Haunting Beauty

Posted on by

By the time we got to Año Nuevo, we had perfect sailing conditions. Winds about 20 knots from the northwest and swells going in the same direction. Unfortunately, it was going to get spicier out there and we were not looking for an overnight experience just then. Año Nuevo offered protection from the north and was also on my list of places I wished we had spent time at in 2017. At that time, all I knew was that there was a population of Elephant Seals there and I wanted to see some. Now that I have seen a lot of these seals, I just wanted to see what else it had on offer. We were not disappointed.

Adolescent elephant seals at ano nuevo

When it comes to ‘protection’ in an anchorage, we have learned long ago that no one does quiet anchorages like the Pacific Northwest. You can almost always find an anchorage that is well protected from almost any weather, as well as the accompanying swells that wrap around the end points of land. Not so when you are on the Pacific Coast, but that’s OK. We are easy to please in the short term and expect a little discomfort in exchange for a priceless experience.

Año Nuevo is basically a ‘roadstead’ anchorage, which means that while you can anchor there, you will have less protection than you would in a harbor. Fine. We’ll take it. There was a north wind in gale territory coming and all we wanted was to get behind some land. Might it be rolly? Maybe. But we’d be out of the worst of it. The bottom is flat and sandy and you just need to watch out for the big patches of kelp. No problema. Anchor down, we settled in to do some fine wildlife watching, hoping for a chance to get out to Año Nuevo Island for a closer look. You are not allowed to go ashore there but that’s ok. Believe me, you probably don’t want to.

Here’s the wide open anchorage. She still looks strange to me without her mizzen mast. But the only time we’ve missed it is when I do a photograph.

We got a taste of the abilities of our new dinghy and engine the next morning before too much wind piped up. With our new faster dinghy platform we were able to motor over to the island off the point where the old light keeper’s house still stands; a testament to a time when houses were so sturdily built. Dating to the very early 1900’s, the dwelling for the light keepers was built when congress was asked to apportion money to expand the housing on Año Nuevo Island because two light keeper families were trying to live in what amounted to one small house. The point was made that if the country wanted people to be light keepers to help keep ships safe, they needed to do more to make them comfortable. So congress approved 6000$ to build a large house, big enough to accommodate two keepers and their families.

And what a lovely house it is! Only needs a lick of paint!

Unfortunately for the light keepers, no one asked the seal and sea lion population what they thought of the plan. So much effort was spent trying to keep the creatures out of the house and gardens it’s a wonder anyone had time to tend to the navigation light. I’m imagining much hilarity ensued and I’m thinking the whole shenanigan would have made a fine comedy back in maybe 1968. Something on the order of “Gilligan and the Sea Lions”. The imagination goes wild.

No mention is made of the pelican poo, but take my word about the stench.

The keepers were forbidden from killing the beasts due to public outcry (even then!)  so they had to put up with co-existing as best they could.  Here’s what one newspaper published in 1916:

“When he opens the door troops of young sea lions march into the house, and at meal time the entire colony surrounds his domicile, barking for admittance. Sleep is difficult, he declares, for the slightest disturbance in the night is a signal for a sea lion chorus which can be heard all over the island.” Can you just imagine Lovey and Thurston Howell, III as they tried to make cozy with a sea lion? Someone please make this film! Yeah, I’m dating myself. I know.

No mention is made of the stench of seal, sea lion, and bird poo that covers the island, but I can tell you that being downwind of the place on a warm day makes you wonder how anyone would survive living there as a human. The place was abandoned in 1948 and what is left still stands today. It’s hauntingly beautiful by sunset.  Read a bit about the interesting history of this place, from which website I got my information,  here.

Really, the best way to see this island.

We didn’t stay long. One or two nights; they all run together. We left on a foggy morning when the resident Humpbacks were feeding nearby. We’d had a great view of them from the back of the boat feeding close by the previous afternoon. I noted at the time that we had seen many Humpback whales in our time, but these seemed like the biggest we had observed. I was not wrong.

Two at once.

And something special about seeing them in the fog. We put the boat in neutral and sat for awhile. I like to keep the engine on so they know we are there. just in case they don’t.

It’s a monster. A once in a lifetime shot and so much better without having to make it small for the blog.

Currently we are in Monterey, where we have been for a week. We were ready to leave today but winds stronger than forecast filled in from the southwest and after poking our nose around the corner for a look, we decided another day in Monterey would not come amiss. It was the right choice as we sit here in sporty conditions that, were we headed out to sea, would be great sailing. We got fueled up, watered up, and used their pump out, so, you know, we’re fine here. We even got showers.

We were feeling kind of anxious to get down to the northern most Channel Islands until we looked at the extended forecast. If that forecast holds, we would not be having a good time there next week. This is fine.

Our little Monterey friend who hangs by the boat on occasion. Adorable.

S/V Galapagos standing by on channel 16.

 

 

In Search of Sharks

Posted on by

We’ve made it all the way to Monterey, where we sit at anchor in the bay thinking about our life choices of the last couple of weeks. Overall things have been pretty good, with the exception of a number of nights rolling around in swells and getting no sleep. We generally hope for the best when at an anchorage we know is going to be a bit rolly, but expect the worst. That way we are not disappointed when laying awake at 2 in the blessed AM. Our last such anchorage was near Capitola, California, in a part of the bay known to locals as “Shark Park”. If only the sacrifice had been worth the effort.

Cute beach places in Capitola. We were warned about the anchorage there. The warnings were absolutely wrong and it was lovely.

As the name implies, this part of the bay is known to be home to many young white sharks, or, as I like to refer to them, Toddler Sharks. Not yet weaned to eating mammals, they gravitate to warmer waters because their natural ability to maintain a warmer body temperature has not yet fully developed. White Sharks are endothermic, meaning they are not really the “cold blooded” killers they are reputed to be. Here in the bay they grow big and strong on a diet of small fish and rays and such, leaving the local surfers alone, before heading to Hollywood to star in horror films that will terrorize generations of people and lead them to misunderstand an entire genus.  This part of the bay has water that is warm enough for baby sharks,  and apparently, due to climate change, this temperature is increasing.  We learned of this from a couple of local folks, blog readers even, who paddled out to Galapagos to say howdy and view our messy boat. They told us where the sharks congregated and thus a plan was hatched in my brain.

Pomarine jaegar chases Elegant Tern. The Capitola anchorage has great bird watching.

Here’s a Common Tern going for the kill. There were at least three types of Terns at Capitola. Nice!

We pulled up anchor at comfortable Capitola and toodled a mile or so further into the bay to see us some sharks. I charged the batteries for my camera. Not to put too fine a point on it, in the end I was extremely disappointed in the lack of sharks. I’m sure they were under the water somewhere, but we never saw even a fin, much less a tooth. I mention this because we had spent a very uncomfortable night rolling around in the swells in Shark Park just so we might get a peek at a fishy fin and we could check that off the old bucket list. I even got up early in the morning; something just unheard of unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, so that the water would be calm and the viewing better. In fact, I lost sleep at the Capitola anchorage not due to swells, but due to my excitement over possibly seeing a Great White Shark, even if small. The Capitola anchorage was very comfortable. But it did not offer sharks.

Instead, I saw Grebes. I saw Western Grebes at Shark Park. Of course, I do like Grebes as they are very interesting birds. But, frankly, I do not have to leave Puget Sound in order to see Grebes.  I was disgusted enough that I didn’t even photograph a Grebe.  This was our second attempt at shark sighting. I will not be deterred.

Our first attempt was also a magnificent fail. We sailed (and by this I mean ‘motored’ because of the lack of enough wind to get this heavy boat going) over to the Farallon Islands when we left Drake’s Bay. The thought was that Great White Sharks would surely be frolicking around the anchorage at Southeast Farallon Island, dining on sea lions. To be fair, this is an area known for Great Whites, even exceptionally large Great Whites. Maybe there was a chance of seeing one.

Approaching the anchorage.

Pinnipeds in the sea. Do you see any likely places to land? Neither do I. I'm not sure what the scientists are so concerned about.

Pinnipeds in the sea. Do you see any likely places to land? Neither do I. I’m not sure what the scientists are so concerned about.

Stark and forbidding, Southeast Farallon Island rises from the sea like something out of The Isle of Dr. Moreau. It’s basically a series of big rocks with thousands of pinnipeds keeping company with sea birds; mostly pelicans and cormorants. The usual suspects. I imagine that there are other interesting birds there, too, but only the researchers, or people with really great binoculars, are allowed to see them so we only have their word for it. No one else is allowed to land on the island, as if they could anyhow. There is no way. It’s actually laughable to even consider it, if you are the kind who laughs at other people’s death wishes.

However, in spite of the ‘no landing for civilians’ rule, Fisherman Bay is a marked anchorage on Southeast Farallon and we wanted to check it out. As we approached the bay the sea lions started their bellowing barking calls to all that would hear that a boat was approaching the anchorage. We bobbed around in the bay getting our bearings, noting the bottom on our sonar, and taking photos of pinnipeds and dramatic rocky landscapes. The boat was holding position really well, in spite of the swells, and we considered anchoring there. Of course, we had been warned by internet strangers that “we did not want to anchor there” because it’s rocky and there are swells, however, that kind of warning only peaks my curiosity. It has straight up never resulted in my saying, “You know? The internet stranger who doesn’t know us is right! We DON’T want to anchor here because swells and rocks! Thank goodness we asked their opinion!”.

Fisherman Bay, Southeast Farallon Island, looking through the rocks.

Being spied upon.

But, at the end of the day, we chose not to anchor there. Was it the swells? No. We have anchored in much worse than that. (I’m looking at you, Isla San Benedicto.) Was it the rocks? No. Catalina Island was probably equally bad, if not worse. It ended up being the flies. My dear deity! We have never been faced with this many pestering flies at once. I thought we were fly-experienced. I was so wrong!  I could barely take photos on deck without batting them out of my eyes, my mouth, my ears. It was all we could do to stay there for maybe 30 minutes, waving at the scandalized scientists on top of the hill. They watched us through their big scope on a tripod. I waved in a friendly way. They did not wave back. Maybe they sent the flies. Anyway, I could hear Michael smacking and thwacking them in the cockpit and we both agreed that while we could probably anchor there, it would not be much fun since we would have to stay below in the cabin with all hatches closed. So we left, no sharks seen. Phooey.

The rocks are not white. That’s bird poop. Being downwind of this island will make mouth breathers out of anyone.

So speaking of rolling at anchor, I know a lot of folks set up a stern anchor so there may be some people who wonder why we don’t. Mostly it’s because if swells change direction then you have to reset the anchor, which is a pain. You’d think that swells would always be from the same direction, but that would not be accurate in our experience. That may be true some places, just not where we happen to be. We have only been successful one time at setting up a stern anchor such that it actually helped us and that was at Catalina Island. The last time we tried it was at a big anchorage in the Sea of Cortez and when we had to pull it in after winds had shifted and piped up, after dark of course, it was such a shit show that it was not worth the effort. Also Michael almost lost a finger that time.  A little rolling doesn’t measure up to that kind of risk. However, being folks who do like our sleep, for this trip we did get a fancy swell dampener made by Magma. We got it for almost a song at a used marine store in Washington. Here in Monterey we have it set up nicely, hanging off the end of the boom,  since we will be here for a few days. It actually helps a lot and is much easier to deploy than a stern anchor. I think we’ll keep it.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 16. Still looking for sharks.

 

Seven With One Blow

Posted on by

If there is one thing traveling by slow boat will encourage, it’s making your own fun. Not to say that traveling by sailboat trawler isn’t fun, (because on this trip so far, basically we have been a trawler with a large white stick in the middle), but on those long days where the engine just drones on and on and on, it helps if you know how to play little games with the creatures you will encounter. In this case, those creatures are flies.

These are not your average houseflies. They are what some people call ‘beach flies’, although that is a misnomer because they certainly do not stay at the beach. These flies are known to land in our cockpit when we are 15 miles from shore. How do they even fly that far? When close to shore, as we always are nowadays, great gangs of them descend on the boat almost the minute the anchor is down. I’m not even sure what they eat or why they are attracted to boats. It’s not l like they are landing on anything in particular. They land on literally everything; not being particular at all. They land on the chart plotter, the cockpit cushions, the windows, Mike’s eyebrows. If their goal is to eat, then what are they eating? Are they getting nourishment? If their goal is to annoy, they have met their goal. They are very, very annoying. They are also slow witted and slow of flight and so they are easy to kill.

Proof of flies.

While we are generally non-violent toward our fellow creatures, we have begun killing these pesky flies with impunity and a complete lack of moral outrage at ourselves. Armed with old-fashioned fly swatters, we stand athwartship in the cockpit, a swatter in each hand, braced against the swells;  thwacking and smacking as fly carcasses collect in the gutters of the cockpit floor.

It’s interesting. We would never do this were these creatures something on the order of the Honeybee, or even the Yellow Jacket. We co-existed with literally hundreds of honeybees on our boat while anchored off islands in Mexico. We never deliberately killed any, even though we got stung and were also run out of the anchorage having been overwhelmed by sheer numbers of the bee army. But these flies just need to die. And so we play the game of ‘Fly Kill’, and we play it well. Team Galapagos: 5986  Team Beach Flies: 2. We play to win.

As we fight our way through the cloud of flies, we are both remembering with fondness the stories we used to listen to as kids. Honestly, I am not sure if we have separate memories of this or whether our memories have merged as one over the years, but we both used to listen to the Tale Spinner records when we were kids. What tales they could spin! There were so many great stories, and they were very well done.  A personal favorite of mine was Cinderella, which I had completely memorized, including all the voices of the characters. I believe my parents enjoyed this more than I did as they were able to get me to perform on command. Good thing there was no social media back then because I probably would have been some kind of TikTok or Instagram child star at age two. That might have been fun until I started school and had to compete with other talented toddlers.

Back in those days, you might have parents who “expanded” on their kids’ talents; I mean,  what parent does not believe their own child is the most talented, the smartest, the best whatever? That’s just a baseline for being a doting parent when parents and little children live together in the innocence of their kids’ early childhood, before the hard realities of human limitations hit home.You see these kids all over Instagram; their parents having set them up with their own account where they act all sassy and challenging and everyone laughs because they are little and somehow we find this charming. I digress, but all I can think to myself is ‘yeah, you think this is cute now but will you feel the same way when your kid is 9 and thinks he is 35?’. Ok. Enough of that.

But when I was two, due to the lack of the internet, it would have been hard to create an entire ‘brand’ for a kid that made them look like something they absolutely were not. That kind of smoke and mirrors would have been found out pretty quickly and there would have been plenty of other doting parents just waiting to expose your kid for being normal and you for being a fraud. Or would they?

Maybe it would depend on how much people wanted to believe in your stinking little talentless toddler. Maybe it would depend on how much they needed to believe in him. People have a strong desire to believe in things and they love a good team experience. Having a strong team (or ‘tribe’, if you really must) goes a long way for the greater population, so you can see how the need to believe in someone, when combined with a strong tribal spirit, can make even a weak man remain looking strong; at least to his own team. And once that belief is locked in, no amount of logic will necessarily change it.

Enter the Brave Little Tailor into this argument; as timeless an archetype as ever there was.

I remember this album cover so fondly!

As Mike and I swat the life out of all these flies, we recall one of our favorite stories from the Tale Spinners series of records so popular in the 1960’s. The Brave Little Tailor.  This is the story of how a simple tailor got sick and tired of flies landing on his supper and, using his hand, not even a fly swatter, he killed seven of them with one blow. He was so surprised and excited by this incredible feat that he sewed himself a special belt announcing “Seven in One Blow” to the world. A bit of a braggart, our tailor, but I imagine he was a man of little power in the broader world so we might forgive him this little brag.

Anyhow, the story goes on to discuss how people began to believe that this man of small stature and quick needle must have killed 7 men with one blow and his reputation began to unfold before him. Sounds like he got a big head about it and did not disabuse people of their notion. Or maybe he tried at first, but no one wanted to believe he was literally referring to killing flies. Who knows? Certainly the idea that he would be fierce enough to kill 7 men with one blow would be a hard one to give up, especially if the truth of the flies were to be known.

So of course, word got out that he was a tough character and this caught the attention of the neighborhood bullies, in the form of a giant. All neighborhood toughs think themselves to be giants so this comes as no surprise to the gentle reader. By using his wits, the tailor is able to fool the giant enough to best him at several giant games and his reputation grows. I imagine giants everywhere were quaking in their boots.

I also imagine that once he realized what he had done, the tailor’s head may have grown a half a size larger and he may have begun to be just a bit full of himself. Again, this can be forgiven as who among us would not feel like we had underestimated our own power were we to best a giant? That kind of thing can be positively addictive. Telling the truth, working hard,  being a little tailor, regardless how brave, had not done anything to increase his wealth or prestige or even his bodily comforts. But to trick a giant, or even maybe a few hundred ordinary folks? Here is the path to success!

Passing Point Arena

The story goes on in this way with the tailor being challenged by bullies who hear about him through whatever was the equivalent of social media back in the 1600’s, and then overcoming said bullies by continuing to use trickery and what amounts to fraud until finally, the tailor has made his way to being in the royal service to the king. I’m sure you can see where this story is going, even if you do not know the story. That’s right. It isn’t enough to have a good job at the royal table. There has to be more.

By this time the tailor’s reputation has become reality to everyone who comes into his orbit and it has spread throughout the land. You know how people talk. The king’s army is now worried that at one point the tailor might get mad at them and start the killing; 7 soldiers with every stroke. I mean, pause and scroll back up to that picture of the tailor sewing away at this belt. Does he look like the kind of guy other guys with weapons are afraid of? I submit to you that he does not.  Is this not a testament to the power of groupthink? Who in their logical mind would believe this guy, who is described as ‘little’, could kill 7 men at once? Only people who wanted to believe. That’s who. And apparently, reading between the proverbial lines here, everyone in the land is a complete idiot except for the tailor. No one just walks up and offers to arm wrestle the tailor. No one challenges him at all. They are too in awe of his reputation, his brand. He is the ‘7 in one blow’ guy. That’s who he IS.  We are led to believe that even a well armed soldier is too afraid to get close to him. I can hear the townsmen right now, gossiping at the local pub.

Guy number one: “They say that small tailor guy, the one who works for the king, he can kill 7 men with one blow of his hand!”

Guy number two: “No way! How can anyone do that? How would that be possible? I don’t believe it. I mean, look how small his hands are! No way!”

Guy number one (getting agitated because being challenged is not fun): “It’s true! I heard it from my wife’s cousin’s dairy maid’s husband’s nephew! That guy never exaggerates! It’s true! I tell you it’s true!!”

Guy number two (backing down because one does not want to lose a member of a sworn tribe): “Huh. Well, if you heard it from your wife’s cousin’s dairy maid’s husband’s nephew then it must be true! Who would have thought! Good thing you did your research! I better go tell Saul!”

Anyway, what’s a king to do? He is afraid to lose his power, if not his life. He cannot lose his army (even though they are spineless cowards who seem to not own a single brain cell between them, but whatever), but if he sends the tailor away, perhaps the tailor will take his revenge by killing the king himself. So, in the honored tradition of patriarchy everywhere, the king offers half of his kingdom as well as his daughter, who may or may not have even known the tailor existed (women being kept in the dark about the news back then due to their lack of resilience and brain, you know…). To earn this largess, the tailor need only be victorious in just a few small tasks laid out before him; tasks designed to create failure, of course. But the tailor is a trickster and he beats back giants, armies, finds a unicorn, and God knows what else but what you can be sure of is that none of this came down to actual hand-to-hand combat. It was a battle of who could out scam who. And the tailor married the princess and other than the fact that she apparently did not love him and tried to expose him to her father as the complete fraud that he was, he lived comfortably in his newfound wealth. New money, It always smells a little bit bad.

Crescent City

I guess you can look at this story any number of ways but I began to be a little uneasy thinking about it from my current point of view at my current place of adult development. I know the moral of the story is supposed to be how you can overcome adversity and rise an untold number of socioeconomic levels in the process but let’s be clear: this is not done through hard work the way our fore-parents at the School of Protestant Work Ethic taught us.  I’m sure our brave tailor was good at his job, and he did a dandy job at sewing that belt,  but it didn’t get him very far. He was still, after all JUST a tailor, a manual laborer of some skill probably trying to get wealthy people to pay their bills. In fact, if you think about it, many, many people work very hard; certainly harder than I have ever worked in my own life, and they certainly never get wealthy or powerful or anything other than worn completely out.

No, what got our tailor his riches was being boastful about a pretty lame, if not completely accidental, accomplishment: the killing of 7 flies out of what was likely to be a large cluster on his food. How hard is that? If these flies were anything like our annoying beach flies, it’s not hard at all. Maybe he was just good at marketing himself. One small stroke of luck with fly killing, some good marketing, maybe the knowledge that people want something or someone to believe in, and a lot of smoke and mirrors and suddenly this guy is sleeping in a feather bed with a beautiful princess at his side. Come to think of it, maybe the only thing that set this tailor apart from his tailor peers is the number of flies on his food and the fact that he believed somehow that killing several of the vermin at once was something to brag about. Perhaps he already had a touch of the narcissist about him.

No, what our tailor did well was to develop his ‘brand’ in the world and then go about boasting about it like it was some kind of big deal. Based on his outwitting dumber-than-rocks giants, I’m going to give the tailor enough credit to assume that when he embroidered his ‘7 in one blow’ belt, he knew that people would not assume he was talking about flies. He knew that they would think he was after much bigger game. So not only did he allow them to believe that, he WANTED them to believe that. Because it served a purpose and that purpose was to make him look somehow better than he believed himself to be. He knew exactly what he was doing because if there was one thing our little tailor was not, it was stupid.

I understand that if you say something loudly enough, with enough force, and just keep repeating it over and over, a lot of people will believe you. And the people did believe him!  It’s almost like they were as dumb as cows. Or maybe flies. Anyway, their belief was so strong that even the giants and king felt compelled to challenge him because probably this tailor guy was getting a little too much power in their land. And the giants and king’s OWN belief in the tailor’s prowess was so strong that they had no trouble believing his lies and were easily beaten by, again, what amounts to fraud and trickery. I’m not saying the king was a good man because clearly he wasn’t and probably didn’t deserve to be king, but back then people actually believed God chose those people who had money (not like now, wink wink). And the giant? Yeah, clearly a baddy. But you know, giants will giant and all that so who can blame them? They are born that way.

So anyhow, if this story is supposed to have a moral, and all fairytales do, then it’s a sad one. It goes something like this: Make a big deal out of something completely mundane. Boast and brag about it and strut around like you’re the biggest badass around. People will believe you and your brand will grow. As your brand grows more people will jump on the bandwagon and join your team. Over time, more people will turn a blind eye to your obvious tale spinning and if you just keep going and don’t blink, just boast more loudly and forcefully than ever, eventually you will be president, rich, have power, marry the princess, who hates you. Sad. The end.

These games we play on board Galapagos. Sometimes they go in a direction I cannot predict.

We saw a group of sunfish. Maybe 7 at one time! I don’t know. Maybe 4. Those are their little fins flapping. Wish I could have got a better photo but even going 5 knots is too fast for that. We have seen a lot of sunfish out here. Mike saw a big one today. Too bad I didn’t. Maybe tomorrow.

We sit here in Drake’s Bay near San Fransisco. We sit in fog. But so far, we do not sit in flies. The last time we were here was at the end of our passage from Neah Bay those years ago. I remember only that I was tired and that I looked forward to walking on the beach here. And I remember the flies. I called this the Bay of A Thousand Flies. This time, we have a lot of fly swatters. I went up and checked in the cockpit and there are no flies. Maybe they heard about us. I’m sure whatever they heard, it must be true.

S/V Galapagos. Standing by on Channel 16.