The lovely Santa Barbara

Woopidoooo! 

Love, love, LOVED Santa Barbara.  :)

We were so keen to visit Santa Barbara, we got the first tender across, so ended up being in Santa Barbara before Santa Barbara was actually awake. 

"Santa Barbara".

 I love saying it.

There was nobody about so we walked up State Street and had a quick coffee,

and looked for figs.

The largest and oldest fig tree in North America is in Santa Barbara. It is actually native to Australia but was planted in Santa Barbara in 1877, and it is said that 1,000 people could stand in its shade at noon. 

This wasn't said tree.

But it WAS a fig tree.

                                        Even at ten o'clock there was hardly anyone about.

It is a place of nice food and wineries, fashion, theatres and art, colourful bougainvillea, statues and terrapin. No wonder it is known as the American Riviera.

Natasha had a nice shop.

There were some very snazzy shops here but I'm more of a tracksuit, trainers and cozzie girl  and prefer to be on a beach .....so we headed back towards the pier, STEARNS WHARF, which needed sussing out,  as we wouldn't have time later because we had booked whale watching.

EEEEEEKKKK!

OOOEEERRRRRRR!

                     There were still no signs of the TV show PSYCHE that was filmed here, not even                                                          a tee shirt, much to Husb's disappointment.
                               There was a fantastic cycle/running/walking track though.

I think he said this cycle path went all the way to Santa Monica beach so you could run/cycle/walk 26 miles, traffic-free if you wanted. #justsaying

Stearns Wharf is California's oldest working wharf (1872) and the present day harbour, with over 1,000 fishing boats, pleasure vessels and whale watchers. (WOOP!) 

Walking along the pier was fun - the locals had invented all manner of "Throw us your Dollars" games on the sand below, like "Throwyourmoneyontomymatbecausethereinowayitwillgointomybullseyeeggcup" game.

And after nearly falling off several times, I just about got a photo of me planking on a log. 

Great test for my core and I nearly failed.

But I didn't. :)

There was just time for a fishnchipPGTIP lunch, and a walk through FUNK ZONE where weird and wasted people are doing worryingly weird things...well it IS the new winebar area and then it was 

TIME TO GO LOOKING FOR WHALES.

THIS ... is what we hoped to see when watching whales.

It was more like THIS! 

But it was great fun anyway. To be honest, we were spoilt in Alaska when we saw Orcas so nothing was ever going to be as good as that.

We saw grey whales, dolphins and sealions.

And this topped off a great day.

 "Santa Barbara"

I loved it. 

And then we sailed back to San Francisco on this lovely ship....

....eating beet while wearing beet.....

before jazzing up a jump suit.

It was such a crazy busy evening I completely forgot my 'roids, AAARGH 

We muscled in on Captain's cocktails, 

raced to Dancers Showtime

and then to ex Beach Boy Steve Moris (superb, talented and very funny),

missed dinner so had to go to the cafe for nuts and salad, 

raced back to the middle of the ship for the balloon drop

(PRINCESS CRUISES' 50th ANNIVERSARY)

and off to the theatre for more balloons

and the crew show. It was a great week.