Baja California

 I've made it to Cabo San Lucas, and am dropping off Lindsey today at the airport.  We had a great time together exploring the peninsula. 
We started off near Punta San Carlos, where there is a lot of dust, and there were some determined cows that were tromping through the dust to get somewhere.  The sun was rising and the dust looked really neat.

 We also went to Punta Baja, where we found some small waves and a full moon, with an Osprey perched along a clifftop watching the water.

 Then we went to what we have been calling the "Dolphin Coast", which is a really cool area that seems to be little traveled.  We discovered a huge group of Sooty Shearwaters and while we were surfing at what we named "shearwater express", they came bombing along just over the waves and all around us, over us, and zipping right next to our heads, possibly as close as 5 feet away, gliding along the surface and the crests of the waves.  It was very exciting to be sitting in the middle of a freeway of birds, in the oncoming lane, watching traffic zip by.  I don't know how many there were, but about 50 at any moment were going by, and it lasted for 30-45 minutes, so lets say 50/second is 3000 a minute, and for 30 minutes is about 90,000 birds. 
Later on we found a bunch of fishes and surfed with them.  The small fish are everywhere, and darken the water, but are scared of big things, so they leave a clear patch of water next to a swimmer or surfer.  When you catch a wave, the fish are caught up in it too, and they flip and flop and wiggle against your legs which feels quite strange.  In the evening dolphins came in and started chasing the fish, so the birds also descended and it was a mad feeding frenzy.  I tried to paddle out into it but the frenzy moved too fast.

 From the dolphin coast we headed on down and found some nice places to surf.  Lindsey is getting a nice little grab rail stance and it works really well for steeper sections.

 There were some fun ones for her, but it was pretty little overall.

 Here's one of the bigger ones.  I notice she holds here forward hand down, which I do as well, and I've been told its a bad habit.  I guess I've passed that habit on.  (apparently you should point to where you want to go)

 Finally we made it to Southern Baja and in the East Cape area we played around a bit.  The waves were much bigger here and the beaches steeper, so there is this awesome reverb that happens when the wave bounces back and hits the oncoming wave and it slaps together.  Lindsey took this shot.

 While she was taking the waves shots, she also got some of me surfing this little reef break that is a bit of a nail biter.  It was nice and big but hard to make sometimes.

 Here's a bigger one.  I'm very proud of getting the fin out of the water, you can see the dark thing under the back of the board.

 The wave ends in a shorebreak close-out, so you have to go go go and then pop over the top.

 Sometimes it is kind of hollow.

 The trip was really great, but we've decided that living out of the truck for two months is a little bit too long.  Next time we will probably be quicker and then go to a spot and stay in a house.
I've got a few more days until I fly to Barcelona to look at a Pogo 40 there, so just in time to get some more surf in.

Sailing to Catalina Video

Ok, I made a little video of the trip over to Catalina.  It was a lovely trip.

Sailing to Catalina Island

I just got back from a short trip across to Catalina Island on my friend Brad's Pogo 40.

 I've been interested in this kind of boat for a long time and now that I've sold Altair, I'm ready for a new boat.

So we sailed over to Catalina and then did some diving and then sailed on back.

It had been a long time since I've been to Catalina, and it was nice to go back and see what had changed.  Here is a shot looking over the isthmus to the far side harbor (cat harbor)

And here is Brad's boat as we came back to the ship.  It is amazing how deep the keel is on this, but yet, we motored around in shallow waters a bunch to find a good spot to snorkel, and it didn't touch. 

I climbed up the mast and here is a shot from looking from the top, down on the deck.  It was pretty clear water and so you can see the bottom and the kelp growing along the bottom also.

 I flew my kite (for the first time in a long time) and took a nice long slow shot (turn the volume off though, I didn't edit it or anything, just wanted to post it quickly) and so here is what it looks like to go about 10 knots with the spinnaker up in about 16 kts of wind! 

Yellowstone to LA

 I just got to LA after a few weeks of exploration around the west.  Lindsey and I drove through Yellowstone, looking for creatures, and we found some!  We went to the Lamar Valley looking for wolves, and found them, but the pictures are of little dots, so I didn't include them.  We did find a Coyote right along the road, so it was cute and romping around looking for mice or small rodents...

 I like the look of Coyotes, they are sleek and cute.  We didn't see any road runners, so we didn't have any other opinions on the matter.

 There was a little chipmunk that we found while walking around, and it was in a nice pose...

 And a Mountain bluebird

 We explored some geysers, and watched Old Faithful go off, but this is a small steam vent.  It was difficult to get pictures because it was snowing a lot of the time.  Winter comes early in this part of the world.  Despite that summer seems to be over, the park was still crowded.

 At the Grand Prismatic spring, there was giant clouds of steam that made pictures quite difficult, but I got this one I liked of the steps of hot life on the spring's edge.

 As we were about to leave the park we found some bison, and popped into the back of the truck to use it as a blind.  There was two that were trying to decide what to do; to cross the road or not, and they stood in the middle for a while grunting at each other, it was very interesting.

 And a few baby bison tucked into the herd.  Watching the babies, they cannot move very fast and have little self defense, but then when you look at the big mamas and poppas, then it makes sense how they survive. 

 From Yellowstone we went to the Grand Tetons, and the sky cleared up a little bit to offer a view of the peaks!

 And there were some moose along the side of the road and we stopped to look.

 The Maples in the hills were starting to change color.

 We drove through Utah and stopped in Antelope Island, in Great Salt Lake, and found some neat things there too.

 A pronghorn, and a Merlin!

 And a rock Wren.

 And then a whole bunch of Phalaropes.  I always wondered where they go for the wintertime.  I see them in SE alaska in the spring and fall.

Eastbound (and then down)

 On my trip south from Alaska, I began by flying to seattle, except that I didn't make it to seattle, the rains were too strong over the airport, so we flew in circles for a while before landing in Bellingham.  I wanted to go to Bellingham anyways, so I just got off the plane, but before I did, I took a few pictures out the window of the plane at the lightning that started while we were on the ground.

 These are just 5-10 second exposures out the window, but there was some exciting electricity in the air.

 I spent a week in Bellingham before heading out east, then exploring around in Glacier National Park with Lindsey.  We found some White crowned sparrows...

 And a nice little waterfall..

 And the pool of water at the base of the falls was very cool.  It was so clear.  I think the clarity of the water comes from the rocks being so old.  They are up to 1.6 billion years old here.

 We found a few meadows to look for moose in, but the moose were hard to find.  But find one we did!

 It was on the side of the hill.  Most of the animals around here are far away and hard to see.  Lindsey is great at spotting them, fortunately.

 We went up to Iceberg lake and the wind was howling and cold, but it was pretty, and then we had a bunch of huckleberries, which were delicious.

 On the way back we found some quaking aspens and some fall colors.  Very pretty.

Our last night had a splendid sunset with fierce winds coming down off the mountains.  I didn't sleep much that night from the wind buffetting the truck, but it's been a memorable experience. 

WND end of season video

here's a video I made of the stuff I saw this summer.

Final Alaska Week

 What a week!  My favorite week of the season!  Also my last week of the season.  I started it out by going for a hike in Ketchikan, and I managed to find a little meandering river that was chock full of salmon. 

 It winds around through a cool little canyon

 Then I had a nice kayak up the river at the highest tide I've ever seen at Walker Cove, and I got way up the river, further than I've ever got before.  There were some Harlequins up there, also lots of salmon, and a few bears, but I didn't see the bears.

 I did, however, find a bear in Anan Creek Bear Observatory, and got some nice close looks

 It looked back

 And here it is eating some Stink Curant Berries. 

 Then we went to the Keku islands, and I got a skiff tour, and found about 60 whales that went about their business around me

 Also a Common Murre

 Then we took everyone out cruising for critters and found the whales, an elephant seal, and finally, Orca! 

 Here are some shots of them!  They hung out with us for a long time, we stopped, shut down the main engines and sat dead in the water for about 45 minutes and they circled and looked at us a while.  When we finally started up again and began to move off they began to slap their pectoral fins as if to tell us not to go, or to wave us goodbye

 The next day was Robert and Crow and I got another skiff tour and found more whales

 The whales got real close

 and some of our kayakers came out and the whales passed close to them as well.

 Here is some whale poop.  Its mostly krill, I think, because of the color.

 And a nice look at some tubercles

 Then we went to Dawes glacier again, and found some seals

 and then we had a really cool calving, where the ice hit the water and then a gigantic plume of spray went way way up, almost twice the height of the glacier

 More seals on ice

 That evening, we had some northern lights.  A perfect way to end the trip

 Here's another shot of it.

So I'm done for the season, and then I'll go begin driving down for my wintertime of playing in mexico