Animals and Surf

One interesting part of going to the Santa Cruz area is the easy access to grumpy sea mammals, all you need to do is head for the city wharf / pier, which we duly did two days after Christmas.

Looking at the boardwalk from the pier.

Anyway, we saw this sexy beast sitting with many others underneath the pier:


While the ones who were too late for a spot on the spars were floating in a sunbathing collective off to the left...

I also found a sea otter who was feeding himself by knocking mussels off the pier with his hind legs and cracking them open on his chest. Unfortunately I'm not quite good enough to overcome the range, motion, and exposure challenges of shooting an otter into the sun at 100 meters, or else these pictures would be splendid rather than just interesting...



And as a bonus, the waves were on the large side (note people for scale) both along Cowell Beach, where people were indeed surfing...

And at Natural Bridges State Park, which should really be better named "Used to Be Natural Bridges Until Natural Erosion Succeeded" State Park.