Ups and Downs

Ramping up daily

When you live in a house your sidewalk usually does not move and your driveway may be on a slant but it stays that way day to day.  If you live on a mooring you go up and down with the tides so the changes appear relative. If you live on a dock as I do which floats in place tied to a piling you go up and down but inside the boat everything remains the same.

piling at high tide

So the docks go up with the tide and back down again but the land stays put. The gangway between the docks and the shore slides on a large steel roller as the water rise or lower. The angle of the gangway can change dramatically and at very low tides or swing tides the hike up can be a workout.

In fact I have seen older seniors unable to go up the hill. Using a dock cart with a good load of two deep cycle batteries might required and extra hand to help or a motor. Walking up the ramp at real low tides wearing cycling shoes with cleats could kill you. I use three different styles of cleats, one is for old style platform pedals that have toe clips, one is for newer Shimano Dur-Ace and my Fixie use Time pedals.

6 inches more at it will flood

This week we are having King Tides which are extremes compared to the normal spring tides. The calendar is about to change in about a week making it officially winter. The spring tides occur twice a month and the reference is to the spring action of the tides not the seasons of the year.

Please don't step on me

For some tides and ocean waves can me a baffling mystery. Many moons ago we were driving up the coast from Santa Monica to Lake Cachuma to go water skiing. Little did we know that you couldn't ski there. On the way up I got in to an argument with Carson about the waves. He said the waves were caused by the tides and said "No, it the wind". Carson probably grew up with Dorthy in Kansas where I grew up by the beach.

Old Man's at high tide

The tides makes the wave take different shapes at the sea bottom changes with the depth. If you have every surfed a rocky beach the walk in at low tide can be a real pain.

Cabrillo Beach

Last month when we had a Super Moon my neighbor flatly refused to consider the sun and its tidal influences. An avid fisherman and boat owner denied the sun was involved.

Sea Hare Cabrillo Beach Tidepool

Low tides are hard on the creatures in tide pools that get invaded by shit heads resembling an invasion of Japanese picture takers.

gangway rides on this roller

Since your house or apartment stays put you over the air TV stays the same or if you are a slave to cable or Direct you don't need to worry. But today my sailboat will change in height by 8 feet so at spring tides my Telly reception improves or sucks.

Samsung hidden behind bicycles

The above nonsense is my son Dylan YouTube Channel breaking 5,000 subscribers.

Tandem is from Epic Bike.

All my pictures shown here were taken with my Nikon D80. In the sidebar there is a video of the high water mark at Cabillo Beach YC and that was taken with my Samsung S6

Another late afternoon edition. My son has a new Stranger BMX 20 inch frame out.


 

This Video above was taken Wednesday afternoon at extreme low tide by Point Fermin during my afternoon bicycle ride.

Another new day another non-adventure

When I first started blogging I had an IPhone and a laptop. My pictures were taken with my Nikon D80. Each blog required the data from the camera to be downloaded to the HP laptop then edited. File sizes needed to be reduced to shorten the Blogger editor upload.

Photos taken for weddings

Living on a boat means you are very close to the water. IPhones don't float. Smart phones and salt water can be very expensive if mixed.

My Nikon is still around but my Galaxy S6 is usually in my back pocket unless I am out paddling. Phones are not allowed on any of my stand up paddle boards or when paddling a surfski. Learned the lesson.

My grandson Arlo in 2008

Jayne's power boat

Since this Blog is several years old many links on the sidebar are now dead ends. As I mentioned earlier for a period of time all blogs were about speedway racing and most of the followers were involved with the sport or fans of it. Each Blog was linked in FaceBook. FaceBook became a hackers paradise so I stopped using it.

Sunset Downwind

My grandfather's flag

My Instagram is @Captaindewayne and maybe I can get some followers to read this. It was hard to keep the sidebar up todate for Dylan. He has his own site on YouTube now:Dylan Stark

Same with Fancy Pants:Frances Stark

One of my neighbors live in Riverside County and they make that terrible drive when they use their Hunter sailboat on the weekends. Yesterday they had a broker on their boat as they have decided to sell it. Their boat is a forty footer and that required a larger slip and larger slips are rarer in older marinas. If you are ever thinking about buying a boat, first see a psychiatrist or some mental health provider before looking for a boat sales person. Then if you are not committed and start shopping be aware that just because a boat is for sale doesn't mean the slip is going to be available. There maybe a waiting list before I move to where I am at I had to get on a waiting list and wait for a empty slip.

Visiting another marina

Currently where I am there are lots of empty slip for 35 foot boats but a waiting list for live aboards. Regulations and management policies can vary greatly between marinas.

San Pedro Sun Rise

For the last two speedway season I have written a blog about the speedway scene in Southern California. For those unfamiliar with speedway a few clicks back here will show pictures of this motor sport. Though the season is over there are still races that will continue through the fall and winter periods but I have parked mine in the back of the garage until next year.

A few months back I gave up living under a roof and moved on to my boat and with some exceptions when I do some house and grandson sitting I am happily living in San Pedro, California in a great marina.

Living on a boat puts you in touch with nature, you feel it and hear it in a different way. When the wind blows or the tide changes you become aware of this. The light of the sun, stars and moon illuminate the inside of the boat.

If the sky is clear the morning rise of the sun gives enough light to start doing things very early. Many are out early walking or running around the sidewalks that border the marina and Cabrillo Beach.

The views do not stay static during the day as the skies color change as the sun rises and lights go off and later the afternoon winds come up. The water goes from a silver stillness to a slight ripple to the small white caps in the gulch.

Small fishing boats start to go out and cargo ships come in.

And each day the sun moves to a new position in the sky shadowing the Eastern mountain.

The above three shots are from the lifeguards rowing their surf dory very early.

Our neighbors include many sea birds, squirrels, tons of feral cats, harbor seals, and many various types of fish. The harbor is not sterile and the amount of fish one see in the marina makes one feel as if you were in an aquarium.

These pictures were taken on September 29, 2010 around the marinas adjoining Cabrillo Beach which is located in San Pedro, California with a Nikon D80.