Back in California!

[aggienaut]

   Hello from San Francisco! We sailed in under the Golden Gate Bridge around 2am the morning of last Friday, having been at sea since the prior Monday (up at Ilwaco in the mouth of the Columbia).

   I stood the 4-8 watch (which is of course both 4-8 AM and PM). It's a pretty decent watch since you get every sunset and sunrise and dinner at 6pm doesn't interrupt your off time. You just gotta go to bed right at 8pm if you want to get eight hours of sleep before your next watch (which of course ends at 8am, by which time it's daytime again!). The 8-12 watch has a better deal in terms of they get to sleep during normal sleeping time, and then the other watch, 12-4, doesn't have any redeeming qualities that I can think of.
   I didn't get to be a watch leader this time since we had a third person with a master's license so they made him the third watch leader. But instead I got to man the wheel for hte majority of my watches. In the watch before mine apparently three of the four people were avid singers and they passed the time by singing all through their night watches. Ours we barely talked at all, preferring to all sullenly gaze off at the horizon as the hours passed by, with an occasional comment on the weather to be answered with an agreement followed by more silence. Not that I'm complaining, it was altogether a very decent transit. Quiet watchmates are better than annoying ones, the weather was nice, and we made excellent time. I've got pictures of most of the sunrises and sunsets, most of them being picturesque. Later maybe I'll put them all up.

   Arriving down here we moored up at Jack London Square in Oakland for the weekend. The highlight of this location was THE bar that I've heard experienced old hands talk about up and down the coast -- Heinhold's First and Last Chance. The bar opened and has been in continuous operation since 1883, and many objects inside are original. It was built from the timbers of an old whaler, and was frequented by sailors from the beginning (it was their "first and last chance" to get a drink before shipping out or upon arriving). In the great 1906 earthquake the entire building shifted and settled at a steep slant, and they've kept it that way so it has an extremely unique slant to the entire place. The clock on the wall is stopped where the quake stopped it.

   It's Fleet Week in San Fran which means there's been a lot of boats about and on Saturday and Sunday the Blue Angels put on an airshow over the bay and we had "front row" seats as it were right in the middle. I got to skylark aloft for some of it, putting me right at eye level of some of the tricks! It was pretty awesome.

   Today we moved over to Pier 40 on the San Fran side of the bay. If anyone is around and wants to visit, just remember that Pier 40 is NOT anywhere near Pier 39.


   We got a new captain right before the transit, this fellow Jake, who is pretty laid back. Now that JB is transferred to the other boat to take over as captain over there I have room to reflect that his sullen moody demeaner was rather unsettling and I'm pretty sure he despised me.
   In addition to this the crew is nearly 100% different from what it was a month or so ago (as tends to happen), and while I've always liked the crew here, for awhile I think too many members of the crew were just a bit TOO charismatic, particularly Tyson and Will, and I had been really starting to develop a complex about being the most boring personality-less person on the crew. Not that the current people aren't interesting and full of personality, but one way or another I haven't been feeling quite so out of it lately.


   I'll only be on the boat for about another week -- getting off sometime after we arrive in Sacramento. From there I'm not exactly sure where I'll go. I really want to visit gratefuladdict in Modesto, I also need to get my car from Monterey, where my cousin has apparently run off with it after naming it Grendel or something, and then of course I need to get back down to southern California.
   On October 30th the schooner Spirit of Dana Point will be transitting from Santa Barbara down to Dana Point and I think I should be able to get myself on it for that. (:


Picture of the Day


Joel cleaning the fresh water tank. To keep it as clean as possible the cleanest article of clothing on the boat was requisitioned for the purpose -- Will's spotted onesy pajamas.


I just uploaded the pictures from two weeks ago that I never got around to putting on flickr due to computer troubles.

Comments

[elvenforever.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a memorable sail! When do you go off to be with the Peace Corps? Also, can't see your Flickr pictures -- it's giving me some kind of message that it's locked. :(

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmmm should work. I think other people were able to see them? Try again? /:

[elvenforever.livejournal.com]

Nope, still nothin'. :)

[working-dreamer.livejournal.com]

You have some grand adventures! :) I love the pic of the spotty pajamas. I'm starting to think that people shouldn't wear them after the age of 12.

spotted onesies

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

It was pretty funny seeing my 20 something shipmates in them. Esp when they'd come out for smoke break while still wearing them!

[worldofcharlie.livejournal.com]

That bar has good beer...but we've only been there once...

Drat - we're driving down to SoCal...if you're in Southern California this week - PM me with contact info if you'd like to meet up someplace...

*likes your pictures*

Hope you're able to visit a certain someone in Modesto.. :) (if so - say hi for me)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

won't be in so cal for at least a week! such sauce!

[worldofcharlie.livejournal.com]

that sucks - cause we'll be back in the Bay area on the 18th..you'll probably be headed down to So Cali by then...

Well there's always next time!!

[gaeln.livejournal.com]

Waves from San Jose. Checked out your uploads, your photography is beautiful, great composition, color, subject matter, the whole of what you're supposed to do. I really like the strangely composed like the barbed wire one and the foggy moody ones of the boats. Hope you're able to find your way to Monterey without too much trouble.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

San Jose! That's totally near San Fran, no excuses for not popping up here for to visit!! :D

Also, thanks (:

[risingtofall.livejournal.com]

that must be so peaceful and calming being on the boat and being a watch at those times and seeing the sunet and sunrise. I can't tell you the last time I've watched either.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's interesting. The other watches both have one watch solidly during day time and one solidly during night time, but for the 4-8 watch both your watches are during transition from one to the other.

[abe-lincoln666.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read John Steinbeck's "Log of the Sea of Cortez"? It's basically a book about a scientific/marine biology expedition that Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts made to the Sea of Cortez (AKA Gulf of Baja California) in the 1940s. It's not one of Steinbeck's more popular novels, but it's an interesting read none the less; it kind of alternates between stories about the stuff they saw, and analysis of the stuff that they discussed while together on the trip.

If you had a spare month or three to shackle yourself to a wordprocessor, you'd probably be able to generate a pretty cool book based on your recent sea voyages.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I really wish I'd had more time to write, I could have made a decent LJ entry every day but as it happens I ended up rarely having time to make more than two a week.. if not one a month! ): In the evenings it has fortunately been not so much work as much as fun stuff going on, but there's always things going on here!