Considering we weren't planning on staying long, Monterey really got it's hooks into all of us. Definitely Emma's favourite place on the west coast. Possibly one of the only places you can see sea lions everywhere you turn, harbour seals, otters, pelicans, cormorants and all sorts of other wildlife in and around the main part of a town! It's amazing. What's even more amazing is the amount of free clam chowder someone can eat just walking up and down Fisherman's Wharf. We all must have had at least a bowl after walking 100m!
One of the best things about Monterey though has to be the aquarium. As divers we are sometimes a bit apprehensive about going to aquariums as it's always better to see the animals in the wild (and it's wrong to keep whalesharks and mantas in tanks!). However the Monterey Bay Aquarium is very well done. Not like most other aquariums as the exhibits are almost all about the local environment, so instead of lots of tropical coral species, there's kelp and seven gill sharks! Undoubtedly the highlight of the aquarium is the outer bay exhibit where you can see the biggest Pacific Bluefin Tuna you could imagine (DON'T EAT THESE FISH THEY ARE ENDANGERED!!!), as well as hammerhead sharks, Galapagos sharks, huge mahi mahi and more. The only let down was that on the website it was advertised they had a Sun Fish (Mola Mola) in there as well but when we arrived they said it had been released as they were preparing to do maintenance on the exhibit. Mike's curse of the Sun Fish had followed him from Bali (or so we thought). The aquarium is absolutely worth a look if anyone is ever in Monterey.
Our last day in Monterey was a surprise even to us as we weren't planning to go on a whale watching trip, however after hearing about the blue whales and orcas that had been sighted we were determined to take “Indian Summer” out there to find them. What we didn't expect was when telling this to someone in the pub the night before, they would insist we come on their whale watching tour for free instead! Who were we to argue with Keith (the drunkest man in Monterey). He made a call and bang, we were on their 10am tour :) It was a nice trip on the biggest boat in Monterey, we saw some humpbacks feeding (something we had never seen despite seeing about 10,000 humpbacks).
One thing we were definitely not expecting though was to see a SUN FISH!!!!! Unbelievable, just floating at the surface in 2000m of water, maybe it was the one they let out of the aquarium! Finally Mike could get the monkey off his back he had seen the biggest boney fish on earth.
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