Thursday March 28th 2013 - Day Seven

Thursday was our first day along the ‘Big Sur’ Pacific coast. We spent the morning on a Whale Cruise out of Monterey. Our charter was through Chris’ Fishing Trips, which does whale charters and fishing trips. Monterey is part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. One of the main reasons why this area is so rich in marine life is due to the Monterey Canyon. The topology of the ocean floor in this area is the reason why there so much marine life in this area. On our trip we saw Humpback whales. There were gray whales that were also in the area but we didn’t have a confirmed sighting of any of those. We saw whales for the vast majority of our cruise once we got out to their feeding area. The sea was quite calm (according to their standards) and we had a good morning without any sea sickness or weather issues. When we were done with the cruise, we ate at the Old Fisherman’s Grotto on the wharf. This place had the best clam chowder I’ve ever had. We then headed over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was a beautiful aquarium, definitely rivaling or passing Chicago’s. It did not have a large Oceanarium like Chicago does, but everything else about it was as good or better in my opinion. We ate dinner at Lopez Restaurante and then headed back to our hotel for the evening.

  Photo Album Link