I was dying to get out of Salinas at least for a while this weekend and wanted to go to the beach, but not in Monterey.  Monterey is a great town, but the traffic can be nuts.  Marina, a little further north, is less ‘trendy’ (sorry, Marina) so it’s not as packed with tourists and I found an easy-to-access beach.
Wow, am I glad I went.

That’s Monterey off into the distance.
It was a beautiful day.  Nice and sunny.  The air was cool and smelled wonderful.  It felt great to walk barefoot in the sand…..

…to check out the wildlife….

 

….. the surfers.

I still want to learn how to surf.

Does this look like fun or what?

Waves are so mesmerizing….

…it’s like performance art.

I was watching the birds…..

 

 

…..checking out lots of sand dollars….

 

 

 

…..and my shadow…..

 

 

 

 

….and the dolphins!!!!

Yes, dolphins!  I was so excited.  I’ve never seen them in the wild.  There were a few further out, jumping up and out of the water, too, but my zoom lens just doesn’t zoom that far.  But it was great to watch.
Actually, when I first caught sight of one, my immediate thought was that it was a shark because all I saw was a fin.  But I wasn’t sure that’s what it was.  There’s a lot of kelp out there, too.  I was contemplating yelling ‘Shark!’ to the surfers, when I saw more of them together and it became obvious they were dolphins.  The surfers stopped, straddled their boards and watched them go by, too.  It was so cool.  I also saw a sea otter, but it was too wily for my camera lens.

So glad I went to the beach today!