by Neal Whitman

Created on: September 02, 2009

Monterey Area Beach: A Poet's Guide"

Start in Pacific Grove at Lovers Point where a rocky point juts out into Monterey Bay. Do not turn your back to the ocean. Visitors have been carried away by a rogue wave. Cross a grassy park 50 yards to the right and take the steps down to the beach where a cove provides safety for children to scamper into shallow water protected by a sea wall. In the early morning, waves break and the wind cuts over their crests water droplets rising to form mini-rainbows. The across the Bay looking East, the sun rises over the massive sand dunes of Sand City and Seaside. Stay for lunch. The snack can rustle up a calamari burgher. There are picnic tables where you will not want for company. Is that gull a second-cousin removed on the distal side of the family? I met "a gull who claimed he owned the my picnic table he had a paper that he said was a deed signed by the King of Spain. But, don't be fooled. It was just a Chinese laundry ticket he found in the trash. Sit with a notebook and write haiku: 3 lines 5, 7, & 5 syllables like this:

a man and woman

picnic alone on the beach

until hopeful gulls

Walk on the Recreation Trail along the shoreline toward the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Under the paved path, here and there you can see the old railroad tracks. At the hill by the Aquarium is the spot where Ed Ricketts, "Doc" of John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row," backed up his Model T Ford and was flattened by a freight train in 1947. At the Steinbeck tribute bust, walk down to the beach. At low tide, roll up your pants and walk into the lapping water. Hold a copy of "Cannery Row" and read out loud the first paragraph. It begins

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a time, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

Get back on the Re Trail and continue to walk to the Old Monterey Wharf where you can buy clam chowder in a bread bowl and picnic on the harbor beach. No swimming here, but a good view boats bobbing in the harbor.

Get in your car, drive down Del Monte Avenue, past the Navy Post Graduate School, once the site of the Old Del Monte Hotel, the watering hole of the rich and famous. Follow signs to Highway 1 and head south to Carmel. Take the Ocean Ave exit and drive straight to the beach. Carmel Beach is "off the leash." Dog Heaven. Frisbees flying. Children running. Surfers changing clothes under s towel. A wide expanse of a beach. Walk the coastal path above the beach and on your left there is a 40 foot stone tower. Imagine its builder, poet Robinson Jeffers, in the early evening, atop as he looked up at Alderbaran under the dog-leash Pleiades awaiting the rise of Orion over Carmel Bay. Across the Carmel Bay, there is Point Lobos, Robert Louis Stevenson's inspiration for "Treasure Island." In his day, there really were smugglers there. Sit on the rocks overlooking the shore no swimming here but what a spot to sit and read how Long John Silver befriended young Jim Hawkins.

On the Pacific Grove side of the Monterey Peninsula, if you started your day with the sunrise over Monterey Bay, what better way to end it than on the Carmel side on Carmel Beach for sunset! May I recommend a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? In the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, this libation is "bottled poetry."

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