Sea Ranch Pebble Beach to Stengal Beach November 15th 1994.

Pebble Beach is probably a quarter mile hike from the access parking lot. You walk through a grove of trees (Monterey Pines?) and then across a grassy meadow. When you get to the cliff, you have to turn right and go north along the shoreline trail for a short jog to get to the stairs down to a beach in front of a small cove. Despite my late start, there was still frost in the shadows of the trail as I walked out to the beach. The waves in the cove were calm. It has a largish beach area with rough surf, and a small cove with fairly calm water where I had no trouble getting in and out. Between here and the next beach, the cliffs were not high, but the waves were. I had to stay away from the shore for the most part. The late start meant that as I paddled north, the wind started up, and with the cold air, this was the coldest I had ever been in the kayak. Even with my neoprene gloves on, my hands were cold. The wind blew across the front of the kayak and under my legs, making them cold despite the wetsuit. Even working hard on the paddles I never got warm enough to be comfortable. Between the two access beaches, there were a few smaller valleys with sandy beaches, and private houses on top of the cliffs. They didn't look like they had easy access to these beaches, but the views must be spectacular. One house near where I turned around, had a carpet of green plants growing down off the edge of the cliff and all the way down to the water. I was too cold and scared of the high waves to get close enough to see what this miracle plant was that could grow so well in the cold salty environment. I wondered if this was the site of an old ranch house on the property where some non-native plant has been allowed to take over the cliff for the last 100 years.

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