Santa Barbara Camping

Memorial Day Weekend, 2013

We love the Ventura and Santa Barbara Coast and were luckily able to secure a fairly last minute campsite at El Capitan State Beach for Memorial Day weekend. El Capitan is about 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up our camp and left to take a stroll on the beach. We walked North for a few miles and there was barely anyone in sight. The beach was deserted. It was incredibly beautiful. 

Evening hike along the beach

We then started up a fire and made smores with strawberries. It was Chelsea's idea of making something with absolutely no nutritive value at least have something a little healthy. They turned out really good. We brought our new air mattress and that made sleeping much easier than on the little pads we have previously used. Having a mattress when camping is a serious game changer in getting good sleep when camping.

Cooking up chicken apple sausages for dinner.

Strawberries, roasted marshmallows and graham cracker treat! Tasted like a strawberry shortcake!

We went for another few mile hike, this time South of El Capitan, early in the morning to another deserted coastline. We couldn't believe on the Saturday of a holiday weekend we had found a completely empty beach! It was awesome and really pretty. 

Chelsea getting in touch with nature hiking barefoot.

We then hung out in downtown Santa Barbara at the pier and ate at a cafe nearby. No one in SB was at the actual beach, they were all dressed nice and there for the restaurants and shopping. It was really bizarre. It was an 80 degree day and everyone dressed up nicely as they walked along the boardwalk to get to different shops but not hang out on the sand. Although beautiful, the city of Santa Barbara isn't really our scene, so we made our way to Carpinteria, which was way more like a beach town. We then checked the waves all the way down the coast to Ventura, where we stayed the night. We surfed a slow but fun C-Street the next morning and hung out at San Buenaventura State Beach afterwards. Everytime we're in Ventura we've been able to score fun waves at C-Street!  

Had to put the full suit back on for Ventura surf.

We had a ton of fun together on this weekend getaway and would recommend El Capitan as a place to camp for anyone! Here are a few more pics from the trip.

Ocean view from our campsite.

Taking a stroll at high tide along El Capitan Beach.

Colorful sand crab

Watching the dolphins at sunset together.

Sunset at El Capitan State Beach

In Love With The Philippines

Some experiences are so incredible that when you get back to reality it feels like it was all just a dream. My most recent trip to the Philippines is one of those experiences. Venturing off by myself in hopes of scoring epic waves, meeting cool new people and seeing beautiful new sights was certain to be an adventure. I met up with Surf with Amigas, an all girl surf and yoga adventure retreat and had no idea how far surpassed my highest expectations would soon be. This video will show you what I mean!

Siargao Philippines Surf Trip 2013 from Chelsea Denning on Vimeo.

The Philippines is huge with over 7,000 islands, so my view of the Philippines having stayed primarily just on the island of Siargao will be very different from others. These are the main highlights from my time on Siargao that I would recommend to anyone spending time on this island.

1.       Sohoton Caves

Boating through the caves

After rockclimbing in the dark through some caves you can jump off a cliff back to where you started!

The group hanging out in the cave

2.       Surfing, Surfing and more Surfing 

Surfing Rock Island

Duck Dive

Shallow reef at Hawaiian Jacks

3.       Playing with Stingless Jellyfish

4.       Tropical fruit and awesome seafood

Had a mango every day! This was a typical breakfast.

Tuna in a banana leaf  dinner

Fresh Coconut

5.       Snorkeling

Be careful not to step on an urchin while surfing

Electric Blue Starfish!

6.       Riding Water Buffalo (Carabao)

Tracy and I cruisin by the rice paddies

A local showing us how it's done

The girls loving our new found animal

7.       Yoga on the beach

Yoga Studio. It's the most peaceful feeling having an ocean breeze while doing yoga.

8.       Cloud 9 Boardwalk

Right in front of the boardwalk is where the most famous wave in the Philippines breaks, Cloud 9

9.       Exploring different islands by boat or plane

The view of multiple Philippine islands from the plane on my flight from Cebu to Siargao

The boat drivers that took us around all week

Setting out to explore some surf breaks

Every surf break we had to take a boat out to.  It's really fun jumping off a boat heading out to surf!

10.   Watch Sunrises and Sunsets

I couldn't believe my eyes when I woke up lying in my bed to this amazing sunrise. I jumped out of bed so quick to be able to snap a few shots of one of the prettiest sunrises I'd ever seen!

Sunset view from the boat after an epic surf session

Sunset view from Cloud 9 

I stayed at a cute little place called The Greenhouse. It has just a few oceanfront bungalows with boats right outside to take us to the surf breaks and on our adventures. It was perfect!

My cute Canadian roomate Sibina playing the guitar outside our bungalow

Photo by Cyd Conner

The beauty and enchantment of Siargao makes it feel almost magical. I'm so grateful to have been to such a special place and met so many amazing people along the way.

Back to Oahu

We decided it was time to come back to our roots as a married couple and we wanted a surf trip as well. We were able to see my brother Tanner, who is going to school in Laie and we got to hike, surf and meet up with our old friends. It was good to take a walk down memory lane. We both love BYU-Hawaii and the experiences that we had there both as single students right out of high school and once again as a married couple.

 Surfing on the South Shore at Publics, the first break we ever surfed together on the day that we moved to Hawaii in Jan. 2006

 Chelsea having fun at Chun's Reef

 Chelsea paddling out after a good ride

 Honu at Laniakea

 Attempt #1 of getting an underwater duck diving picture

Attempt #2 at getting an underwater duck diving picture

 Three Dennings and a Bledsoe @ Kahuku Grill. Little bro works as a cook here.

 Matt, Mike and Mike Sr. checking the waves at Rocky's.

Another great thing about Hawaii, on the right day you can still get a beach to yourself.

 Session at Chun's Reef.

 Temple Beach, where we used to go for walks when we were students.

 Chelsea's good friend, Sara Duffin, wife of the one and only DD

Mike surfing Freddy's

 North Shore Sunset

 Hanging out at Bikini Beach

 Laie Falls Hike. We met a stray dog on the way up who hiked with us and protected us from a wild boar. He was a pretty cool dog.

  Sunset Beach Park

 Dennings with aloha shirts

 Skating the half pipe at the house that we rented

 Another amazing sunset

 Pre-session at Lani's

 Getting out of the water after a session at Lani's

 Poke meal

 Our old apartment from 2006-2008. Good memories. Part of our tour down memory lane

 The LDS Temple where Mike worked night shifts as a janitor for the first year and a half of marriage. 10pm-2am.

 View from Laie Point

 In the front of the BYU-Hawaii Campus

Courtyard in the middle of campus. Basically the most beautiful college in the world!

Hawaii will always be so special to us having spent the first few years of married life there. It is our favorite place in the world and we will be back many more times!