Seeing Red
19 May 2011 | Los Gatos
Ellen
At anchor in Los Gatos and how can I describe it. It's mostly surrounded by red rock maybe a sandstone type of rock and it has been sculpted by wind and waves into beautiful shapes and forms. I've taken lots of photos so I will upload when we get internet. As well as the red rock, the anchorage is also surrounded by sand dunes, dessert hills with cactus and scrub, and beyond that, the beautiful Giganta mountain range. Yesterday we spent a good part of the day snorkeling in the rocky reefs around the anchorage and hanging out on a beautiful beach surrounded by these red cliffs. The highlight was spotting an owl up on the cliff and I managed a few good photos of him before he flew away. It was a big owl maybe a great horned owl. It reminded me of my cat Farley as the colouring was similar and seeing the owl up on the cliff maybe 25 feet high, it's horns looked like big cat ears. (I guess I must really be missing my cat!) Anyhow it was thrilling to be able to look at it for so long before he flew off. Then it was back to the boat where we hosted a happy hour on board with the two other boats that were in the anchorage, Kashmira and Ponderosa. Lots of fun and a great day overall. Today, |an and Steve from Kashmira took off on a hike about 9:30am. Around 11 me and Steve's wife Sue went off on our own hike. We were a bit reluctant at first because as we pulled up to the beach, we spotted 2 coyotes walking on the beach. We decided to go anyhow and carry a couple of sticks. We had a great walk along a washed out creek where it looked as though a flood may have come through at some point. Today it was all bone dry. We hiked up into the cactus scrub to where we had a good view of the anchorage and the water. We had noticed some footprints as we were walking and decided that they were Ian's and Steves and about 2 hours later they came walking back towards us. On the way back to the boat, I got all excited about doing some snorkeling after a bite to eat, but by the time we ate Ian needed a nap and it was getting pretty late in the day. So that will hopefully be on tomorrows agenda. For now it's time to barbeque some dinner and then it will be bedtime. Busy day in the life of a cruiser.