Day-34: Life at the Beach

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

…and on the 34^th day they rested.

So how cool is that, yesterday we awoke to snow and today we awoke to a sunny day at the beach.

Last night we would all likely say was our most comfortable, restful and quietest night of the trip. No heavy walkers above, no car engines revving in the background, no loud talkers on the deck, just the lapping waves of the Pacific upon the shore of Mandalay Beach. Life is good.

With a broad beach before us, Diane departed for a beach walk around 8 AM. Greg, Sheila and I headed to the hotel lounge for the “cook to order” breakfast. We dined on eggs, omelets, fruits and breads and even brought back a full breakfast for Diane to enjoy in the room.

Today was intended to be a “work” day as Greg had a teleconference planned for 11 AM and I had some catch-up Helium reporting to submit. In any case, by early afternoon we were ready to explore the area. Greg and Diane had been in the Oxnard/Ventura area before but Sheila and I had not. In our familiarization drive we passed by the large SeaBee Base at Port Hueneme.






Our objective for the afternoon was to locate the Channel Islands National Park visitor center and inquire as to park activities and boat service to the islands.

The visitor center is located on the land side adjacent to the Ventura marina area. We visited the center, did the passport stamp and collectibles duties and proceeded to watch the park movie. After the movie the center staff volunteer was feeding calamari aka squid to the fish held in a large salt water naturalized aquarium.

Next we went over to the Island Packers store to arrange trips to the islands for tomorrow. With reservations made, the next stop was for lunch at Brophy Brothers, a locally recommended seafood restaurant in the marina area. Can’t give Brophy Brothers stars for quality or service; the food was okay but the service was below par. Maybe we’re just getting too old to view the quality of service as we did in the not so distant past. The waitress at Brophy would likely not qualify for a bussing job at Auberge du Soleil, so we’ll leave it at that.

Brophy Bros. Restaurant & Clam Bar

For our trip tomorrow we’ll need to carry a lunch, so with that in mind we headed to a local grocery and acquired a few provisions. Perhaps we’ll make an early Subway stop before the cruise.

That was about it for the day, a slow day by recent standards. There was no dinner tonight, it just wasn’t needed. We had some fruit and trail mix; Greg and I broke out another bottle of wine.

With no game and as Diane found out, no PBS station on the TVs, the night ended early.