Tag Archives: beach

Not again!

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A sea lion in distress at the beach.

The other day, we were on our evening beach walk when we first saw the sea lion above. I noticed a woman standing near the sea lion. The sea lion would alternate sitting up and lying down. (I first wrote laying down — but I fixed it. Lie and lay have stumped me for years.)

We sat and watched the sea lion struggle to get back into the ocean. She would bob her head up and down while sitting up. Two summers ago, we saw a number of sea lions on the beach in distress. They did the same thing as this one. I called the hotline for marine animals and told them the location of the sea lion.

Then there were three women standing by the sea lion. I walked to the water’s edge to tell them to keep their distance and not to get any closer to the sea lion. I had learned that people and dogs can stress sick sea lions to death!

When I approached the women, I noticed one was wearing a uniform from the Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute. That’s who I had called. So, they were already aware. I asked the volunteer if the sea lion was suffering from the same issue that we saw a few years ago. She said yes, and that she was stationed to keep people and dogs away and to observe until sunset. She said they weren’t doing any rescues that night.

I wrote about sea lions HERE and HERE two summers ago. The second link has a video of a sea lion which shows you how they move when affected with Domoic Acid poisoning.

Here’s an excerpt:

The volunteer from the Channel Islands Marine Wildlife Institute explained that the sea lion was suffering from Domoic Acid poisoning, which is caused by algae bloom.

My husband said that algae bloom happens every year. Isn’t that a normal thing? Wouldn’t sea lions be used to it?

She said they were inundated with calls about sick sea lions along the coast and that the Domoic Acid poisoning could be fatal. The volunteers were out observing the sea lions from sunrise to sunset along the beaches. Apparently stress could make the illness worse. She was standing on the beach all day to keep people and dogs away from the sick sea lion.

The volunteer yesterday explained that Domoic Acid poisoning occurs when fish eat the plankton, which isn’t toxic to them. Then the sea lions eat the fish and they get sick.

It was sad to see the sea lion suffering. It was still on beach when we left with the volunteer standing near. On the bright side, she said they’ve had very few Domoic calls this year, unlike two years ago.

Do you confuse Lie and Lay? How about effect and affect? Any others?

What do you think about people approaching a sea lion on the beach? I watched it happen two summers ago, people ignoring the yellow crime tape and signs to stay away.

Friday Beach Views

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During last weekend, we watched a young boy building this unique sandcastle in front of Ashton Kutcher’s house. I swear as we walked by, I saw Ashton on the sand with friends playing with their kids. That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.

This house is at the opposite end of the beach. A couple years ago our daughter and Waffles the pug joined us for a week. This house had the beach roped off and no trespassing signs around it. Waffles, of course, went inside the guy’s “private beach” and the owner yelled at our daughter when she went in to fetch Waffles. My husband explained to the man that there are NO PRIVATE BEACHES in California. The beaches belong to all of us. Now the ropes are down and there are two no trespassing signs on his house.

I made burgers with lettuce, Farmer Fred’s amazing tomatoes and avocados from a friend’s tree. Yium!

I think these shore birds are Plovers? They don’t have the long beaks that sandpipers do. They are standing in front of the house I mentioned above. I hope the owner doesn’t get mad at them!

A colder, foggier day at high tide.

Friends invited us over for dinner and we started the evening with this charcuterie and wine on their Duffy electric-powered boat. They live in Ventura in the Keys and we cruised around the inlets before dinner.

This is a photo from the Duffy website. I forgot to get a picture of the boat they keep at their dock, but this is what it looks like.

Below is a short video from our evening puttering around the neighborhood. What a fun night with friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

What plans do you have for the long weekend?

More Beach Views

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Moon rising at Carpinteria State Beach.

We’re enjoying our beach time. We start the day with a morning walk and end with the same. In the evenings, we visit the beach with our towels and chairs. After our walk, my husband swims while I do my favorite thing — read a book at the beach.

Every day there is something new to see. Here are a few more pics:

I’ve complained about Mexican food in Arizona. I haven’t found anything with the same flavors I’m used to in SoCal. This is a dinner prepared by our friends in Carpinteria. Chicken mole, rice, beans and sauteed peppers. Delicious! We’re going back for leftovers!

Low tide standing near Kevin Costner’s estate. I’ve never seen the tide so low that we could walk on this part of the beach. It’s usually under water. Around the corner of the point in the distance is our beach. Well, the beach a few blocks from our VRBO.

This is the view looking back from Costner’s estate at the beach where we take our daily walks.

More incredible Mexican food. Al Pastor tacos from Kim’s Liquor a mile from our VRBO. What’s interesting, is most liquor/convenience stores have kitchens with amazing Mexican food to go. Maybe I should let Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives know about this?

Sandpipers lined the beach this morning. I don’t have any quail at the beach, like at home, but there are plenty of sandpipers, pelicans and gulls.

My daughter once said her favorite comfort food she grew up with was Mexican food (which I do not make.) I thought she’d say one of my specialities like pan friend sole, chicken and dumplings or oxtail soup. Nope.

There are certain flavors and cuisines served in different areas of the country and the world that we enjoy and love.

What’s your is your favorite Mexican food or comfort food?

Vacation Rhythm

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This is the beach where we like to take our morning and evening walks. The white house at the end is Keven Costner’s estate.

I’m getting into “vacation rhythm” as Vicki from Victoria Ponders said her dad called it.

The ocean is so peaceful. I like nothing better than to sit on the beach with a good book in the evenings, enjoying the dogs frolicking in and out of the water, chasing tennis balls and sticks. I’ve never seen anyone of any animal happier than dogs on the beach.

I also stopped during a morning walk to watch surf camp. This was the older group — maybe young teens. I was amazed as every one of them could catch a wave. The younger kids were sitting under pop-up tents watching and learning from the older surfers.

According to my friend who lives nearby, this home belongs to George Lucas. I read that he tore down an existing modern masterpiece to build his Cape Cod. Below was the former home by a famous architect I’ve never heard of. Oh well. It’s his property to do whatever he wants with it.

This is the beach below our VRBO. It’s a beautiful view but the beach smells oily and there’s a sheen of oil on the water. So we drive two miles to the pristine beach where the celebrities live.

This was one of the teen surfer’s I stopped to watch.

Do you enjoy the beach? Do you swim in the ocean, surf or boogey board?

Do you like the beach or mountains more?

“I want to get away…”

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Nine-month old Nina hanging outside in our friends’ backyard.

It was an arduous few days, but we’re on our way to getting settled into the cottage at the beach.

We packed a day early. My husband magically managed to fit into our car all our stuff — his office equipment, our suitcases, cooler and bags of stuff I didn’t want to buy on vacation, like condiments, paper products and our Keurig and coffee.

We hit the road early and dropped in on two clients, one for lunch as we passed through our old hometown.

Then we met long-time friends for dinner in their hometown. They were celebrating their 45th anniversary and we got to treat them. We hadn’t seen them in at least 10 years. It was so much fun to catch up and we talked late into the night.

We ended up driving close to six hours on day one. Day two was a little easier with only three hours to drive. Strangely, those three hours seemed to take all day long!

Then arriving at the cottage, we spent hours unpacking and getting organized, grocery shopping etc. I slept that night like the dead.

Our first morning began with a beach walk with our friends and Nina, the rottie. They invited us over for omelettes after the walk.

View from our friends’ backyard.

Now it’s time to relax! One challenge for me is we have more friends in our vacation area than we do in our new state of Arizona. Through COVID, I got used to having lots of downtime. I need to be balanced with our friends here and not over schedule our social life.

The last few days reminded me of Lenny Kravitz song “Fly Away.”

Do you need to have downtime in your weeks, too? Or can you be super social and enjoy it?

Almost beach time

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beach time
It’s almost beach time.

Soon, we’ll be making a nine-hour drive to our beach vacation in California. It will be our seventh year renting the VRBO cottage.

I will admit, I’m a little anxious over the trip. I think it’s because of how things turned out last August. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing vacation with our DIL getting diagnosed with cancer. Our son and DIL planned a last-minute wedding prior to surgery that was cancelled due to COVID. Later, they were able to move ahead with the wedding. At first, they didn’t want people flying in bringing germs, since she was beginning chemo. Then our son really wanted us there, but we couldn’t get flights to make it on time.

It was an extremely stressful time with lots of waiting, questions and prayers. I wrote about it HERE.

The last week of our vacation, friends that we have in the area all got COVID. We left a couple days early, because it seemed like the safe and sane thing to do.

This year I’m reading that Arizona has one of the lowest COVID rates, while California has one of the highest.

The cat sitter is lined up. The next door neighbor is watching our house. Time to pack and hope for a peaceful, relaxing and rejuvenating beach vacation.

Do you find vacations to be relaxing or stressful? Why?

Run for the border!

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The resort where we’ve been staying for the past year’s weekend getaways.

We love the beach. How perfect that we found a beach four hours south of Phoenix across the border in Mexico. With wide expanses of a white sandy beach, calm warm waters of the Sea of Cortez, we thought we found paradise.

Until this past weekend. It’s paradise until it’s not.

Two things freaked me out.

First, crossing the corder at a Lukeville, which is out in the middle of nowhere on the south side of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, I saw something I’ve never seen in the dozen or so times we’ve been there.

There were a thousand men lined up on foot to cross into the United States from Mexico. There were no women or children. They were young, all colors and presumably nationalities. I’ve seen news of massive border crossings in Texas, but nothing at Lukeville. This was the first time I’ve noticed anyone on foot.

Next, we had to run the gauntlet in the desperately poor town on the Mexican side of the border. Usually it’s without incident, but it’s shocking to see people living in abject poverty. It’s nothing like our lives in the United States. The speed limit is 25 mph which the signs say 40 kmh. We have to drive through window washers who jump in front of our car with a spray bottle. People are begging in wheel chairs, missing limbs. It’s so sad.

Once through the town the speed limit increases slowly. We were last in line of about seven cars and trucks when red lights flashed behind us. We pulled on the shoulder to let the vehicle pass, but it stopped behind us! We were pulled over in Mexico.

For what, we had no idea.

We were approached by two burly Mexican cops who told us to roll down all the windows, asked for my husband’s driver’s license and told us we had been speeding at 60 kmh. (Not true.)

They said they’d write a ticket and we had to pay at the courthouse before we continued. My husband asked where it was. They said they’d show us but they’d keep the driver’s license until we paid. Oh — and the courthouse was closed for the next two or three hours.

But they could do us a favor. Pay them $160 American dollars, they’d return the license and we could be on our way. Which we did.

It made us angry, but what else could we do? End up in a Mexican jail for not paying? Now I’m fearful of the drive back. We need to find an ATM in case we need cash again at the border town. I’ll be happy to be back in the USA.

However, I have some empathy for the people living in the squalor of the border town watching countless Americans driving through to get to the beach resorts an hour away — driving luxury cars, trucks and RVs. Pulling people over all day long for $160 a pop is a decent living.

It took us a bit of time to relax. We ate delicious meals, walked the beach and read.

Here are a few photos:

Would you want to come back anytime soon? Would you be afraid? Why or why not?