Our USA Adventure - Days 35 to 38 - Mariposa, Monterey & Mill Valley

A baby & mum sea otters feasting on mussels in Monterey

From Mariposa, the gateway to Yosemite we drove cross country, for not very long, less than three hours and we were by the seaside, in Monterey, actually having past a town called Seaside! We were actually too early to check in , so we left the car and walked down to fisherman’s wharf. Very touristy, but we did get a nice cup of clam chowder.

We got little baby's attention by waving at it. It didn't quite know what to make of us

We then had to go investigating, I could her sea lions, but where were they? Pretty much everywhere it turned out. We walked down the coastguard pier, as recommended by a lad in a shop, because at the end you could just see, smell and hear sea lions. To get to them we walked passed pelicans, lots of pelicans, and then after stopping for a couple of sea lions in the water, I pulled Brian along for something else. We’d seen a sign about sea otters, you know, those cute otters that lie on their backs and cuddle their babies, or open their mussel with their favourite pebble, that they keep in a pouch under the arm. But did we expect to see one? No. But there just the other side of the fence, to stop you falling in the water, was a mum and pup. He was too big to do the lying on her tummy thing, but he was still young enough to be playing, investigating his tail, stealing mussels from mum, watching us as we waved at him. They were absolutely gorgeous, and we spent a long time feeling very privileged to be so close. There were estimated to be about 300,000 southern sea otters in the 1700’s, now there are estimated to be 3000 as they’d been hunted to the edge for their fur, which is amazingly thick, about 1,000,000 hairs per square inch, as opposed to us with 100,000. This is what keeps them warm, they don’t have a layer of blubber, though the amount of huge mussels mummy was eating, that was hard to believe! Apparently they have to eat a quarter of their body weight in food a day. I like my food, but that’s just going too far!

A sea lion baby resting on her mum

Tuesday we had a little drive/amble round the Monterey coast, where we had a great interaction with some ground squirrels that someone else was feeding. Before heading to Point Lobos Del Mar, Point of the sea wolves, Or sea lions to us! It started to rain as we arrived so we ate the buns we’d bought in Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was mayor in 1986, before going to the whaling museum and chatting with the guy there for ages. Watching a sea otter out in the bay, diving and eating, diving and eating. We drove round to sea lion point, where I had to explain to someone why it was called sea lion point, because that rock is covered in sea lions! We then came across three deer, just drinking the water in the puddles on the path. Another little walk brought us to more pelicans, cormorants and at least 4 more sea otters. We’d really got our eyes in for spotting them and distinguishing them from kelp or sea lions. Not bad to think that if a populations under 3000 we’ve seen 7 of them!

A couple of pelicans chilling out on a rock

Dinner was at an Indian, but not a curry as we know it, we shared the seafood platter, two sorts of fish, prawns and a lobster tail, and a vegetable curry. It was fabulous. Sadly no beer however, I think, because the only waiter was under 21 so couldn’t actually serve us! Oh well, there’s a brewery just over there we’ll go for a pint after!

I took so many photos of pelicans flying, hoping I'd get a good one. Here's a few of my efforts

Today we popped in to Jiffylube to check the oil, which was a little low, as was the washer fluid, and the tyres. The very nice man, put in about a litre of oil, and water and air and just waved us on our way! We like Jiffylube! We have then driven up the coast, over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods. The coastline was amazing, the bridge an experience, and the woods? Who knows! An online reservation is required for parking, but there was no WiFi there. Just go down to Muir Beach, you’ll get a cell there, make your reservation, and come right back. We didn’t get a cell, so we walked on the beach and came back to write the blog. It’s a short blog on words, but I suspect it’ll be a long blog on pictures!

I quite like this one coming into land. I've got loads of these, having spent a long time trying to get the perfect shot

Look at this seal showing us how to chill out!

This was in a place called Lovers Point Park and a lady was feeding these ground squirrels with monkey nuts. They were eating as many as they could, storing them in their mouths

She gave Jackie a couple and I quite like this photo of one hurling itself off a rock to get to the nut first

And the, of course, she had one on her knee

To me, there's something a bit primordial about this. Pelicans remind me a little of what I think Pterodactyls might have looked like

Sea Lion Island. This is a zoomed in photo and, from a distance it looked like a rock in the ocean, it was only when you could zoom in could you see it was covered in sea lions. Apparently this area is called Point Lobos Del Mar as, when the Spanish arrived sailing up the coast, a sea mist obscured the land and all could be heard were the sea lions calls which, to the untrained ear could be mistaken for the sound of a wolf. Lobos is the Spanish word for wolves and the name stuck

We saw three deer out in the open just after a shower of rain coming down for a drink of water. The Ranger we met afterwards, who didn't know we'd seen them told us that, surprisingly there are quite a number of deer here. When we told him we knew, we'd seen three he sounded very surprised. They only normally come out at dusk or at night, staying away from people

Peregrine falcons too, we saw two of them. What a day this is turning out to be!

And another sea otter. From a distance this could have been kelp and is the reason most people hadn't spotted them. Thank heavens for the zoom lens on my camera

This is a Cypress tree and hanging from it is moss. Why is there so much moss on all the trees here?. Well, I'd like to tell you: Just off the coast is the Monterey Trench, a subsea trench with a depth of 9600 feet and is the deepest trench in North America. Ocean currents bring deep ocean cold water up to the surface just off the coast here, bringing nutrients to the surface. It's the reason there is so much wildlife here, taking advantage of the plentiful food supply available. The cold water causes condensation in the air that allows the moss to grow and it also causes regular sea mist to form, keeping the average temperature here low (and the reason we're wearing coats). Whales are frequent visitors here due to the depth of water, but we didn't go whale spotting as it's in between season for various migrating types at the moment. Pelicans are also not permanent residents here, they are midway between their migration between the North-West territories of Alberta and Washington, where they are in the summer, to Baja California in Mexico where they breed in the winter. This happens to be a convenient stopping off point on the way and we were just lucky enough to be here at that time

This is not just a rock. Look closely (or zoom in) there are many. many pelicans resting here, but you could miss them entirely, as many people did

And this is Bird Island. Look closely and you can see it's full of birds, mainly Cormorants

Today we've gone a little bit further north, following the very scenic Highway 1, which hugs the coast. This section goes over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco, but we're not stopping here yet, that's for a couple of weeks time, for now we're continuing to head north into remote coastal country

Up on Mount Tamplas, high above the bay we stopped to take this photo. It's San Fransisco bay and down there is the Golden Gate Bridge (you'll have to zoom in to see it, it's on the right) and the island of Alcatraz. For now, we're going further north...

Talking of Mount Tamplas, we stopped off tonight for a meal and a couple of pints and mine was a local brew called Mount Tam Pale Ale. Very nice it was too! Jackie had the Blind Pig IPA, another local brew