Going Coastal 2

Two posts ago I wrote about Leslie's and my twentieth wedding anniversary. A few days later we set off on a short vacation, driving up the California coast to the city of Monterey. That's where we had gone on our honeymoon in 1992.  This time we even stayed in the same hotel.

Naturally I took a lot of pictures. I used both the point-and-shoot in my pocket plus my new toy, an iPad Mini. I returned home with nearly 12 gigabytes of stills and video. Over the years I've learned that I must use new pictures in some project as soon as possible. Otherwise they'll never be seen again, ever.

I decided to edit a few seconds from each video clip into a short sequence using lots of quick cuts. I planned on a length of two minutes tops. Yeah, right. The final product, entitled Going Coastal 2, is nearly twelve minutes long.

Have you got the idea here?  This is a home video of our vacation. It consists entirely of photos of coastline, especially close-ups of the surf. You'll also see lots of animals that live in or around the ocean. Some of these critters were photographed in the wild, others were taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a place I highly recommend.

Going Coastal 2 begins with elephant seals hanging out near California Highway 1. There's a shot of Leslie feeding potato chips to fat little eager squirrels. Seagulls appear several times, including one which shamelessly takes a dump before flying off. A noisy herd of sea lions on a Monterey Bay jetty sing along with my music.  Storks fly overhead.

The animals from the aquarium are more interesting. There are lots of different fish plus a sea turtle. A couple anemones and a green coral introduce the jellys - maybe you'd call them "jellyfish".  These guys are strikingly beautiful and bizarre. A couple lobsters duke it out near an eel.  Next you'll see birds, featuring hyperactive puffins.  Pipefish, sea horses and sea dragons (both leafy and weedy) plus a few shrimp round out our bestiary.

The video ends with more surf. Leslie called the final shot 'apocalyptic' but in reality it's just the view out our hotel window. Very relaxing.  I was sad to leave so soon.  Maybe you can hear that in the music.

Going Coastal 2 © 2012 by David Ocker (700 seconds)

You could watch the original Going Coastal.