Day 14 - Monterey to Avila/Pismo beach on US1 without Whales!

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Day 14 a Monterey to KOA Avila/Pismo beach, Distance Travelled - 169 miles

Ah well a day that promised so much, certainly delivered but not quite in the way we were expecting. A 7am alarm call was required so we could de-camp, detach and depart the lovely Marina Dunes RV park and head the short 11 miles down US1 into Monterey Marina to pick up our whale watching trip.

First surprise of the day was that Monterey marina was already buzzing with people and coaches at 8-15 in the morning but that was because the Celebrity Milenium cruise ship had arrived outside the harbour and was unloading its rag tag, fugitive fleet of travellers onto the docks via tender.

The Monterey Bay whale watching leaves from the end of the pier in the Marina, and whilst there are several companies to chose from, we had selected ours in advance on the internet...aboard the fine vessel, Seawolf II (www.gowhales.com) As we arrived there was already a big queue ready to go and as usual the Brits and Americans queued just behind the Germans who had clearly been there since the night before...the French and Itallians just pushed their way in at the front when the boarding ramp was lowered!

At the thought of five hours on board we obviously required 5 fags and seven trips to the loo on the pier before boarding after which I headed straight for the bow of the ship for position A and Sharan headed inside searching for the cocktail lounge and casino so she could put her feet up and let the whales come to her. Sadly it was not that type of boat and the 50-60 people who boarded rushed for their preferred bench or space on the rail for the trip. Sharan got a corner cushioned 'inside seat' with a nice policewoman from Nottingham and there they stayed chatting away for 5 hours..

We set sail bang on 9-00 for our trip out to the 'edge of the canyon' which all sounded a bit scary to me. Before the safety briefing could be given, there was a quick talk on seasickness and the offer of a pill, now I was going to man it out and abstain because I am a hardened sailor! but having heard the onboard naturalist describe things as 'positively choppy' I thought otherwise...boy was I glad I did!

We left the, harbour passing the seals, sea otters and more bloody squabbling Sealions (why can't they just learn to get along) before heading straight out to sea, and that was the end of the wildlife we saw! Well OK I exaggerate a bit...when I say head STRAIGHT out, that's what we did, for about an hour and a half we headed straight out to sea, head on to the waves as they got bigger, and bigger and bigger! In the end we were asked to come off the bow and move to the side rail but up to that point I was actually almost free falling through the air as the boat rode the waves...bloody good roller coaster but a 90 minute white knuckle ride was a bit much (apparently it is much calmer at the back, but that's for woosies!). I stayed clinging on to that foot of rail for the first two hours like a greenhorn on his first day on the deadliest catch in the Bearing Sea, desperately scanning the horizon for any sign of a whale. By the time we made a turn to follow the canyon sideways across the waves, my face had been stripped of several layers of skin from saltspray and my frozen hands were welded and cramped to that rail. Every now and then I got a little wave from the girls inside, in the 'warm' and I swear I could read their lips saying 'look at the stupid nutter'!

Sadly we never saw a whale although one side of the boat at one point did claim they saw a 'spray' from a blowhole, but despite circling for 10 minutes nothing reappeared. There were plenty of huge jellyfish in the water as well as more bloody sealions, this time a long way out from a dock or pier and terns, puffins, albatross, shrakes and of course seagulls with the poor onboard naturalist doing her best to keep everyone's interest up in what was turning out to be a whale free voyage, but after the tenth 'oh look, a puffin at 3 o clock' you wanted it all to end soon.

The waves and swell continued and a few who turned down the pill at the start were responsible for keeping the deckhand and his mop and bucket busy! The highlight of the trip came as we headed back in to harbour when a couple of harbour porpoises came alongside for a fleeting second. They were too quick for the camera and my then frozen hands but at least it wasn't a bird or a sealion. The guys on board were very good despite the lack of activity (same for all the other boats in the fleet apparently) and said it could have been down to the weather and the difficulty in spotting anything when the waves are so big with so many 'white tops'. They cancelled their afternoon sailing, as they did yesterday, as it was too rough to go out again and we got a pass for a free trip any time in the future as consolation.

So after whale free, whale watching it was a quick loo/fag/sandwich/cappacino stop on the pier and back to the beast for a trip down US1. Rather than try and do the whole 250 miles to our next stop in Santa Barbara, we decided to break the journey up as we only had a half day left and head for the KOA at Avila/Pismo beach for the night.

It was still going to be about 140 ish miles and we had chosen US1 which we knew from yesterday's experience would not be quick, but would be scenic. From Monterey you head out through Carmel (no sign of Clint) and then hit the coast road, and what a fantastic coast road it is. It must be one of the best coastal routes anywhere in the world as the road hugs the cliffs, high and low for about 70 miles from Carmel down to St Simeon Point. The drive is truly breathtaking , one minute you are just above the sea, the next you have climbed several hundred feet through some 'interesting' hairpins and all the while you have great views of a very wild and rugged coastline, not what I expected of California at all...I thought it was all sand and beaches! There are loads of viewpoints all along the route and every time you stop at one and take a picture of a superb view, you travel another half a mile and see an even better opportunity. No wonder it took us four hours to cover the 140 miles!

The road (or the viewpoints) is apparently a great place to whale watch during migration times as the sea is so deep close to shore and there are a few spectacular hotels and lodges clinging to the cliffs at various points offering guests the chance to just do that. Apart from them there is nothing else on the road just a couple of campsites and petrol stations, or as I prefer to call them 'stick up merchants'. Obviously they have a captive audience and I was one of those muppets that entered 90 mile stretch of road without a full tank of gas. We should have realised when we joined the petrol station queue and the three cars in front of us drove off without filling up one by one. I got out, swiped my card, put the pump to auto and let it run....then read the dial that said $6.60 a gallon,!! Bearing in mind every time we have filled up on this trip I have paid no more than $4.50 a gallon, that is an unbelievable rip off. But by then I had loaded a 150 dollars worth in which lasted me about the next 20 feet!

Although many had said on the net that this stretch of the US1 is not an RV friendly road, I found it a hard drive but not unenjoyable, and Sharan's blubbling and screaming as i left her arse hanging out over a few precipices was not as bad as previous mountain roads. I can also understand why driving this road in a convertible or on a Harley are on many Americans 'bucket list' (wish list) and we saw hundreds of hired convertibles and Harley road trains to proove the point. The road however was relatively quiet and I rarely had to pull over to let cars pass.

At St Simeon point there is a huge lighthouse and this effectively marks the end of the mountain route and the road still follows the coastline but on much easier, flatter coastal plains. As we neared a corner just after the lighthouse we saw a huge car park with lots of people looking over fences onto a beach..."oh great, more bloody Sealions " I thought but we stopped anyway. This turned out to be one of the largest populations of elephant seals in the US. Noone knows why they settle on this beach, but they do and they are hilarious. They are huuuuge and belch, fart and blabber all the time, flicking sand over themselves and each other with their flippers. The males are constantly rounding up and protecting their harems and we saw lots of scuffles involving head butting on the sand. Just at the waters edge however two of the biggest bulls were having a full on, no holds barred fight and as well as the head butting it seemed the aim was to hold the other one under the water and drown him! I felt all 'David Attenbrough' as I looked on.

From here it was straight roads and a good run all the way down to the KOA which is pretty much as expected. It has all the facilities but no 'pull through' for us today so Shas got to demonstrate her rather comical hand signals to the neighbours as she directed my reversing. It looks like she is driving with an imaginary steering wheel of about 10 foot in diameter.

The camp shop closed at 17-00 before we arrived but our instructions and welcome pack were pinned to a board so with nothing in the fridge and no pizza shops or drive throughs visible we decided to take a quick trip into Avila beach about 3 miles away to check it out before hooking the van up. Once again we found a great little seaside town with lovely beaches, three piers and RV camping spaces right on the sea front (wish we had know that earlier) the RV ers were all set up for the night with barbys and fires going on the pavements, watching the sun go down.

We headed into the centre of town, parked the RV in a MASSIVE EMPTY car park, with not one single car in it...bought a pay and display ticket and headed in to a restaurant called Custom House, right on the sea front and next door to a fantastic Tshirt and designer souvenir shop called Del Sol. If you haven't heard of this place, they are a multinational chain of stores in many of the worlds top tourist resorts and their stuff is amazing! All of their merchandise changes colour when exposed to UV light (I.e. the sun) so black and white T-shirts inside become multi coloured outside as do pens, key rings, nail polish, baseball hats, in fact everything in the shop changes colour in the sun. It's brilliant and you can get some great souvenirs and gifts to take home (did I oversell it?)

Anyway Custom house was a great restaurant with lovely steaks and saved me having to cook. We returned to the RV to find we had a parking ticket for parking in a 'no RV zone'...and it was 85 dollars...this was a totally empty 300 space car park, the only car in there was our RV and we got a ticket.

So a funny end to a great day, very enjoyable and this blog has been heavily edited, I could have bored you with a whole lot more! Tomorrow is our last full day on the road, a short 100 mile hop to the beach at Santa Barbara for our last night in the beast before we switch to the Mustang...thanks for making it this far, you deserve a medal xxx

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