Santa Cruz

Chloe was invited to a retreat for her new employer in Santa Cruz at the Chaminade resort and I was invited too, as a hanger-on-spouse! I drove down last night and got a little lost downtown, but eventually made it to the hotel. This morning Chloe had a team building activity to go to, so I headed down to the water and watched a bunch of people learning how to surf at Cowells beach, which was kind of fun, and then down the road to the point break at Lighthouse State Beach, where there was a pro surfing contest. The purse was $2000 for first, and despite the relatively calm sea, a few guys caught some decent waves

Surf, Spiderman! Surf like crazy! Your hood fell off!



I dropped by the farmers marker and bought some excellent strawberries and a pound of Fava beans from a local organic farm and then headed back up to the spa to meet Chloe.

After lunch, Chloe and I drove down to paradise point and checked out a hidden gem of a surf spot:

(Shhhhh locals only dude! Don't tell anyone!) And the outrageous house prices and then walked along the beach up to the 26th street beach
.

From there, we drove up the coast to Big Basin, and more specifically Waddell, because I wanted to check out this somewhat famous wave kitesurfing break. It looked fantastic and its another thing to aspire to. I really wish I had a few extra thousand dollars and some time off to take lessons in the delta to get good enough to ride the coast and Crissy, but something tells me it won't happen this year!



Dropping a kite looks like a Very Bad Thing however, as we saw a few guys get their kites wrapped up in lines and then get the washing machine treatment.

Since we had massages scheduled for 5:00, we drove back after thirty minutes or so. The massage was excellent, and I discovered that I have a series of pretty painful knots in my back under both shoulder blades.