Facts about Avila Beach

Where I am in Avila Beach visiting my grandma and grandpa we decided to go to the beach. First we had to go to lunch so on the way to Taco Bell [yum yum] my grandpa told me a story. The Native American Indians used to call Avila Beach hole in the sky. It is sunny almost all the time but around us is fog and mist.The scientific reason for this amount of sun is because it is the only beach that faces south while most California beaches face west. When all of the pilots fly above they always see Avila Beach because it is the hole in the sky.

The Avila pier is 513 meters long. One year ago the pier was shut down because 2000 people from the beach rushed onto it to view the hump back whales going by and the pier cracked.

Another catastrophe which struck Avila Beach was the oil spill in 1980. Several oil tanks on a hill above Avila beach started to leak. This caused contamination under the town. The result was  all of the buildings had to be torn down and rebuilt in addition to replacing the sand. Thousands of truck loads of sand had to be brought in to replace the contamination. After all the repairs the town looks brand new.

Overall it was a fun day at the beach.

 

Seve's Trip to America

Yesterday I went to Morro Bay which is on the Central Coast of California. My grandparents took me on a tiki boat to see some of the marine life there. We saw sea lions and sea otters.

Sea lions are big, kinda like a large dog. I learned that they bark like dogs too. They are also more closely related to a bear than a marine animal which I find really weird. The reason for this is because they have external ears. Most marine animals have internal ears.

Sea otters are a lot smaller than sea lions closer to the size of a small dog or a big cat. They live in the same area but they don't bother each other. There are only 3000 sea otters left in California (and 100,000 left in the world). The majority of the California sea otters live in Morro Bay. The population grows so slow because the females only have 1 to 2 babies in their lifetime and they are hunted by sharks and illegally by man. They spend most of their life in water because their body overheats and can't handle 10 mins out of the water. 









Morro Bay has a big mountain rock called Morro Rock. Its kinda like Mount Maunganui but Morro Rock has more rocks on it. The only people allowed up the rock are the Native American Indians and they recently had a ceremony for the summer solstice which is the longest day of the year. The rock formation started in Mexico and over thousand of years has moved up the coast. It moves 2.5 centimeters per year.

Peregrine Falcons live up the top of the mountain. They are the a fastest animal in the world traveling 321 kph when hunting (WOW!)

Overall it was a very fun day with my family and I learned a lot.