Walking most mornings, being towed by one or two of Annie's dogs, along the Harbor, out the west breakwater, and across Seabright Beach is never dull duty. Just the birds are worth a paragraph: cormorants, pelicans, gulls, plovers, marbled godwits, willets, sandpipers, scoters, loons, grebes, herons, hawks, crows, ....
This morning we saw two mallard ducks. They were both on a dock, staring into the mirrored waterline windows of a very expensive large yacht. Mr. male mallard was pecking at his reflection, presumably to show his twin that his consort was already spoken for.
As we watched in amusement, the mallard, not paying sufficient attention to his footing, fell into the narrow gap between the dock and the yacht and got stuck. Without enough space to flap his wings, we could see his predicament, as could the lady mallard, who seemed to be saying, "Danny, what are you doing down there? Get out, now!"
Finally Danny Duck realized if he just let himself relax, he could drop downward into the water, swim under the dock, and re-emerge in safety. Which he did, promptly repositioning himself beside his girlfriend, and began to peck at the window again!
On we walked across from loud crashes at the boatyard across the channel, where a demolition company with a front hoe and large dump truck was breaking up three abandoned boats, including two 30 foot powerboats and a trimaran. That's what happens at Santa Cruz if you don't pay slip rent, all courtesy of a state program to remove derelicts.
Riding home on my bike, I swung by the boatyard to get a better look at the action. By now, the 3 boats were gone. But a large pile of debris remained to be scooped up. What's wrong with this picture? Apparently the fuel tanks hadn't been completely emptied and the debris pile and near surroundings reeked of gasoline while the front hoe operator scraped the ground smoking a cigarette as he operated the controls, WTF?
"She's a gonna blow," I thought, and fled in the direction of the 70 foot schooner MAYAN, hauled and on blocks to refinish and streamline her 800 pound ironwood centerboard, likely made by Myron Spaulding in 1975 when her original board broke off on a passage from Tahiti to San Francisco. The story goes that owner David Crosby was having a pee off the stern at sunrise when he noticed MAYAN was being followed by a very large manta ray. On closer examination, Crosby saw it was MAYAN's original centerboard being towed by it's winch cable. MAYAN was not very fast, but this was slower yet. So Crosby and crew cut the wire cable and the board disappeared in the aqua blue depths, weaving like the manta ray is wasn't.
After 5 of us got MAYAN's centerboard turned over, I retreated for the CBC, 4 miles east..Passing the Harbor breakwater I noticed the dredge was sucking outside the entrance, disposing a 12" pipe's worth of black sludge from sand spoils mixed with rotten kelp into the surf line next to the east breakwater. There were two noticeable things about this picture. One, there was a dredge crew member sitting in his truck on the beach with sensitive instruments to measure the windspeed and direction, as well as the amount of sulfur smell concentration in the air. Should the wind shift onshore in the direction of expensive homes, the entire 10 man operation would shut down rather than risking another law suit.
As well, if you look closely, there are 2 surfers riding "Lefts and Rights, " the ephemeral and legendary surf break that only appears when the dredge is operating in the near vicinity, making the perfect wave machine.
