New Boat 4 Sled

[sleddog]

Keep close to Nature’s heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. The mountains are calling and I must go. ~ John Muir











Photos compliments of Ann, expedition to Yosemite High Country, 9.9.18 - 9.16.18

 

[AlanH]

That's Tenaya Lake, I think. Well, a couple of pictures are Tenaya. I don't recognize the second lake. I've never actually walked along the Tenaya shore at that end. Next week we are going to Mammoth, and hiking every day. Two days will be on trails we were on last year but one day will be on a trail we haven't walked since 1995.

 

[sleddog]

Capt Bob and MJ are vacationing somewhere in Washington State and currently occupy the cottage in photo below.



At a dock nearby is a most lovely 50 foot yawl, built in 1953.



What is the name or location of the harbor?
What is the name of the rustic boatyard/marina in the background?
What is the name of the 50 foot yawl?
Who is the designer of the yawl?

One correct answer wins Golden Spurtle breakfast at Capitola Boat Club with Synbad and Sleddog.
Two correct answers wins breakfast, and a history walk to the Cliff.
Three correct answers wins breakfast, a history walk, and viewing humpback whale cavorting just offshore.
Four correct answers wins all the above, plus introduction to two precocious Brazilian parrots, Sunny and Mango.

Ready, Set, Go.

 

[Tom P.]

Capt Bob and MJ are vacationing somewhere in Washington State and currently occupy the cottage in photo below.
At a dock nearby is a most lovely 50 foot yawl, built in 1953.

1) What is the name or location of the harbor?
2) What is the name of the rustic boatyard/marina in the background?
3) What is the name of the 50 foot yawl?
4) Who is the designer of the yawl?

Ready, Set, Go.

1) Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA (a truly wonderful place, very worth visiting)
2) Albert Jensen & Son Shipyard / Jensen Boat Yard and Marina
3) TIOGA (formerly: CONDOR, NUNAGA, GEMINI, and TEMPTING (this one took me a while, I was working on my boat today and looking only at the small screen on my phone. It wasn't until I got home and saw a larger image that it came to me).
4) K. Aage Nielsen (I should have known...) Interestingly, she was built at Canter Baglietto, in Varazze, Italy

And for extra points... you too can rent that same cottage through VRBO. https://www.vrbo.com/574563

Tom

 

[sleddog]

1) Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA (a truly wonderful place, very worth visiting)
2) Albert Jensen & Son Shipyard / Jensen Boat Yard and Marina
3) TIOGA (formerly: CONDOR, NUNAGA, GEMINI, and TEMPTING (this one took me a while, I was working on my boat today and looking only at the small screen on my phone. It wasn't until I got home and saw a larger image that it came to me).
4) K. Aage Nielsen (I should have known...) Interestingly, she was built at Canter Baglietto, in Varazze, Italy

And for extra points... you too can rent that same cottage through VRBO. https://www.vrbo.com/574563

Tom

Congrats, DAZZLER! 4 correct answers. We look forward to hosting you at Capitola Boat Club for a Golden Spurtle breakfast, history walk, whale review and parrot introduction.

This afternoon the humpbacks, maybe 6-7, were feeding in close, maybe 100 yards off China Beach. SUP's, kayakers, and whale watch boats were vying for who could get closest. Someone's gonna get hurt, and it probably won't be the whale. Three years ago a humpback whacked and dismasted a Moore-24 when leading the Moore 24 championships off Santa Cruz. The Moore, not the whale.

What color do you think the whale-slapped Moore-24 is, and why would this potentially piss off a humpback?

 

[Daydreamer]

The Moore 24 was black with a white bottom, it is believed the humpback took it for an orca.
Can't regmember the name at the moment, was nicknamed bitch slap.
Boat is Eclipse.

 

[sleddog]

The Moore 24 was black with a white bottom, it is believed the humpback took it for an orca.
Can't remember the name at the moment, was nicknamed bitch slap.
Boat is Eclipse.

Brings up interesting question: "can whales see in color?" (And identify potentially threatening orcas, whose color scheme is black and white.)

In 2002, about halfway from Hawaii to Santa Cruz, a lone bull sperm whale, guessing 50-60 feet LOA, surfaced alongside WILDFLOWER, feet away on the starboard side. I was making 5 knots on a close reach. The sperm's monstrous blunt head came out of the water, and examined my 27 footer with a plate sized eye. The encounter lasted about a minute, after which time he slowly submerged. My heart was thumping. This was definitely an intelligent creature, the largest brain on Earth, who had likely seen it all...and remembered. A privileged encounter. But not one I would wish to repeat.



Some have asked how to identify a sperm whale at sea. They are the only cetacean whose spout "blows" at a forward angle.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...a-whale-in-the-ocean-what-does-it-see/274448/

 

[BobJ]

Eclipse was formerly Scott Easom's Eight Ball (hence the color). It used to win so often that many called it a Moore 25.

 

[sleddog]

If you want to sail trans-ocean while sitting at home, this 6.4 foot robotic craft (controlled from shore), claims to have become the first zero-hander to cross the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland to win the Microtransat Challenge. The SBMET went 1800 miles in 80 days = .9 knots. I believe the east flowing Gulf Stream current runs faster than that. After 20 unsuccessful attempts by other craft, this sounds like a successful drift, about the speed of a Vellela vellela... Someone might want to get a taller rig and some SSS sailors at the controls to try again. Calling Brian B. and Michael J., white courtesy phone please.

 

[AlanH]

I ain't sayin' nuthin' specific, but I've seen something under construction that is gonna be a LOT faster than a velella velella.

 

[AlanH]

We also took a Fall trip to the Eastern Sierra....hiked about 35 miles and covered about 5000 feet of elevation gain.

 

[sleddog]

We also took a Fall trip to the Eastern Sierra....hiked about 35 miles and covered about 5000 feet of elevation gain.

Thanks, Alan, for sharing. What fine views. Looks like color change was happening.

As John Muir eloquently penned, "the Sierra seems to get more light than other mountains. The weather is mostly sunshine embellished with magnificent storms, and nearly everything shines from base to summit - the rocks, streams, lakes, glaciers, irised falls, and the forests of silver fir and silver pine."

Were your walks day hikes? Or overnights? Skelton Lake is nearly 10,000' elevation.

 

[AlanH]

This was Joans birthday trip. It was also our ersatz backpacking trip. Every summer we go backpacking at least once, for a week. When we were a bit younger, we'd often go two or three times, but work schedules have cut into that. Anyway, this year we couldn't go because of my rotator cuff surgery. So for Joans birthday trip, we made it two days longer than usual and day-hiked like crazy. We stayed at a cabin at Tamarack Lodge, in the Mammoth Lakes Basin, on Twin Lakes.

Day One was from the Coldwater Campground, in the Mammoth Lakes Basin to Barney Lake. Just past Barney Lake the trail ascends Duck Pass, which was a bit more than we wanted to bite off on Day One. It's about 3.5 miles from the campground to Barney Lake, which is an unusual milky aqua color. You pass Skelton lake, one of the photographs above, on the way to Barney. While we sat and ate lunch we watched thousands of baby spiders fly by. Yes...fly. This type of spider climbs to the top of a tree and spins a single, long thread. The wind catches the thread and the spider takes off, to land....who knows where. Some little spider threads c ould be seen a couple of hundred feet above the ground, glittering in the sunlight.

On the way back we stopped at Emerald lake and took a detour to Gentian Meadow. The little valley leading up to Gentian Meadow was charming, and while there were no gentians in the meadow, we did discover an unmarked spring of some real size, emerging from the hillside above the meadow. Springs are magical things! Mileage was about 8 miles, for the day.

Day Two took us to one of our favorite destinations, the Little Lakes Valley above Rock Creek. I can not recommend this place highly enough. The trailhead is at 10,000 feet. This time we climbed to Morgan Pass and went OVER it to upper Morgan Lake, on the other side of the pass. The pass is at about 11,150 feet and you drop about 300 feet down to the lake....which means you have to climb back over the pass again, after lunch!.



The Pass is in this photograph, but it's just behind one of the little domes in the middle distance so not *quite* visible. This was a long day...1500 feet of elevation gain and 10.8 miles round-trip.

 

[AlanH]

There is camping at Rock Creek, and cabins and a lodge...Rock Creek Lodge. The entire valley is beautiful, both in the spring when it's green and in the Fall when the aspen turn color.

Rock Creek is about 18 miles more-or-less, south of Mammoth Lakes on Highway 395.

Day Three took us to McGee Creek...see picture above. McGee Creek trailhead might be my favorite eastern Sierra Trailhead. You climb out of the parking lot and have a choice...the lower trail takes you by the aspen along the creek. The upper trail takes you into the warm (often hot!) sagebrush slopes on the north side of the canyon. The sagebrush trail is Insect Heaven, so we usually go that way, as Joan is a butterfly nut, and I like anything that crawls or flies. We saw several Mormon Crickets on the trail.



There were a trillion grasshoppers, but we also saw at least 5-6 different kids of wasps and several types of butterflies, including the Mormon Metalmark.


We get "distracted" by bugs, so we only went about 2 1/2 miles up the canyon, this time.

 

[AlanH]

Day Four was the Big Freaking Deal.

If you look up the June Lake Loop, you'll see that there's a trail that starts at Silver Lake and blasts straight up into the Ansel Adams wilderness, taking you to Waugh Lake. The John Muir Trail is just past Waugh Lake. Slightly closer is Gem Lake, which Joan and I have stayed at, in years past on backpacking trips. I've always been intimidated by this trail and never tried it because from Silver Lake to the top at Gem Lake is 3.1 miles but it's 1800 feet of elevation gain. whooooiiieeee! a lung-buster. Well, I was in a mind to put that bugaboo to bed, and tackle this trail. So with images of me crawling to the top, we set out.

It was not THAT bad. It was steady, without too many of the horse-trail ENORMOUS steps along the way that just kill you. Upshot was, we covered the first 2/3rds to Agnew Lake and it's hydroelectric dam, funicular railway, and project in about an hour and a half. 45 minutes later...and another mile and another 600 feet in elevation gain, we crested the top at Gem Lake, and high-fived each other. By the time we stopped for lunch, 3/4 of a mile further along the lake and 150 feet below trail level, we'd turned this into a 7-mile, 2,000 foot elevation gain gutbuster of a day-hike. We had lunch under a pair of junipers...one male, one female and watched the robins wing back and forth between the trees.

 

[AlanH]

The last day was supposed to be an easy stroll around Convict Lake.



It's two miles around the lake, and there are masses of people in the parking lot by the boat launch ramp. Fishermen ring the lake, so even hiking to the other end didn't get us away from lots of people, but it was pretty....and WINDY!

Anyway, we knew that there was a trail that departed from the lakeside stroll, and climbed some preposterous altitude to some lakes about 7 miles back. When we got to the junction I thought... "Lets hike up a quarter mile until we have a good view of the lake" so we did. Then I noticed the two domes, the lower of which was only about half a mile away. "Let's hike to that dome, I bet the view is great". So we did.

And so it went for about 2 1/2 hours..."Oh, let's go to that place up there, where the trail turns, I bet the view up the canyon will open up"... which meant we climbed about 1200 feet and went about 4 miles up that GORGEOUS canyon.

It wasn't much of a "rest day" but Joan loved it, and I sure wasn't complaining, either.

And there was our "End of Summer" day-hiking trip in the Eastern Sierra. If anybody has questions about that side of the Sierra Nevada, don't be shy to ask. We've been back there so many times I can't count 'em any more.

 

[AlanH]

BTW all of the canyons I've listed here: McGee Creek, Rock Creek and so on, have car-camping in them. The car camping areas are blistering hot in the summer, so April/May and then in September are the best times to go. If you wait until October you risk having a good storm blow through. Before late April, most of the higher passes will still have snow. You START hiking at 8,000 feet or higher back here.

Mammoth Lakes is a great place to stay and has all the amenities, including a swanky ski lodge and "Village" which will be almost deserted during the off-seasons.

For the iron-lunged, Mount Whitney is about 70 miles south of here, with the access road to Whitney Portal leaving Highway 395 near the town of Lone Pine. Unless you are in brutal physical condition, I do not recommend tackling Mount Whitney in one day. People do it, but they are wiry 20-somethings who get up at 3:00 AM to blast to the top to watch the sun rise. They do the whole hike up with a headlamp to illuminate the trail. Then, after breakfast at the summit, they turn around and blast back down again.

It's a 6,000 foot climb. I've NEVER in my life been in that sort of physical condition. People who aren't used to the altitude can get seriously altitude-sick up there and it's no joke. Make it a 4 day backpacking trip, that's plenty hard enough. You'll need USFS permits.

 

[sleddog]

While Joan and Alan were "End of Summer" hiking over an 11,000 foot pass in the Eastern Sierra, Annie and I were hiking in a different fashion at sea level. Here's the postcard.

We were generously loaned our old family's Cal-40 for a hike down Memory Lane and trip to Catalina. RADIANT, #24, built in 1965 by Jensen Marine, is a modern classic now 53 years old and maintained in mint condition. Then named HOLIDAY TOO, she is the only Cal-40 to win both the Transpac (1967) and Congressional Cup (1968). In the 1967 Transpac, Class C had 14 Cal-40's racing boat-for-boat, which made for interesting competition all the way to Diamond Head.



Except for a Dana 24, Howlands Cove on Catalina was pretty much empty during our recent visit.



The 70 degree water was clear and snorkeling was good. Bright orange goldfish, a protected species called Garibaldi, were in abundance despite the absence of historical kelp forests.



Non-native pigs and goats have been removed from Catalina. We did not see any of the 100 or so bison, ancestors of early Westerns filmed on Catalina, roaming the island. In the evening an osprey would perch on the cliff nearby, eyeing possible dinner below. Most notably, a Great Blue Heron adopted RADIANT and would perch on the stern pulpit and inflatable dinghy eyeing activity. We named him "Willard," in honor of old friend Willard Bell, patron of Howland's Cove, who cruised the Pacific and raced competitively with his family aboard the Lyle Hess 36 WESTWARD HO, and their then new Lapworth 50 WESTWARD.



All in all, a low key voyage, Annie's first trip to Catalina. Thanks to her for sharing the adventure and the attached photos. And thanks to Fin for his generosity and loan of RADIANT.

 

[sleddog]

Sunday evening's scheduled launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg AFB appears to be on schedule. Liftoff is set for 7:21 p.m. Pacific Time. The event should be impressive and visible from as far away as Petaluma, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe, California; western Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; and northwest Mexico. A "not too subtle" sonic boom will be included, reports Elon Musk, audible from San Luis Obispo south.

Apparently the first stage of the rocket will be programmed to return to Vandenberg launch site, an historic first, with the landing 9 minutes after liftoff.

For launch status, go to https://spaceflightnow.com

Following the Space X launch, at 8 pm, Capitola will be putting on it's annual Monte Foundation Fireworks from Main Beach/Wharf. Any interested SSSers and family invited to Capitola Boat Club for viewing. It's warm and clear this morning, and should be two spectacular, back-to-back, sky events.

https://www.santacruz.org/upcoming-events/event-detail-page/eventgid/9454

sleddog 8three1-four7fivezero278

 

[AZ Sailor]

Thank you for posting this, Skip. It was indeed visible from Phoenix. I watched it from my front porch. Low clouds gave way to clear sky. As I waited there was a glow in the clouds that I didn't think could be the rocket, but it was. As it cleared the clouds there was no question what we were seeing. Fantastic. Thanks much for the heads up.