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M O N T E R E Y  B A Y  P E N I N S U L A

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P E B B L E  B E A C H

M O N T E R E Y

M O N T E R E Y  B A Y  A Q U A R I U M

We drove out of Big Sur and into the Monterey Peninsula. The Monterey Peninsula comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove, and the private community of Pebble Beach.

Philip gave us a little treat by side-tripping into Pebble Beach and the famous 17 mile drive. Pebble Beach is a small private coastal unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. Technically, Pebble Beach is not a city at all, but a rather a corporation owned by the Pebble Beach Company and managed as a small town.

The 17-Mile Drive is a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, California, United States, much of which hugs the Pacific coastline and passes famous golf courses and mansions. It also serves as the main road through the gated community of Pebble Beach. Like the community, the 17-Mile Drive is owned and operated by the Pebble Beach Corporation.

The road runs adjacent to beaches and up into the coastal hills, providing scenic viewpoints. Travel along 17-Mile Drive takes as long as the traveler likes. There are numerous turnouts along the road to stop, take pictures, or get out and stroll along the ocean or among the trees. Each visitor receives a small map that points out some of the more scenic spots.
Chief among these is the Lone Cypress Tree, the official symbol of Pebble Beach and a frequent fixture of television broadcasts from this area.

From there we headed straight for Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

 

M O N T E R E Y

The City of Monterey is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in central California. As of 2005, the city population was 30,641. The city is noted for its rich history of resident artists beginning in the late 1800s and its historically famed fishery. Monterey is home to the Naval Postgraduate School the Defense Language Institute, former Fort Ord, which is now the site of California State University Monterey Bay; Fleet Numerical Oceanography Center, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Monterey American Viticultural Area; Cannery Row, Fisherman's Wharf and a Marine Mammal Center field station located in the area. It is from Monterey that the semi-hard cheese known as Monterey Jack originated.
The city of Monterey was founded in 1777 and marked the beginning of settlement in Central California. The city became the capital of Spanish and later Mexican California.
In the late 19th century the fishing industry became the area's most profitable and important economic sector. Started by mostly Italian immigrants in Monterey and Chinese immigrants in Pacific Grove, the fishing industry flourished. By the 1930's Canneries lined the northern shore of the Peninsula. These Canneries were the set for the novels: Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday by famed local author John Steinbeck. By the early 1940's, however, the fishing industry was dealt a devastating blow when the heavily over-fished waters did not yield the amounts of fish needed to keep the canneries in the green. The end of big business fishing on the Monterey County was the beginning of several conservation efforts which eventually lead to the creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Today, tourism is serves as the Peninsula's main industry. Tourism started on the Peninsula with a religious vacation settlement by Protestants from San Francisco. This settlement was also the beginning of the town of Pacific Grove. Today once smelly Cannery Row is a tourist center lined with boutiques, restaurants, and hotels.

Monterey Bay is a roughly semicircular bay ringed by a segment of California State Route 1 which connects Santa Cruz at the north end to Monterey, at the south end. Monterey Bay is home to many species of marine mammals, including sea otters, harbor seals, and bottlenose dolphins; as well as being on the migratory path of Gray and Humpback Whales and a breeding site for elephant seals. Many species of fish, mollusks such as abalone and squid, birds, and sea turtles also live in the bay. Several varieties of kelp grow in the bay, some becoming as tall as small trees, forming what is known as a kelp forest.
The Monterey Canyon, one of the largest underwater canyons in the world, begins off the coast of Moss Landing, exactly in the center of Monterey Bay. In 1992 the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was created, protecting over 4,000 square nautical miles (14,000 km²) of the bay and surrounding ocean.

M O N T E R E Y  B A Y  A Q U A R I U M

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is located in a former sardine cannery and a former brewery on Cannery Row in Monterey, California, is one of the largest and most respected aquariums in the world. It has an annual attendance of 1.8 million and holds 35,000 plants and animals representing 623 species.
Among the aquarium's numerous exhibits, two are of particular note. The centerpiece of the near shore wing is a 33-foot (10-m) high tank for viewing California coastal marine life. This tank was the first in the world to simulate tidal currents on a large scale, enabling the aquarium to keep live California Giant Kelp (water movement is a necessary precondition for keeping Giant Kelp, which absorbs nutrients from surrounding water and requires turbidity). The second exhibit of note is a one million gallon tank in the Outer Bay Wing which features the world's largest single paned window (crafted by a Japanese company, the window is actually 4 panes seamlessly glued together through a proprietary process).
Sea life on exhibit includes stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters, and numerous other native marine species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline.

In my opinion, there is a third exhibit to be noted. The Jellyfish rooms. For displaying jellyfish, the MBA uses a circular aquarium called a Kreisel Tank. The room is kept dark and the entry is marked by an astonishing circular entry, the ceiling overhead is a transparent donut of madly swimming schools of silvery sardines. The jellyfish tanks are luminous and serene.

Visitors are also able to inspect the creatures of the kelp forest at several levels in the building. Beginning in September 2004, the Outer Bay exhibit was the home to the first Great White Shark ever successfully kept on exhibit.
The aquarium is also home to Seafood Watch, which publishes consumer guides for responsible seafood purchasing. (And don't eat farmed salmon. Farmed catfish and trout yes. Salmon no. ugh.)

One of the greatest exhibits are the sea otters. Hunted extensively for their luxurious fur—the densest of all mammals with up to 394,000 hairs per square centimeter— from 1741 onwards, sea otter populations were greatly reduced to the point of extermination in many parts of their historic range. By 1911 the world population was estimated to be just 1,000-2,000 individuals. Although several subspecies are still endangered, the otters have since been legally protected, and reintroduction efforts have shown positive results.

Sea otters are insanely playful and feeding time is especially entertaining. Only otters that have been injured and are recovering or have "socialization" issues are kept at the aquarium.

Sea Otters

Jellyfish Room  Monterey Bay Aquarium 2006

The Sardine Ceiling  Monterey Bay Aquarium   2006

Jellies   Monterey Bay Aquarium  2006

 M E N D O C I N O

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Despite its small size, Mendocino's scenic location on a headland surrounded by the Pacific Ocean has made it extremely popular as an artist colony and with vacationers. It is approximately a four-hour drive from the San Francisco Bay Area and thus is a popular weekend getaway spot for Bay Area residents.

For us, it was a six or seven hour car trip to Mendocino so we arrived after dark, around 8 and went directly to the village center to The Mendocino Cafe to eat. Probably the best clam chowder we have ever tasted. We then headed to out hotel room, a suite with 3 beds and a fireplace, garden/ocean view ($103 wow). The hotel is called Hill House of Cabot Cove and is charming. So charming in fact, for 12 television seasons of Murder She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury, Hill House was used as the main characters B&B /home and Mendocino ( aka Cabot Cove)  as the backdrop to the show's  Agatha Cristie-style murderous little village.
Many movies have been filmed in and around Mendocino and Mendocino County, including The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, Overboard (actually filmed in Fort Bragg), Karate Kid III, Dying Young, Forever Young, Pontiac Moon and The Majestic (also partially filmed in Fort Bragg).
While scenes for Murder, She Wrote were being filmed in Mendocino, residents say that it was not uncommon to see Angela Lansbury, who played Jessica Fletcher, stop to speak with a toddler, or for Tom Bosley to sign his autograph on a Glad Bag box presented by a shopper stepping out of the local grocery store (heh heh.)

After breakfast, we spent the morning wandering through the art galleries, making friends at the local coffee house/bakery and then left for a 3 hour journey to Napa Valley via a 68 mile winding road through ancient redwood groves and open pastureland and rivers.

Mendocino

Mañuelito  2006

Chair   Mendocino 2006

  Mendocino 2006

 Making new friends in Mendocino   2006

   Mañuelito in Mendocino 2006