Only about 5-10 minutes from Tickle Pink Inn is Point Lobos State Reserve. This reserve covers not only the land you can walk on but also reaches out to cover roughly 775 acres of the ocean. This submerged portion of the reserve has recently been added to a total of 5.36 square miles of ocean to now form the Point Lobos State Marine Reserve. Scuba and free diving is allowed within the preserve. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity, there are only a limited number of dive passes allotted each day so get yours early.
There are 14 trails within the park. We chose the Sea Lion Point trails and weren’t disappointed. You could hear them before you could see them; Harbor Seals and Sea Lions covering the rock outcroppings. It was quite a sight and thank goodness we had cameras with zoom lenses so we could see them better. I highly recommend taking a pair of binoculars with you in this park. We also spotted a handful of Sea Otters floating on the waves and diving in to the kelp. Off in the distance we could see whale spouts. The Grey Whale is known to spend time in this area but it was a little late in the year for them to still be hanging around. We suspect it could have been Orcas looking for a meal of harbor seal since they seemed to pace the same area or more likely another variety of whale or dolphin that frequents the area.
We also saw lots of different birds from the small song bird to the majestic Heron and spent some time over on the Whalers Cove trail where we had great views of Carmel and a few divers. All in all, this was a fantastic place and I would like to go back some time to be able to hike more of the trails.