Cambria and The Elephant Seals

Cambria is our favorite California beach stop. I don't say beach town because we have never really explored the town, which looks like it has cute shops and a few restaurants. What we like is the boardwalk along Moonstone Beach. Our hotel, El Colibri Hotel and Spa,  is located is at one end of the boardwalk. The hotel has an hot tub under the stars which is very nice in the evening. 

The boardwalk is particularly charming, with great views, a few well located benches, and friendly squirrels living under the boardwalk. We just like walking up and down the mile or two of boardwalk. This time (this is our 6th visit to Cambria) we discovered a paved scenic walk along the ocean further into town which was just as nice. 

Cambria is located near the Hearst Castle, San Simeon, and we have visited it once or twice but we don't usually go there.

Where we go is to watch the elephant seals, a few miles further up the coast. Elephant seals are huge, rather strange looking mammals. They spend several months on the beaches here for breeding, birthing, molting, and resting, then swim to Alaska for dinner. They are about 10 feet long, or longer, and weigh about a ton. And not so pretty. The males nose grows long, like an elephant's trunk- they are rather ridiculous looking-from a human perspective.  

But I should warn you- they don't move around much. They are so big and heavy that moving 10 or 20 feet exhausts them and they need to rest for another hour or two. Occasionally they lift a flipper to flip some sand over themselves. Then they go back to sleep. Occasionally they waddle into the ocean and play (fight) with some friends. Then back to the beach for a nap. 

I find them fascinating and watch the webcam even when I am home in Scottsdale. We usually just watch them with everyone else, from the parking lot but this year we discovered an unused trail along the ocean and walked that a few times, discovering several more elephant seal colonies, and few colonies of harbor seals, the cute small seals you see zoos. 

There is a live web cam on site if you'd care to look for youself: 

http://www.elephantseal.org/Rookery/livecam.html