Free Fallin'

Last Wednesday I slept in. I’d gotten maybe six hours of sleep combined over the previous two nights. I don’t think I missed much because it was to be overcast again for the 2nd morning in a row. When I did arrive into Monterey by mid-morning there was some sunshine however.

Since it looked good outside, I went to Cannery Row to re-shoot some tourist scenes. It’s almost always overcast when I go to Monterey so I wanted to get those shots while the sun was out. I was pretty amped up when I arrived because of the Tom Petty song, “Free Fallin” was playing on the radio as I pulled into the parking lot. I was screaming along with the lyrics until the song ended. The weather was great, I was in Monterey, and the song was awesome. It was just one of those moments where you feel like throwing your fist in the air and screaming F*** Yeah!


Picture: Monterey Canning Company, California

After the madness that was Cannery Row, I went over to the Coast Guard Pier because the previous morning I’d heard sea lions from over that direction when I was at Municipal Wharf. It was too dark to see where they were so I looked on the map to see what pier that noise was coming from. I only have a 300mm lens so it wasn’t long enough to capture the sea lions from the end of Coast Guard Pier, but in front of me were a lot of Brandt’s Cormorants. Some of them were nursing babies so I got a few shots of them. The exposure was very difficult however because the birds are black and the rocks they were on were white. Not to mention the high contrast light of late-morning. I left my flash at home and that might have helped but I didn’t want to be burdened by camera equipment on this trip. I only put in an hour on the parking meter so I left for an email break before heading over to 17 Mile Drive in Pacific Grove.


Photo: Sea Lion Stranded on Coast Guard Pier, Monterey, California

I spent the rest of the day at 17 Mile Drive. I had never seen ocean water look that good. It was a clear aqua-marine color. While contrasted with the white sand beaches, the coast looked every bit as appealing as a tropical island paradise. The water was so clear that you could see marine life at the bottom of the ocean from the parking lot. There was nowhere else on the planet I would rather have been at that moment. The scenery was world-class and the weather was just perfect.


Picture: 17 Mile Drive White Sand Beach, Pacific Grove, California

By the time I made it over to famous Pebble Beach Golf Course, it was around 4:30 so I had a quick lunch / dinner before snapping a few photos. I waited at the Lone Cypress Tree for the following three hours to see what type of sunset light might happen there. It never quite materialized because the sun was obscured by the coastline so I went to a nearby beach to photograph the rapidly setting sun. (Refer to yesterday’s post for the picture.)

A great sunset at 17 Mile Drive was quite a way to wrap up my stay in Monterey. San Francisco here we come!