Sea dogs

Another gorgeous day on the central coast. Waking up slow with the morning and loving how well I've been sleeping with this cool coastal weather seeping in through the windows at night wrapped snug in a warm blanket. In the afternoon biking 12 miles North up the coast to Avila Beach. Past little coastal towns, jutting slabs of rock emerging out of the Blue expanse of the Pacific like ice burgs specked with a dusting of seabirds, and the distant hum of the traffic making its way up nearby 101. Sun on my shoulders and wind on my face.

I ended the journey back at Avila pier and couldn't resist some more excellent seafood even though I wasn't even that hungry...I have a minor with fresh seafood. A meal of fish Veracruz mopped up with tortillas and washed down with some soda. Looking out on the bay and hordes of commotion following the big schools of sardines and baitfish come in recently this week. Countless gulls, pelicans, cormorants, and barking sea lions twirling, diving, and wreathing around the mass of the bait ball. A spectacle for the eyes and no better show over lunch sitting on the pier. I here the other week a mother-calf duo of gray whales was even tempted into the bay right by the pier at this very spot to gorge on the bounty. A sight to behold!

Earlier in the week I saw a pair nearby here myself, the tell tail sign of waterspouts punctuating far over the surface and two huge tails sinking below the waves in the distance....