04/27/2002 to 05/11/2002
Sea Lions greet us in the morning. Video of their morning greeting.
Okay, this log entry was a bit late in coming, because (as you'll see) we've been doing a lot of goofing off! It will be short - highlights only -- in an effort to get caught up.
After the 2002 Sail Expo, Robin and I returned to Monterey and settled back into our routine. Coffee at Morgan's, email checking on their wireless network, strolling the town, hitting the farmer's market, going to movies (Spiderman, Monsoon Wedding, Moulin Rouge), trekking over to Manta Ray dive shop (got our regulators rebuilt and our dive computer batteries replaced), napping, reading, boat work, visiting with new Monterey friends, and having dinner at some great local restaurants (Montrio, Stokes Adobe, Lollapalooza). Executing some tasks like laundry and grocery shopping easily consume half a day. For folks that wondered if we would get bored -- nope, not yet.
Scott, a liveaboard on the Kelly-Peterson 44 in the slip across from us became a great source of "local knowledge" in Monterey. Scott worked as a chef and menu author for a local restauraunt (and knew most local restaurants). He now runs his own excellent "local" sandwich shop (Scott's Sandwich Shack) in PG Liquors (PG=Pacific Grove for you non-locals). He is an avid diver and diving instructor and had lots of insight on marine ecology, diving, local fishing issues, etc. We enjoyed visiting with Scott and his girlfriend Karen -- and appreciated a great "road trip" over to Carmel for Sushi!
Wine Tasting at Talbott in Carmel Valley
Friends from the Bay Area came down to visit the first weekend May. Jim and Catherine took us on a great side trip into Point Lobos State Park, then on to Carmel Valley. In Carmel Vally, we did some local wine tasting at a few winery tasting rooms clustered in the quaint town. Talbott and Bernardus were quite a treat. Joullien was okay, but did not stimulate us to purchase any bottles for the wine cellar (okay, the bilge).
In our 10+ years in the Bay Area, we had never ventured out into Carmel Valley. There are golf resorts, beautiful homes, ranches, cute towns, and what looks like a great winding-road drive up the mountain. Most of the tasting rooms are within a few blocks of each other in Carmel Valley (the town) to keep the driving down.
Jim, Catherine, Robin & Duncan from the roof of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
That Sunday, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Jim and Catherine and met up with some other good friends over at the Aquarium.
In our many years of visiting the Aquarium, we had never seen a feeding in the Outer Bay exhibit. It is worth checking out! Quite a feeding frenzy -- 220 lbs of fish and squid dumped in and consumed in about 10 minutes by dozens of BIG, FAST, ravenous fishes. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a live web cam and a posted feeding schedule if you can't make it down to see it in person. They feed the Ocean Sunfish and turtles by hand because they just can't compete with all the huge tuna, bonito, and dolphin (fish, aka mahi-mahi) nailing any morsel that floats by.
Russ, his mom Janet, Gabe, and Leslie.
We spent Sunday afternoon (post Aquarium visit) on the boat catching up with Russ, Leslie, Gabe, and Russ's mom Janet. Russ worked with Robin at Alias/wavefront in Santa Barbara and we have become good friends over the years as we all followed our careers and dreams. We'll meet up with them again in June at the big A/W reunion party in Santa Barbara.
It was great to see everyone. It's nice we were still so close to the Bay Area that friends could come down to visit.
Star Princess about a mile off the Wharf in Monterey.
The big event of Tuesday May 7th was the arrival of the Star Princess into Monterey Bay - a huge Princess Cruise ship. They estimated as many as 1500 (out of 3000+) people might come ashore via tenders to see Monterey and provide a mid-week economic boon to the town. The environmentalists were poised to monitor and measure any discharge from the ship (Marine Sanctuary), the coast guard circled in boats and helicopters, the town stood ready for the onslaught of tourists with vats of extra clam chowder, racks of smoked salmon, and buckets of fried calamari. We got up early to witness the events of the day, photograph the boat and tourists, and observe the town's response. While waiting for the tenders to ferry in the 100 or so passengers per boat, we headed back to the boat to refill our coffee and then head over to the tender landing area.
An empty Fisherman's Wharf. No ship for you.
When we emerged from the boat a half hour later, the ship was gone. The large ocean swell (8-10ft), forecast to build by late afternoon when all the cruisers would need to shuttle back to the ship, had made it too risky to launch the tenders. Off the ship went to its next destination -- Pier 35, San Francisco. We walked over to the wharf and observed the Dixieland Jazz band playing to an audience of press and a few locals. The atmosphere of disappointment was palpable. We felt so bad for the merchants that we immediately bought a couple of latte's and a cold crabmeat-in-a-cup "breakfast". Our suggestion to the nice chamber of commerce representative was to have the community come down to the wharf for lunch or an early dinner to help support the merchants. She grabbed a news guy and cameraman and proceeded to request the same in her interview. When we passed the wharf later that afternoon it was hopping. The Tuesday evening Farmer's Market was extra busy too. Two more ships are scheduled to stop later this fall. Hopefully, they'll be able to stay.
Pre-dawn on Sunday May 12th, we left Monterey for our next destination -- San Simeon and Morro Bay.