Family Flashbacks (14): A Bird, A Breach, & A Beach

Continuing my flashback California road trip report, on this date we gladly put the Artichoke Inn in our rear-view mirror, breakfasted again in the Moss Landing Café (no artichokes), and drove to a nearby departure point for Sanctuary Whale Watch Cruises, which we had researched well in advance. For the next two-and-a-half hours we cruised around Monterey Bay out to five miles or so from shore. It was a wonderfully calm morning with just a few gentle swells, but there was initially quite a bit of fog that greatly reduced our visibility across the water. Eventually it lifted, gradually and sporadically, and gave us better views. During our cruise we were able to see perhaps a dozen humpback whales, but it was a real challenge to try to be ready for their brief appearances, which could be anywhere. We glimpsed several breaches, but only one is worth sharing, and the whale was about a half-mile away. It was far easier to capture the beautiful disappearing tails of the few whales that surfaced closer to our quiet craft, and our encounters were topped when a pair of them did a perfect pas de deux for us. Full of excitement after our adventure at sea, we continued our journey up the coast to San Francisco. We made two more stops along the way, one in which Squiddy and I went for a leg-stretching walk into Pescadero River Park. We stayed until the light faded and then lingered a bit longer to see what the sunset over the Pacific would offer us; CD and Squiddy went down closer to the beach, while I skirted the dune foliage, looking for suitable foreground elements to include in my photos. Our second stop was for dinner in Half-Moon Bay, which turned out to be a rather posh community, and the only suitable restaurant that we found was a rather fancy Italian one. The food was just fine, but we were dressed pretty casually and, although they pretended to try to make us feel welcome, it was quite clear that they would prefer that we eat as fast as possible and leave again. Our (modest) meal tipped the scales at $150. Yikes!