A Day off update from Tom:

Day 6 was the “Day Off” for Team 4 – a day for Anna, Peter and Sean to recharge their batteries and for the rest of us to see some of the sights of Monterey.

Andrew, Nick and Peter went scuba diving off Carmel State Beach. This location afforded them a fantastic dive in and around the kelp forest. The end of the dive had its own excitement provided by a shortage of air, lots of entangling kelp
and a goodly distance from shore. All was well in the end with the divers both tired and exhilarated. Celine joined the divers vicariously, watching from the car park/beach, while spending some time in the sun at the seashore.

After returning to the house to drop off Peter, dive gear and get cleaned up a bit, Andrew Nick and Celine went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Andrew and Nick capped off their day with a drive down the Big Sur Coast and KFC in a turnout watching the sunset.

Celine stayed downtown to further enjoy the aquarium and then explored some of the wonders of Cannery Row and area.

Ashley, joined by her mother who drove in from Fremont, spent much of the day at the Aquarium and then they pursued the delights of shopping in the Monterey area, getting all manner of good things to equip Ashley for the beginning of her second year at University of California – Davis. (For Peter’s information they were shopping at TARGET.)

Gail and Tom delved into the mysteries of the MST (Monterey Salinas Transit) and, having mastered same, got an early start to the Aquarium by bus. Attendance at the aquarium was delayed somewhat due to the sighting of the Starbuck’s Coffee shop on Cannery Row in which the banana bread was calling loudly to us. After about four hours of Aquarium, we were off to Fisherman’s Wharf followed by downtown Monterey, some great Mexican food and a bus ride home.

In the afternoon Anna and Peter joined Sean at Elkhorn Slough to help with his shark and ray study – trapping, tagging and releasing batfish, rays and guitarfish. While Sunday was a beautiful day the mud on the bottom of the slough was up to their knees and extremely sticky.

Everyone was ‘home’ by 19:45 (get used to the 24 hour clock when doing otter and dolphin sighting reports) at which time we all had an excellent pizza thanks to Peter for the dough and to Celine for the finalization and baking.

A good day had by all.