A curious whale

I just commented how disappointed I am that after all this sailing I have yet to see a whale. I am not that eager now. A CNN video about a whale landing on a boat.

Dock Gnome and other Dock Accoutrements

There has been lots of weather as you can tell from the Captain's posts.  Today was supposed to be calm.  The Captain got an invitation from Neighbor Wilson to go out on his 27' Catalina this morning and troll for salmon.  They went out for two hours, but nothing was biting.

The Captain inspected our sail and did not find a new nest.  I was a little sad to hear about that.  On the up side, I won't have to be cleaning baby birdie poop off of the sail.  At any rate, dock life is thriving.

I love the stuff that our dockmates put out for decoration!  I feel extra lucky to have a communal gnome!  I would have never thought to procure one of my own, but I am very happy to share in the collective luckiness!

Check out all the other gnome statues that I found!

Dock/Garden Gnome:

Function: noun
Etymology: French, from New Latin gnomus
Date: 1661
1 : an ageless and often deformed dwarf of folklore who lives in the earth and usually guards treasure
2 : an elemental being in the theory of Paracelsus that inhabits earth
— gnome•like \-ˌlīk\ adjective

— gnom•ish \ˈnō-mish\ adjective

I was thinking about getting a fake owl to stand guard over our boat when we are gone.  I think the plastic owl is supposed to discourage gulls and other birds from making homes on the boat.

I love the shiny triangle "used car lot" streamers!  I want some for our boat, but I don't know where to get them.  Seriously, if anyone knows where to get these, please let me know!!!

I am a sucker for shiny things....

Sailing Season?

One thing I didn't expect living in California is a sailing season. In the Midwest and Northeast because of winter cold or even in the Southeast with huricaine season I could always imagine people all giddy at the beginning of spring with anticipation of being able to sail again. Well spring is here and I am the giddy one. Maybe it is just a result of a really bad winter for sailing.  I have mentioned in previous posts my difficulties in finding good days for sailing. It was tough to even find days that you could get out of the harbor due to large surf breaking in the harbor mouth.

The surf this year wasn't as bad as this picture shows. This picture is an anomaly.  There have only been waves of 50' plus like this breaking in the harbor mouth a couple times ever, but it was over 10' alot more than it was under this winter. This picture is still great, that bus is about a thousand yards in front of that wave and still looks tiny.

Spring is here as is smaller waves and I am ready for a long cruise.

This is the start of a couple of posts that will be planning a trip to the Catalina Islands this summer. Before I sail a couple hundred miles, I think the first step will be a trip to Avila which is 20 miles by boat. The main thing to find out is where to anchor when I get there. I am sure I will learn many more things before the planning is done. Updates to follow.

How to Look at the World

One of my patients is an artist. I mean, a real artist…like, with paintings in galleries. Not just a hobbyist. She is radiantly beautiful. She glows with an inner calm, a spirit of peaceful harmony with life and the land. In some minutes of openness, she shared with me how she developed thinking, knowing artist eyes. Her grandmother, also an artist, took her out of school on special days and they would walk the land and look at trees and flowers and grass. And “my grandmother taught me how to look at the world.”

It is not a philosophical or religious question. Well, that is not fair, because maybe it is. But, it is meant to be a health question. How can I live the healthiest life available to me? We look at the world whether we think about how we do it or not. Clearly, some outlooks are healthier than others. Did we learn to look at it? Did I look at it the way I’ve always looked at it? Did I take any different steps in my looking? Were there any new vistas? Are there any new colors or shapes?

Since I’ve started examining how I look at the world, I’ve noticed that playfulness comes easier. There is more room for humor and even failure. What would it be like to have a purple dog? How about green eggs and ham? And almost as quickly as I can come up with these endless possibilities, I want to share them with someone else. This presents a problem akin to the tree falling in the forest. If I don’t post it on facebook, does it really exist?
George Berkeley (1685-1753) talked of objects ceasing to exist once there was nobody around to perceive them. Old George would probably be overwhelmed with the amount of information available at our fingertips today. The internet, while fraught with cyber-pollution and cyber-noise, may not exist if I don’t look at it.

My artist patient is a Baby-Boomer. I’m a Gen-Xer. Everyone born after 1980 is a Millenial. At some point, we all decide how to look at our world. Perhaps more of my days could be “special” days in which I take time out to observe, revere, appreciate, listen, describe, and find peace. Maybe I can pass it on to someone else the old fashion way: in person, face to face, with a bright radiant gift smile.

~Lauren