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.