When we got up, the weather looked really promising with clear skies, so we set off for the Monterey peninsular. As we got closer to the coast, the mist started rolling in and by the time we got into Pebble Beach on the Pacific Ocean, it was quite thick. This was our first view of the sea since we had been in the USA.
We paid roughly $10 to drive the 17 Mile Drive, a marked route through the very exclusive area of Pebble Beach. The area consists of about 4 golf courses, including the famous Pebble Beach Course used for US Open Championships, beautiful coast and very expensive houses. The first part of our route took us through the residential area before we joined the coast. It was breezy and cool with heavy mist shrouding the views. This hadn't stopped lots of people from coming out to walk their dogs or go surfing. There was a lot of kelp floating in the sea and washing up on the beach, which suggests that there had been a storm out in the Pacific recently.
We continued the drive stopping regularly to take photos and watch birds, Sea-Lions and squadrons of Brown Pelicans. As the day progressed, the mist cleared so we could see further and it warmed up a little. Eventually, we reached Pebble Beach again and turned around to go to Monterey itself where we fancied a sea-food lunch.
Some of the golf courses had spectacular tees, fairways and greens bordering the ocean, several managed without fairways at all, just a tee on one jutting out bit of coast and a green on the next, rather challenging I suspect.
As it was a weekend, Monterey was absolutely heaving and it took some time to find somewhere to park that wasn't going to cost $25 for a couple of hours. We managed to find a public parking lot between Cannery Row and Fishermans Wharf and walked back to Cannery Row where we managed to find a restaurant serving fish and sea-food. Our table looked out over the bay and we could see harbour seals and sea-otters in the kelp. The food was very good too, especially the crab!
After lunch we all went for a wander around, Lynn and I around Cannery Row and Lin and Ken down to Fishermans Wharf to see more of the seals and pelicans.
After our day at the sea-side we headed back to Salinas and the hotel. During the evening, the mist reached Salinas and it got quite cool.
Hotel - Laurel Inn Motel
Weather - Clear skies and sunny until closer to the coast, then misty. Cool all day on the coast, the mist cleared early afternoon, but the breeze was still cool
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