Framedlight

We left Point Lobos and drove into Monterey, finding a car park near the harbour. The 'front' at Monterey had the usual sea food shacks and tourist frippery as well as the occasional sleepy sea lion. We found the berth where our boat was due to depart for the wale watching trip and had our lunch to the delight of a lame sea gull. The boat came with it's own salty sea dog!. We boarded and got a place at the rear of the boat with good visibility although the weather was still cloudy and overcast, I put on my 200mm f/2.8 lens with the 1.4 converter giving me a total of 340mm reach. Mairi had a kit 28-300mm Sigma lens on her smaller sensor camera so could do a lot better than me. I also noticed that her smaller lens was a lot less liable to shake on the moving boat. The trials of using more professional equipment. On the way out of the harbour we passed a sea otter with a baby on her back and numerous sea lions sitting wherever they could...

After watching the seals for a while we went to the beach next to Point Piedras Blancas, intending to walk to the lighthouse. We never got there as we were too distracted by the birds on the beach. Here are pictures of the beach and it's inhabitants. Finally we were able to watch a sea otter from the cliffs above. Below are pictures of the long billed curlew and, I think the bird with the shorter bill is a whimbrel Below is the great egret and a gull! A little shack on the side of the shore Below are pictures of a sea otter seen from the cliffs above the beach. He has a stone on his belly which he uses to break crab and mollusc shells. As you can see he bangs the food on the shell. Finally another brown pelican