are really loving on this trip is all the fresh seafood and veggies we are able to get! 

Tim and his easy rida!

From Half Moon Bay, we went to Monterey, CA, home to Cannery Row, where they've filmed many movies, the famous 17-mile drive and Pebble Beach, Monterey Aquarium and a trademarked Cypress Tree! We embarked on the 17-mile drive via rented bikes (holy sore butts apres ride!).  The views were spectacular as were each of the marked sites along the path. Something to note - the seagulls are aggressive! We stopped to have a bite of lunch and while eating lunch at a picnic table facing the beach, Tim was holding his sandwich, ready to take another bite, when a seagull swooped down, knocked me in the head with its foot as I was sitting next to Tim, and took the sandwich right out of his hand! It was pretty funny and I gave kudos to seagull for its stealthy precision!


What's the deal with the trademarked Cypress tree? According to Wikipedia: Pebble Beach's lawyer, Kerry C. Smith, said "The image of the tree has been trademarked by us," and that it intended to control any display of the cypress for commercial purposes. The company had warned photographers that "they cannot even use existing pictures of the tree for commercial purposes."

I do have many pictures of this tree, but for fear of a fine, I won't post them :) Apparently this special tree has been used as a backdrop in many movies. It is or was 'leaning', you can see the rope on the cliff holding it up, cool nonetheless. It's like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it's not really leaning any more since they've shored it up in order to keep it leaning and not falling, and to keep tourists coming into the city. Sorry to spoil it for those of you who haven't been to Pisa yet to see it!

Brian, Richard, Kathy, Tim - heading out for our 17-mile tour

The coastline of Monterey

Fun facts about Granite - click on the picture to enlarge.

Pebble Beach Golf Course (a view from one of the holes)
PB is widely regarded as on of the most beautiful courses in the world!

Like San Francisco, Brian informed me that there was yet another Ghirardelli Sundae Shop and we all promptly headed there for another round of sundaes. Pure glutonny and worth every blessed calorie!

Deliciousness again at Ghirardelli. 

We hit up the farmer's market in Monterey, great produce here in CA (it negates our sundaes from the night before :)):

A screen shot of our GPS heading down to Santa Barbara

We really enjoyed Monterey, but once we hit Santa Barbara, we fell in love!  We did an overnight to SB, about 199 nm from Monterey. We rounded Point Conception, a point on the pacific coast of California that can get undoubtedly gnarly weather. We were lucky, it was smooth sailing! People have reported gale winds, 10+ ft swells, fog, rain or whatever Mother Nature decides is on the menu for the day near the Point, but luckily, we didn't run into anything. On the way to Santa Barbara from Monterey, we had a nice group of visitors, who were with us for about 25 minutes, riding the wake from our bow.  Dolphins! Check out the video - pretty cool:

Once we arrived in Santa Barbara, we knew we'd be there for a few days, we really enjoyed it! The beaches were really nice, there was a bike path right by the marina, and downtown was a short walk away. We actually had a beach day and played frisbee, can't beat it! While in SB, we also toured the city, celebrated Tim's birthday, hit the farmer's market, the SB Seafood Festival, did some sight seeing and went "summer" clothes shopping since we didn't really have much coming from Seattle.

Oil rig off the coast, on our way to SB.
 There are a bunch of rigs which make up the SB horizon.

Rhythm & Osprey having a much needed drink after our overnight from Monterey to SB.

View of SB from the top of the Municipal Building Tower - self-guided tour.

Another view of SB from the top of the Municipal Building Tower

Inside the Municipal Building, straight ahead is where the judge sits.
 They do weddings here and hold court sessions.

In the library of the Muni Building, do you know what this is? 

Solitary confinement in the Muni Building back in the day.
Can you imagine being stuck up there all day?

We toured the Mission Building,
 home to the Friars who came to convert the native Americans to Christianity 

Garden at the Mission Building, which is now a peaceful, quiet retreat and rehab center 

We hit the Seafood Festival and ate Aebleskivers,  3 balls of baked dough with raspberry jam and whipped cream.
Tim with is decadent random  dessert, mmm mmm!

And then, Tim turned 34 on October 15th! We decorated and had a party with Osprey. I made a vanilla pudding cake - 2 layers of vanilla cake, with vanilla pudding in the center. I overdid it on the icing - lol.

Tim turns 34!

Cel-a-brate good times, come on! 

Decorated boat for Tim's party.
Pay no attention to the massive amount of icing dripping off the cake.

From SB, we departed to Ventura, CA, a small town with not much going on, so we left after 1 day. We were headed to Marina Del Rey, when a small craft advisory was put into place and we had to duck into Oxnard, CA. After Oxnard, we headed to Marina Del Rey, where we are currently!  More soon!

--K