We spent nearly a week in Santa Cruz, driving back up to Ano Nuevo twice more to enjoy the fast, pitching point break. The weather was warm, the scenery was beautiful and we spent our days walking the cliff top boardwalk, exploring downtown and watching the hundreds upon hundreds of surfers from dawn till dusk sitting in the ocean, catching even the smallest of waves. This truly is a surf town.

The high concentration of surfers made it inevitable that you would encounter some, as we like to call them, “wankers”. It is a sad fact, but there are a lot of surfers out there who take it upon themselves (often in the safety of a group) to try and intimidate and mock anyone that walks past. One such group of young hotheads made a crack at me as Jaime and I walked past them, but they obviously didn’t reckon on the verbal barrage that they received from Jaime and were taken aback to the point where they had nothing to say; no smart remarks in reply, no wisecracks, they were simply lost for words! I felt very proud of my lovely lady at that moment, as she had said very much what I had wanted to say. I had refrained myself from doing so as I have found that a reaction from me (a young male) can cause further confrontation, possibly physical, whereas a reaction from Jaime (being a female) especially a forceful one, will often result in slight shock, and not much else.

We laughed together as we walked away from our antagonists, enjoying having firmly shut them up, and I told Jaime from then on, she could respond to any such further situations, as it seemed far more effective!

After Santa Cruz, we headed to Monterey, a quieter, more relaxed town, with a beautiful ocean road and path that ran around the rocky and occasional beach coastline. There was plenty of side room on this road to pull off and park, with nothing between us and the water but a small gravel path and colourful rocky outcrops.

The beach at the end of this road was a nice curved bay, with a couple of great little waves breaking in different sections, and plenty of room for the less aggressive group of surfers that inhabited these parts. We were always on the lookout for a cheap or free place to dump our grey and black tanks, as they would fill up every 4-5 days. The best place we found in Monterey was a free dump that was a part of the Veterans Memorial Park, the park was $25 per night to park in but the dump was free, so we simply found quiet streets to park on and kept our hard earned money for other luxuries.

We spent a lovely couple of days parked by the beach, and exploring parts of Monterey, one of my favourite Californian towns so far.