Beaches

Day 5

Today our first stop was Huntington Beach, often referred to as "Surf City" and is the home of the World Surfing Championships. (There was competition on today)  We also saw the surfing "Walk of Fame" with hand prints such as Aussie Layne Beachleys.

Huntington Beach is regarded as the birthplace of the West Coast surfing culture and featured in the Beach Boys song "Surfin Safari".  It is also famous for its beach volley ball.

From there we moved on to  Long Beach which was the recent venue of the Grand Prix street race.  Here we visited the "grandest ship ever built"- the Queen Mary.  She not only carried the rich and famous across the Atlantic but was also deployed as military transport in WW11.  She was referred to the "Grey Ghost"due to her speed and Hitler at one time had a bounty of $250,000 for any vessel that could find and sink her.

We then continued to Venice Beach home to the world's most colourful promedade of musicians, singers, jugglers, acrobats, mimes,comics, musicians, skaters, skateboarders and muscle men.  There were a lot of weird and freaky people there.

Our final stop was the Santa Monica Pier, beach and promenade, the home of "Baywatch".  This 100 year old pier is famous for its 1922 Carousel prominent in a number of old movies. 

These beaches are really crowded but well worth the trip.