On the evening of Thursday July 31, we packed up the car and headed for Monterey. We stayed the night at the DoubleTree hotel (note: " The Core" was not a good movie). Friday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast, then headed to Manta Ray dive shop to rent some thick wetsuits, hoods, gloves and weights. All of the cold weather gear that we didn't have. We drove over to the main dock and met Tim, the captain of the Monterey Express. It's a very nice dive boat, with wide gear stations and a great "walk off" dive platform on the back of the boat. There were 6 other divers, including Cheryl, our dive guide for the day. |
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 We headed out to a site about 20 minutes South, then finished gearing up. We jumped in the water for dive number 28 and proceeded to descend down to about 70 feet. The surface temperature was about 56 degrees, and it was about 52 degrees down below (yikes!). The visibility was pretty low, maybe 20-25 feet and it was COLD! We saw some different types of coral, lots of kelp, and even a decorator crab with lots of fuzzy stuff stuck to itself. After about 25 minutes Randy was getting really cold (you're supposed to be able to feel your fingers, right?), so we headed for the surface.
Back on the boat we tried to get warm as best we could. One of the other passengers tried to help Randy out by putting a warm water hose down his wetsuit, but the water started out really cold, which did not help things! Once the water warmed up, Randy did feel somewhat better. But not warm enough to want to do the second dive!
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Randy decided to skip the second dive and Rick agreed. We hung out on the boat while the other divers went back in the water. We are definitely warm water divers. Not that we mind having to go to tropical climates (like Roatan next month!) to do our diving... hee hee.
After returning our rented gear we grabbed some lunch, then stopped off at Backscatter, an underwater camera store for a bit. After purchasing a coupld of pairs of shorts at an outlet mall (we had somehow both forgotten that we would need shorts at the spa...) we drove south along Highway 1 past Carmel and Big Sur to the Ventana Inn and Spa. We checked in and found that we had a wonderful room with a fireplace, vaulted ceilings and a deck looking out over a tree covered valley. We made reservations across the street at the Post Ranch Inn for dinner, then jumped into the Japanese Hot Baths right by our room for some nice warm water.
The resort's shuttle van took us over to the restaurant. The Post Ranch Inn is another luxury spa, with rooms nestled amongst the trees. The restaurant overlooks the Pacific with a wall of glass along one side. We had a fantastic four course dinner, some cocktails and talked about future trips like Santa Barbara and Alaska. Afterwards the shuttle came to take us back, then we walked back to our room and climbed into bed. We were exhausted and fell right to sleep.
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Saturday morning we had breakfast in the Library just up the hillside from our room, then went for a walk around the resort grounds along a path that wound through the trees, over some wooden bridges, and then ended up at Cielo, the restaurant at the resort. We walked back to our room along a gravel path, then sat on the deck and read the paper. At noon we walked back to the restaurant for a great lunch. At about 1:45 we walked down to the spa for our appointment.
We started out doing a "couples body scrub". We were both in the same room with two attendants, on our own tables. They scrubbed us down with salt and oil. Then we jumped in a bath tub to rinse off, then back on the tables for a an oil rub. Rick stayed in the room for another hour for a massage, while Randy went upstairs for a facial (his first ever). Afterwards we both felt very relaxed (and smooth!). We back to the Japanese baths to soak for a bit, then to the room to relax.
Around 6:30 we walked over to Cielo for dinner. We had a cocktail out on the patio, looking out over the ocean and watching the a wedding reception which was also taking place there that evening. For dinner we had a great table looking out both sides of the restaurant. Our meal was absolutely delicious and we had a great time talking about the weekend and how much fun we were having. After dinner we decided to have the shuttle van take us back to the room. Along the way we laughed at the driver's explanation of what the fountain outside the lobby looked like...
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Sunday morning we got in some power snuggling, then had breakfast, packed and hit the road. We went about 6 miles south to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, where we walked down a path and under Highway 1 to Waterfall Overlook. The sun was peeking through the fog, lighting up the waterfall which falls directly onto the sand, just above the waves.
The drive home was uneventful, though a little slow due to cars pulling campers. We stopped down the street for lunch, then back home. What a wonderful and relaxing weekend!
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