My kids and I will be gone most of next week. We’re going to spend some time with my mother-in-law in an RV on the beach and since my mother-in-law is now a faithful reader of this blog I will take this opportunity to remind her publicly that once we arrive in Monterey, the kids new bedtime will be 4PM and it will be enforced by Boone’s Farm and Pediatric NyQuil.
There is no other way that we can enjoy a sunset without having to listen to my daughter scream while her brother uses her as a magic carpet.
At first I was reluctant to go on this trip because of the whole “RV” thing. I mean, I’ve spent my entire adult life denying the redneck blood coursing through my veins. Volunteering to live out of a dwelling with wheels on it seemed counter intuitive to that effort. Still, I’ve since checked out the vehicle in question and feel much more comfortable now that I know it comes with a wine cellar, plasma television and a staff of domestic servants. I mean holy crap people, did you know they make RVs larger than my last apartment?
It also has a nifty screen door that locks so that we can enjoy the ocean breezes without having to let the kids inside.
“I’ll have that removed before our trip.” My mother-in-law told me, pointing out the latter. “We don’t want any accidents.”
The accident she fears, of course, is my oblivious ass destroying another screen door by walking through it. Since I’ve been married I’ve managed an average screen door kill rate of three per year. I’m like the Dr. Death of the home furnishings set. Consider yourself warned dear readers; if you ever decide to invite me over for dinner or drinks there will be a visit to Home Depot in your immediate future.
So, where was I?
Oh yeah. The Alcatraz swim is on August 5th. It’s high time I abandoned the comfortable womb of the lap pool to practice in water cold enough to kill you within half an hour and you know what? This seemed like a perfectly rational and fun thing to do when I was in Fleet Feet renting my wetsuit but typing that prior sentence just made me realize that I am nothing short of retarded.
Despite California’s reputation for being a hundreds-miles-long beach, the risk of stepping on used hypodermic needles isn’t the only difference between being seaside in Orange County and Northern California. The cold water is far from being the only thing that will kill you. Riptides, kelp entanglements, undercurrents, and tidal drift can help you earn a Darwin Award just as quickly as hypothermia. Also, just because a beach is safe for “wading” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe for “swimming”. Up here there’s a distinction made between an activity in which you never breach the surf line and one that may result in your swimming 2,000 feet above an undersea canyon.
Therefore it seemed prudent to find a beach that shelves gently into the water where lots of other people swim. Preferably meaty people who swim slowly and make a much more delectable hors’ devours for fish with teeth. Ideally, I would have my own personal lifeguard wrapped in hamburger but since the King’s only response to my new found interest thus far has been to increase our life insurance I doubt he’s up for the job.
So I checked beach information online to see if there was anything useful and found this cool little cam. It’s a 360-degree shot of San Carlos beach in Monterey and you can “look around” by clicking on the photo and dragging the arrow to the left or right. This is the beach where I became scuba certified, and if you are “facing” the water you can see the Coast Guard pier to the right and Cannery Row to the left. The brown patches on the water are kelp forests and as you can see, there are an absolute ton of swimmers, snorkelers, and divers.
Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool.