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Help Clean Up Aptos this Week

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Beach Cleanup
Help Clean Up Aptos This Week

Spring is in full swing, and a couple of our area’s neighborhood associations are asking you to help clean up Aptos this week.

The first clean up, sponsored by the Rio del Mar Improvement Association, in concert with Save Our Shores, happens on Wednesday, May 13th at Hidden Beach. Volunteers are asked to check in at the Hidden Beach Park picnic benches. The cleanup is from 9 AM until 11 AM. Individual and small group volunteers are welcome. Save Our Shores provides all necessary supplies, and volunteers are encouraged to bring their own reusable buckets, gloves, and water bottles. Please contact cleanup@saveourshores.org for more information.

The next cleanup is sponsored by the Seacliff Improvement Association, Saturday, May 16 between 10:00am-11:00am. Volunteers will meet in the little parking lot in front of the Forget Me Not shop.  This clean up will focus on maintaining the Seacliff Village area, primarily around the merchant shops and the Seacliff State Beach entrance. Volunteers are asked to come and bring pickers, pruners, shears, weedwhackers, and garden gloves. Bags to haul away trash and trimmings will be provided.

Sandman Triathlon Returns for Its 30th Year

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Sandman Triathalon
Sandman Triathalon

The Sandman Triathlon returns for its 30th year this summer! The Sandman Triathlon is a fundraiser for the Santa Cruz State Parks Lifeguard Association held at Seacliff State Beach.  This year, the race will be held on Sunday, August 2nd at 8:00 AM.

The Sandman Triathlon is a USAT sanctioned event.  It begins with a .75-kilometer ocean swim around the historic SS Palo Alto, followed by a spectacular 13-mile bike ride through redwood forests, Seascape and Rio Del Mar. To top it all off, the race finishes with an strenuous four mile run on the beach.

The Sandman is a sprint triathlon and designed to be a super fun and a family friendly event, it is the perfect triathlon experience for athletes that are new to the sport.

Registration for the 2015 Sandman is now open on Active.com. Athletes can sign up for the sprint triathlon, a duathlon or the one-mile kids’ fun run.

The Sandman Triathlon is one of Santa Cruz County’s oldest triathlons. Its inaugural race occurred way back in 1986 in the infancy of the sport. The Sandman was originally conceived by the Santa Cruz State Parks Lifeguard Association to be a positive Aptos community event that would raise funds for the association, who supports the junior lifeguard and lifeguard operations in Santa Cruz, including providing scholarships for kids from low-income families that otherwise could not afford the cost of the 4-week program. Over the past three decades, thousands of dollars have been raised for the Santa Cruz State Lifeguard Association to help provide high-quality water safety education to hundreds of Santa Cruz County youth.

See also:  http://www.sandman-triathlon.com 

Sandman Triathalon Swimmers
Sandman Triathalon Swimmers

Los Angeles Times Writes up Aptos

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Los Angeles Times Logo
Los Angeles Times Logo

We’ve hit the big time – the Los Angeles Times Writes up Aptos!  It seems that a travel writer visited Aptos recently, and wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times entitled Slowing down to savor the good life in Aptos, Calif. The writer, Michele Bigley, has written a number of travel guides and writes hotel reviews for Fodor’s California and Fodor’s San Francisco.

In the article, the author recounts renting a beach house through Cheshire Rio, dining at Manuel’s Mexican Restaurant, eating ice cream at Marianne’s, sipping wine at Cantine Wine Pub, and exploring Seacliff Beach. The story ends with this lesson learned:

Everything in Aptos closes early, so slowing down is simple. Late at night, we sat on the deck sharing a bottle of local vino and wishing we too could live the slow life.

Here’s to living the slow life, Aptos!

A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos

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A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos
A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos

I’ve always enjoyed going on a nice walk, and Aptos is a wonderful place to go for a stroll. For those looking to seriously exert themselves, there’s always the lovely Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, which has miles and miles of hiking trails through this 10,000+ acre forested beauty. However, many folks instead choose to go for a walk on the beaches of Aptos.

There’s no shortage of great beaches for walking in Aptos. The other day, I wanted to go on a walk, and I thought I would start at New Brighton Beach, then make my way down to Pot Belly Beach, and then Seacliff Beach, before cruising up the Aptos Beach Gate path before eventually making my way back home.

Aside from just exercise, I had another objective. I wanted to go to a place I hadn’t been to in years – maybe a couple of decades, actually. Back in my college days, when I was living up on the bluff above the Cement Boat, my friends and I would go to the beach now and again to hang out. One of our favorite spots to go was this really cool ravine, which is at the southern end of Pot Belly Beach.

I thought it would be a great place to take my kids sometime. Since I hadn’t been in a while, I decided to take a moment to reconnoiter, since I was in the neighborhood. Back in the day, my friends and I would wander quite far up the ravine, but on this trip, the creek was so high that getting up into the ravine would have involved getting wetter than I was planning on.

So I didn’t make it up the ravine, alas, but I took a few pictures and I’ve made a note to come back soon, with the kids. As I was standing there looking at my phone, I happened to notice that the ravine is actually the end of Borregas Creek Gulch – which, coincidentally, was also the original border of Aptos Rancho, back in the 1840s. Small world!

The ravine itself is very cool, with sandstone cliff walls climbing dozens of feet above the creek bed. It’s really cool to look at all the sea shells embedded into the walls of the ravine, and I can’t wait to go back with my kids to explore and talk about our local Aptos geology.

Seacliff Beach Visitor’s Center

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The Seacliff Visitor’s Center is another Aptos Gem. The Visitors’ Center is where you go to learn about the SS Palo Alto, and also about the marine life and environment of the area. They have a little pool where the kids can touch starfish, anemones, etc. Sometimes you can make kites there too. Ask them to start the 8 minute video in the visitors center which gives a brief history of the SS Palo Alto. They also sell a number of books, souvenirs, and toys for the kids.

The Visitor’s Center is run by the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, and is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 AM to 4 PM, but best to call first (831-685-6444) to make sure they’ll be open, as it’s run by volunteers.

 
Seacliff State Beach Visitor's Center
Seacliff State Beach Visitor’s Center

Memorial Day at Seacliff Beach

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Aptos has a reputation for being a foggy place. Blame it on the Monterey Bay, which has the second deepest ocean canyon in the world, with lots of super cold water that generates when it’s hot inland. I personally think it’s somewhat blown out of proportion – yes, we have a lot of foggy mornings, and the fog can roll back in around 3 or 4 o’clock if you’re right down there by the beach. But it’s not usually foggy all day, and of course, the further from the beach you go, the less fog you’ll find.

And then there are days like Memorial Day 2014, when there’s not a wisp of fog to be seen, even at 9:00 AM, when my wife and I took a walk down Seacliff Beach. I’ve been trying to get in my 10,000 steps a day – it’s all the rage these days – and it seemed like the perfect morning for a walk along the sand. We started out at the parking lot at Rio del Mar beach – which was already full – and ended down at the Seacliff Memorial Wall, an Aptos Gem.

Seacliff Memory Wall
Seacliff Memory Wall
Seacliff Memory Wall
Seacliff Memory Wall
Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff State Beach Visitor's Center
Seacliff State Beach Visitor’s Center
Santa Cruz Lifeguards Weather and Ocean Report
Santa Cruz Lifeguards Weather and Ocean Report
Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff State Beach
Pier Fishing at Seacliff State Beach
Pier Fishing at Seacliff State Beach
Birds rest on the SS Palo Alto
Birds rest on the SS Palo Alto
The Beach Shack snack shop at Seacliff State Beach
The Beach Shack snack shop at Seacliff State Beach
BBQ and Picnic at Seacliff State Beach
BBQ and Picnic at Seacliff State Beach

It was a gorgeous, sun-drenched day. The picnic tables which line the beach were already full, and the BBQ grills were already going. The RV campground was full, too, and lots of folks were sitting out in front of their RVs, chatting with one another and watching the sunbeams play on the waves. The lifeguard tower on the pier declared the climate that day as being “sunny/nice” with air temperature between 60 and 75 degrees. The pier was loaded with fisherman, dozens of them angling to catch something, but probably not caring too much if they ended up empty-handed. The SS Palo Alto was loaded with seagulls and other birds, who have painted the deck white with their guano.

It seemed like everyone and everything was out at Seacliff Beach for Memorial Day. We’re so lucky that all of this is just a five minute drive from our doorstep. I love Aptos!

Seacliff State Beach

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Seacliff State Beach
Seacliff State Beach 4.0 star rating 234 reviews

Seacliff State Beach Park is one of the major draws to Aptos for out-of-town visitors. It is perhaps best known as the spot where “the cement boat,” aka the SS Palo Alto, lies sunken offshore. The beach can be crowded on summer days, particularly on any three-day weekend. Some of the biggest crowds, however, can be found on Thanksgiving Day, when many people come to the beach and use the extensive array of picnic tables and BBQ pits as they enjoy their Thanksgiving meals.

In addition to the picnic tables and BBQ pits, the park also features a number of restrooms and shower facilities. There is also a mile-long asphalt path along the length of the beach, which is a great way to take in the sunset and get some exercise at the same time. There is a long wooden pier leading out to the SS Palo Alto, and this is a popular spot for fishing. No permit is required for fishing off a pier in California.

The park is also very popular as a site to park your Recreational Vehicle (RV) as it boasts 26 RV sites, right along the edge of the beach, with complete and un-obstructed ocean views.

The park has a Visitor’s Center which is well worth a visit. It has a wide array of information regarding the SS Palo Alto, the beach history, etc. The center is run by the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks.

There is also a snack shack is open during the summer months 7 days a week – you can visit their Beach Shack web site to get hours of operation and see the menu.

See also Seacliff State Beach

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