Story Time With Digi: A Visit to The Pokemon Go Mecca

BobbyDigi · October 2016

As some of you might know, The Pokemon Go Mecca is The Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, Ca. When it is hoppin' (as it is the majority of the time), there are at least a dozen constantly lured stops. This in combination with a very large amount of spawn points reachable from the pier causes hundreds of Pokemon to spawn per hour. The beach right next to the pier also just so happens to have a tenancy to spawn the rarest of rare Pokemon.

The pier commonly spawns Machops along with the expected water Pokemon. The end of the pier is also a Voltorb nest and spawns a Magnemite every hour or so.

I don't use trackers (maps that use Niantic's API to show you exactly where Pokemon Go. I laugh at everyone who bitches about them being down. Trainers need to Get Good! Anyways, I follow the Pokemon Go community through a few different avenues and when I see a trend, I can usually take advantage of it. An example of this was Charizard spawning in a certain area of my city. Not very often, but many people reporting catching or at least seeing him on sightings there. For about two weeks, whenever I would get a chance, I would drive around that area of town. Then one night, sure enough he popped up for me. Luckily I was able to track him down and catch him. This same idea went into these trips to Sante Monica. Go there enough, I'm bound to get something good.

So I took a trip to the pier with the DigiFam last Saturday night. So many Pokemon. There is no way you can catch 'em all there. I knew this and focused on the water Pokemon and a few others not common near the DigiPad. No ultra rare spawns in the few hours we were there but I did fill in a Pokedex entry with my first Seel.

SugarCheryl caught eye of the 3rd street promenade while we were there and wanted to check it out so it didn't take much twisting her arm to convince her to go again yesterday. After DigiKid's soccer game we went out to lunch and then packed up the van for a day in Santa Monica.

The girls got to play in the ocean for a bit before the sun went down. The ladies were going to walk up to the promenade and I was going to walk the pier. We were at the van after getting the little ones cleaned up and changed, discussing a meeting point. I launched Pokemon Go.

"What's That! Holy shit it's an Aerodactyl! We'll meet at the stairs" points "Have fun! Bye" and back down to the beach I went. I was familiar with the couple rare spawn locations so I headed down the boardwalk just next to the pier to check on the closest spot. And there it was.

After my photo shoot and (iirc) only a couple berries and Ultra Balls, snap he was mine.

Not a huge CP, but a rare 'dex entry none the less. Time for more hunting, but first...

About an hour later, a Poliwhirl showed up on the near by. It wasn't spawning on the pier so I headed down the stairs to check the beach. Some kids ran past me yelling "Dragonite!" Could it be? I pulled open my sightings list.

It's Happening.

It was quite an experience being part of a migration of people all heading for the same spot. Hundreds of people, some running, moving down the beach with the same goal in mind. I walked fast but figured I had some time. The Polywhirl had spawned so I was throwing a couple balls at it as I moved toward the ever growing mass of people at the spawn spot. I caught the Polywhirl and moved on to get the Dragonite to spawn. When I got there my sightings refreshed and his silhouette was gone. My heart sank. A father and son trainer team was next to me also vocalizing that they didn't see it. We shared in the heartbreak that we thought just happened. I moved a bit further down the beach...

Elation. I told the father and son to move further this way and they got it to spawn also!

I Razzberried. I Ultra Balled. He broke out. Intence fraction of a second while I wait for the UI to come back up instead of a poof of dashed dreams. He didn't run. I don't remember how many times that happened. It might have been only the one. In the end, he joined my team.

2 Rare Pokemon in one night?

Another hour past. I was near the end of the pier catching some sort of water Pokemon when the sightings showed another beast.

I was only a few Squirtles away from evolving a Blastoise but holy crap, 3 bad boys in one night? Yes, Please.

I speed walked to the stairs down to the beach. It wasn't hard to see where he was from the grouping of trainers behind the lifeguard tower. I ran in the sand. I wanted to make sure I got him.

This guy was a battle. At least 5, probably 6 or 7 times he popped out of my Ultra Balls. The important thing is he didn't run. Another try eventually turned into a capture.

Like the Aerodactyl, not an amazing CP but #3 in a trifecta of rare Pokedex entries for the night. I had to start being careful, there is no way it can be legal to be having this much fun.

Another hour later, SugarCheryl hit me up to meet back at the stairs. She had picked up some food for me so we sat down to relax and eat a bit. We decided to take one more walk down to the end of the pier since the girls had not done so yet on this trip. We moseyed along looking at the different vendors and performers. After wrapping around the building at the end we started the last walk down before we headed back to the van to head home. A wild Beedrill spawned so I stepped aside to pick him up. Weedles are not super rare but also not super common at home. I actually had a Beedrill evolution lined up for my next mass evolution but catching one in the wild at The Pokemon Go Mecca was a great way to cap the night.

Bonus: I've caught 56 Magikarp. 3 of them were "big". This is the Bronze medal I got at the pier last night. The Gold medal is 300 "big" Magikarp.

Bonus #2: The end of the pier has got some balls.