We explore Morro Bay

October 8, 2011

This morning we dinghied around the Bay taking in the amazing bird life on the shore.

Morro Bay was the end point of our Big Sur bike tour so naturally we had to revisit the inn from the water. It’s next to a huge rookery, empty at this season, for herons, cormorants and egrets.

White pelicans ranged on the tideflats, willets and curlews flew by us in droves and lots of other little birds that were too far to see drilled into the mud. Later we joined a bunch of MBYC members watching the sailing club from Cal Poly as they ran around the short obstacle filled race course set up by the YC. The kids ranged from At One with the Boat to What’s a Jibsheet? (Actually they reminded me of us SYC adult Vanguard sailors.) We had a riotous commentary going from the club’s balcony as they took turns racing in the club’s Flying Juniors. No one capsized and there was only one mild collision with a hapless vessel on a mooring. Thank goodness we’d moved Gratitude to a buoy further up the harbor first thing in the morning.

Charlie enjoyed a too short schmooze with the skipper of a beautiful Tartan 47 who was ited up at the dock. They exchanged tips on tying to a mooring ball. Charlie's new gadget proved the most effective, though he did have to replace a plastic pin with a metal screw. We walked around town via the waterfront boardwalk and discovered that it's a huge tourist destination!

In the late afternoon I took a walk to the rock. Morro means turban or dome shaped rock. It’s a volcanic plug, revealed by erosion, actually from an ancient volcano. Many interesting kinds of lava can be seen when you get close. One of the fabled peregrine falcons of the rock flew past me as I approached and another soared at the top of the rock. On ocean beach behind the rock the Scholastic College Surf competition tents were set up. Even though a frigid northerly was howling at about 25 knots out there, half a dozen talented nuts in wetsuits could be seen paddling out to catch the last of the day’s good waves.

October 9
Before heading to Port San Luis for the night, we took an hour paddling around the marshes and mudflats. The birding was wonderful. Long billed curlews, dowagers, willets but most amazing was the immense flock of small (maybe least?) sandpipers coating the edges of one little island. Help me, bird friends. We only had the iPhone for pix.

Overnight to Morro Bay

October 6

Watching the weather, listening on the radio which only covered north to Monterey and downloading GRIB files, etc kept Charlie’s attention. It was raining frequently, occasionally with thunder. Finally we took off Thursday afternoon with dark clouds over the coastal mountains but a smooth and sunny sea to the west. Wave spray shot high on the rocky Pt Pinos, and Pebble Beach Golf Course gleamed green reminding of the beginning of our Big Sur bike ride in 2000.

After a long twilight the gibbous moon lit our way until 3 am. The wind filled in from the northwest as predicted sending us along at a nice 6-7 knots for most of the night. What a great break-in “solo” for these ancient mariners. On the dawn watch I saw several small birds in the air. A couple of meadowlarks circled the boat, one landing for a while on our jackline. It was actually panting for a few seconds. Over beers that night at Morro Bay YC a fellow cruiser mentioned another boat with a small bird visitor that flew into the cabin and slept through the night!

Monterey

October 3-5

Finally the fall rains have come to California. We arrived in Santa Cruz’s little slit of a harbor during a downpour. Though the docks were all usable, signs of damage from last winter’s tsunami were everywhere. Plywood nailed over dock joints, boards securing the connections around pilings. There is a brand new dock and several more planned. We noticed the surge shuttling us back and forth in the slip all night but it was nothing like the rushing river from the tidal wave that sank a dozen boats.

Monterey, on the southern shore of the same bay, provided more excitement starting with hundreds of birds outside the harbor, including rhinoceros auklets that we haven’t seen in CA before. The splashes of sea lions attracted attention a mile out. We noticed many groups, some porpoising along as if migrating. In addition bigger splashes revealed a few pods of Risso’s dolphins also on the hunt. These 13 foot light grey dolphins have tall dorsal fins and whitewashed heads. New to us.

Monterey Bay has the most pristine ocean environment we’ve seen along the coast. Clearly the feeding was great for marine mammals. The long breakwater was crowded with sea lions, the stench of their breath driving us to hold our own breath. Kayak tours headed for the kelp beds along the beaches to observe the fast growing sea otter population. In the marina Charlie oooed as a mother otter swam by with her baby on her tummy. Very cute.

Monterey used to be the sardine capital of the country. Its front street, renamed Cannery Row after Steinbeck’s novel now would be corniest row. I’ve never seen so many tee shirts with hokey slogans. Business was slow. At least 4 restaurants gave us free chowder samples. Luckily we found the Tuesday night farmers’ market open and bought Brussels sprouts to go with our swordfish from the same pier as our marina.

The biggest draw of Monterey for us was the Aquarium. Getting there via a walking trail on the old railway bed, we stopped to watch the harbor seals posing on single rocks like granite sculptures on plinths. Also novel were white egrets standing on kelp mats to fish. One almost lost its life to a lunging sea lion! We spent pretty much the whole day looking at the exhibits and going to feedings and informative talks in the auditorium. The huge ocean tank has a great while shark and a mola mola or ocean sunfish as well as dozens of other fish including anchovy schools.

Good-bye to the Bay

Sunday, October 2

Powering out of the Bay this morning I recalled my first impression two years ago when aboard Jarana we pulled into the Saint Francis YC. On a sunny day that spot really has the best view of the Bay we've ever seen in all our travels here. Of course it was too late to photograph this morning.

We had a calm jump to Pillar Point at the north end of Half Moon Bay. This harbor is created with two outer breakwaters and another one inside. Very sheltered. Passersby trolled the docks buying fresh fish, abalone and crab right off the fishing boats. In the evening we took a walk at low tide past the Half Moon YC and got a laugh out of young kids shouting for the little ferry to bring them in from the club's float.

The light was beautiful and turned seaweed and jellyfish into jewels on the glistening sand. Good beer, Mad Dog Bitter, at Half Moon Bay Brewery for dinner.

San Francisco Finale

Friday, September 30

For the last day of the week and month, Edie and I decided to visit the deYoung museum in Golden Gate Park. We spent a delightful hour there looking at African art and visiting Martine's great great aunt's portrait as painted by her great aunt, Mary Cassat.

Also a lot of early American furniture that reminded me of home.

We then joined the throngs of walkers and bike riders flooding into the park headed to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival on streets closed to cars. The sunny weather brought out just about every music who could escape from work and half of them came on bikes. Could this be the future of transportation in the US? We settled for a while at the Banjo stage to listen to John Pryne.

That evening we had dinner with the Schiffs who told us that the festival had been running for about 10 years and is a gift to the city from Warren Hellman, whose group the Wronglers also played in the festival!

Saturday, October 1

For our last day in SF it felt as if the city had planned al all day send off for us. In the morning we powered over from Berkeley, tied up at St Francis YC and promptly pedaled off over the Presidio (pant pant) to revisit the festival. Back at the Banjo stage we found Earl Scruggs, age 87, and two sons plucking away for a mellow crowd of sunburned beer drinkers, dancers in long skirts and short (well, absent for a lot of guys) tops, and that certain aroma in the air, the old familiar scent of burning weed. Scruggs played many of the old faves starting with Salty Dog.

Afterwards with the assistance of iPhone echolocation we managed to pinpoint our friend Blake among the 250,000 in attendance. He generously offered a Bud Light to rehydrate us for the ride back to the YC.

There we prepared to celebrate Kelly's 30 birthday in style at Le Central, an excellent French restaurant. She got a lot of useful stuff for her apt including a VeggieChop from us and a vac from Edie. What a wonderful conclusion to this delightfully entertaining month!

Sausalito Circus

Saturday, September 24

We picked up my niece Kelly, the filmmaker and circus performer, and sailed over to Sausalito where we were looking forward to seeing La Loupiote, a French couple who do acrobatic circus shows on their boat and in the rigging. We arrived at KKMI boatyard just in time to get a waterfront seat across from their bright yellow sailboat.

The first show was slapstick with the wife playing a dim witted ship’s boy. The show started with a chase, the skipper hiding in the audience. They were wonderful, artistic, funny, original and clever in using the boat. Donations from their free shows finance their cruising life.

From talking with their 11 year old daughter in Spanish! and a boatyard owner we gathered that Franck, the owner/artist had built the boat. He probably designed it with their acts in mind as the dodger, when removed, leaves the deck open, a sort of long, arched stage. It’s all teak except for many hatches. They hoist various things during the show, the spinnaker pole, for example, in a slapstick routine that has them running back and forth working against each other with first the mast end going up, then down, etc while the bow end does the opposite. You can see a film on their website (www.voilierspectacle.com) of a cool mirror walk they do on the pole. She on top, he walking on his hands below and their feet meeting at the pole. They also hoisted a roll of tissu, that stretchy fabric, that they climb, hang from and so on.

An unseasonable rain fell Sunday morning, canceling the acrobats' show so we went to the farmers market instead and took advantage of cut prices in the last 15 minutes. It was fun to have Kelly and her friend Bill as crew to sail over and back to Sausalito, using the consistent wind in the Bay.

As you can see, Gratitude has evolved into quite the boat about the Bay. Note the bikes, BBQ, drink holders. We'll be stowing those when we leave on Sunday.

Monday, September 25

Another lovely day, especially for Hank, the Richardsons’ dog. We went to Point Isabel where there’s a huge dog park for a walk with Hank and to look at the birds. It’s always fun to visit parts of the East Bay trail to see the shoreline restoration and watch the dogs play.

How Charlie spent his lovely day. Luckily you don't see the joker valve, the one that sounds like a whoopee cushion, just the crystal encrustations from the pump cylinder. As Peggie Hall, guru of heads, a.k.a "the headmistress," remarked, you can see that Charlie is flushed with pleasure.

Angel Island

Tuesday, September 20

San Francisco Bay has an endless number of fascinating attractions. This week we are exploring the west side. Our travels started with a sprint over to Angel Island through a fleet of a couple of dozen racing Folkboats. As we later discovered, their regatta was sponsored by the Corinthian YC in Tiburon. We were amazed to see such a gathering on a weekday, but have since been assured repeatedly that this is the very best season in the Bay. The fog is minimal, the sun shines early every day, and water temps have warmed to a max.

Angel Island has several coves recommended for anchoring, but we had decided to go to Ayala Cove where the old quarantine hospital was located as well as barracks from the WWII days. Nowadays it's a state park served by ferries from all over the Bay and offers docks for day use and buoys for overnighting. We tied up briefly to unload and lock the bikes ashore, paid for moorage, and went off to set up between a pair of color coded buoys as directed. This maneuver involved tying to a ring on the first buoy and then backing down to the second. Being too lazy to launch the dinghy, the crew du jour decided to swim to the buoy tether in teeth. Actually it was a very short swim (no teeth were involved) and relatively painless. The buoys are kept pretty clean of scratchy sea life by western gulls constantly pulling mussels off. This seems to be their favorite food around here.

Having taken the plunge quite literally, I found the water a surprisingly delightful temperature and swam around for quite a while with a scrub brush working on the waterline. Charlie followed. As we watched boats out for an evening sail in Raccoon Strait, we both felt quite refreshed and comfortable after the hot afternoon.

Wednesday, September 21

In the morning the water seemed colder during my brief plunge in honor of Uncle George Clowes, the first cruising relative I really knew. As the first ferry arrived, almost empty, from Berkeley we cast off and returned to the dock in order to start the day exploring the island. After a quick stop at the Cones cafe for an oatmeal raisin cookie right off the baking sheet, we found the route to the Immigration Station and Mt Livermore. It quickly mutated from trail to staircase, thus burning the plaque from our arteries as we ascended several flights carrying the bikes! But it was a shortcut, in traditional SJS biking style.

We locked the bikes to a eucalyptus tree and proceeded up the North Ridge trail in lovely shade. Forests are returning to the island, thanks to the park's benign neglect and what looks like a bit of planting of pines. It was very dry and hot though a sea breeze kicked up whitecaps in the Slot below. By the time we reached the summit, the fog over the city had burned off but we could see it sweeping in under the GGB, still capping Alcatraz Island, then lifting and turning to puffy clouds. Lovely views!

Walking back down we watched a family of Swainson's hawks circling above a dry grassy hillside and soon found ourselves back at the bikes. We pedaled off to the Immigration Station on the paved perimeter road. This site has been extensively developed by the park. It doesn't look much like it did in the first half of the 20th century when hundreds of thousands of immigrants came through. The old hospital is undergoing repairs now and the administration building and dock are entirely gone. But just this summer the dedication of the site and a whole series of granite plaques with a photo etching process I've never seen shows the harsh side as well as the hope of Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese, who came through this gate.

The only building that was left and open to the public was the dormitory, about to close for the day when we arrived, with the peeling paint and metal bedposts left throughout. One pair was still rigged with three bunk beds to show the crowded conditions. Several books about the station were on display. I noted a copy of Lisa See's Shanghai Sisters which my SYC book group read last year.

While I read over the plaques and recalled history, Charlie was fascinated by the antics of the skipper of a motor sailor who was struggling to pull up his anchor. It seemed to be snagged on something intractable and no effort of his poor struggling windlass could free the hook. Attempts to work it loose with the engine belching clouds of black smoke also failed. Likely the bottom is foul with old pieces of wrecks and cables. Later Charlie's friend mentioned that it's a local divers' trove of salvage anchors!

We powered over to Tiburon to the Corinthian YC asking for dock space and ended up tying up to one of their buoys outside the breakwater. It was a bit rolly out there but fun to look up at the crowds of Folkboaters partying and nice to have live band music with our dinner. The seaward face of the tall white clubhouse is lined with REAL Corinthian Columns!