Joshua Tree

I went out to Joshua Tree National Park! One of my frisbee friends down here took me out and we spent two nights out in the park under a full moon sky, and one day under the sweltering heat of an angry sun. Man it gets hot out there. And that isn't even that harsh of hotness. I think it got near 100, but not humid at all. I can't imagine what the boiling jungles will do to me in Costa Rica...
I've long felt that although my place is in the water, or on it, I need the desert occasionally to purify myself a bit. It feels so good to get out there and get blasted by such dry air that you forget what water tastes like. Then the green parts of the world speak out wonderfully when you return to them.
There are also some shots from the beach near San Pedro in this group.
As we were coming back to LA, we drove out to near Victorville, where the Mojave river runs into the desert, and found Deep Creek, where we walked along the Pacific Crest trail for a little bit looking for some hot springs. We didn't find them, so instead just swam in the river. A long time ago (Fellow Lloydlings you may recall) I went out this same trail and searched for the same hot springs, but also to no avail. Apparently they are about 7 miles out the trail, and there is an easier way that involves paying for parking on someone's land and hiking two miles. It is a very pretty area, so it was nice to hike around despite the heat. And a good slope for rolling rocks down the hill.

Visitation

My friend Danny flew down from Alaska, and we went out to Catalina for a week, hence the lack of posts...
So we went diving a whole lot, something like 8 times in 6 days.
We saw a bunch of cool birds, including some black skimmers (and a Bald Eagle, which is fairly rare here) and some flying fish. Check out the videos, there is one where danny gets run over by a boat.

Newport beach

I'm back at Catalina Island, but I spent a week in Newport Beach, the sailing capital (some would say) of the west coast....
Sadly, I was dissapointed. There is tons of sailing done in the harbor, which is prodigious and crowded at the same time, but there wasn't a lot of wind or sailing to be done outside the harbor. Its kind of rough there all the time.
And there weren't any old-timer cruisers lanking around with their leathery skin to tell me in a gravelly voice that they approved (or did not) of my boat. In fact, the high class crowd there looked down their noses at me nearly the whole time I was there. And I ran into trouble with the law. Of course.
You can anchor 5 days at a time in the harbor for free, and I did, and it was mentioned to me that the period between stays need only be 24 hours, so 48 hours later, I came back to anchor again. I had tried to call the harbormaster to get confirmation of this, but the phone would not connect me to a person, so after leaving a message, I figured I would try it out.

And at midnight, I was summoned to deck by a bright light and a motor right next to the boat, and a voice called from the lofty heights of the patrol boat, telling me that I would have to move.
So I moved back to the outside place, (another free anchorage spot) where I didn't get much sleep. That's been a theme lately. No sleep.
On another front, I am sorry that I haven't written or posted anything in the last little while. I have another excuse, if you'll read on...
My faithful computer became sick and died while I was in Newport, and I managed to reach into the grave and (with 100 bucks and 4 days of waiting) ressurrect it, while in Newport. I managed to do so, but I still need to re-install a lot of programs, so its a work in progress still.
I also got to meet up with a friend of mine Matt, who I first met in Costa Rica, and then, on my drive around the country 18 months ago, I saw him over in North Carolina. So I'll see him again in two years or so. We went out sailing.
Now I'm in Catalina Island, and I will head up to Marina Del Ray, then pick up Danny from the airport, and we will head out for a week. And I'll have lots of pictures to post after that for sure.