Stop 42: Moss Landing, CA

We've had several instances on our trip where places that we had planned on seeing were closed. They were either closed on the day that we were there or they were not yet open for the season. Moss Landing has been just the opposite.

According to the stories on the news, an abundance of food close to shore has the grey and blue whales swarming close to shore at Moss Landing. The KOA that we are staying in has arranged a special $25 per person whale watching tour for Sunday morning. The park is right at the marina and it's about a 2 minute walk to the dock. Of course we signed up.

This is the boat that we'll be going out on.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Research Institute is located in Moss Landing. This is the behind the scenes part of the aquarium that is never open to the public. Make that almost never. Once a year, they put everything on display for a few hours. We learned shortly after checking in that most of our fellow campers are here specifically for the open house on Saturday afternoon.

We've stayed in this park before and find it very pleasant. We can see the boats in the Marina from our trailer. At night, we hear the foghorns, gulls and sea lions.

Our first full day: The MBARI open house

Our Saturday morning walk took us over the bridge to the beach. The news reports weren't lying - there are a lot of whales out there.

The MBARI facility (from the bridge).

Moss Landing's trademark power plant. The stacks are clearly visible when you look across te bay from Monterey. Even when the coast appears to be socked in, these stacks often rise above the fog.

I made numerous attempts to get a picture of a whale. This is the only shot that actually caught one.

After lunch at Phil's Fish House (one of Moss Landing's major attractions) it was time to hit the MBARI open house. It was very interesting and all of the scientists that we talked to seemed to be very excited to be able to talk about their jobs.

Remote Operaed Vehicles (ROVs) were on display all over the place.

Another ROV

The Rachel Carson is one of the larger vessels that deploys the ROVs.

The Western Flyer is the MBARI's largest vessle. The 2 sides of the catamaran ride on blades that are attached to large pontoons that ride well below the surface roughness. This apparently creates a very stable platform for deploying ROV's.

Another ROV. The man at the left is demonstrating the fine motor control that he has of the arm.

We saw a lot of these to. They are similar to the one that is being used to search the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian Airways jet. 

The largest of the ROV's

This was one of the MBARI's smaller vessels. The guy who programs the ROVs was saying that he uses this one when he needs to get a code change installed quickly. He races out to the site of the ROV, lowers a wifi modem into the water and transmits his code changes.

Our second full day: Whale watching

What a beautiful morning for whale watching! We dressed warmly as we expected it to be a bit chilly out on Monterey Bay at 7:30 AM. I checked online and, at 6:30 AM, it was already 65°. It only got warmer from there and we were soon shedding layers.

We saw many (possible hundreds of) humpbacks. The sea lions were even more abundant and there were a lot of dolphins and sea otters. This was easily, our most successful whale watching trip ever.

Looking at the harbor while we waited to board. As you can see, the water was like glass and the ocean wasn't much different.

Looking back at the harbor as we entered the passage between the jetties.

3 (?) whales.

Dolphins.

A couple of whales with sea lions lower right.

Kayaking looked kind of thrilling.

A spout and a tail.

The whales and sea lions were after sardines. We'd see rough water that indicated the rise of a school of sardines. Next, the sea lions would move in. Finally, the whales went nuts.

After doing some marketing and having lunch at the trailer, we headed to Monterey. It's very likely that we've managed to avoid Monterey on the weekend in recent years but, on this beautiful Sunday, Monterey was as crowded as we've ever seen it.

We parked in the lot at Fishermans' Wharf and walked the shoreline down toward Cannery Row. We stopped in at Kristen's favorite antiques mall and, for the first time in years, found an addition to her collection of 16" Delft platters. We see them from time to time but we rarely find a design that isn't among the 12-15 that she already owns.

Walking along the shoreline, we enjoyed these harbor seals. Every rock that was near or slightly above the surface seemed to have a harbor seal resting on it.

I mentioned earlier that the Moss Landing stacks were visible from Monterey. They are about 1/4 way over from the right side of this picture.

After walking back to Fishermans' Wharf, we enjoyed an early seafood dinner and then battled our way through the traffic back to our trailer.

Once there, we Skyped with Grant, Colton and Riley and saw Riley demonstrate her new walking skills. Then we sat outside for a while and were visited by the campground cat (the hosts cat but the host was away so the cat was lonely).

Finally, we took our beach chairs over to the beach and watched the whales for a long while. Again, it's amazing how many whales are out there.

Next stop, Avila Beach.

-JC-