jalama

If you have never visited Jalama Beach Park and the surrounding coastline in northern Santa Barbara County, put it on your 'to visit' list. Isolated and without a reservation system, it can be a pain in the ass getting a campsite on a summer weekend (you won't get a spot unless you arrive by Thursday midday). But the rest of the year is mellow, and if you're lucky the afternoon onshores won't be too strong (although the kiteboarders are fun to watch).

Jalama Beach is a wonderful example of hybrid southern/central California coastal environment relatively untouched by humankind. Aside from the simple campground and store, there are only train tracks a couple hundred feet above the beach, wide open ranch land, and just one road in and out. Otherwise it's all pretty wild and natural with no civilization in sight.

There is beachbreak directly in front of the campground, a few funky reefs to the north and south that sometimes come alive, and the powerful lefts of Tarantulas, about 1/2 mile to the south. I highly recommend walking the 8 or so miles south to Point Conception. The last stretch to the base of the point is only possible at a solid low tide but it's a GREAT walk and you're likely to be all alone, a rarity (at least on the coast) in southern California...

salt of the earth

Photo copyright Gazelle 2001

Her homemade vino blanco comes from backyard vines, fermented just a couple months, proudly served in pint glasses that will be refilled regularly and insistently. Saying no is not an option. Guests will be drunk in the early afternoon, hungover by evening...

Laza, Galicia, Spain

capt. watson comes to town!

If you're in the Portland area, come hear Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson talk next week about his organization's current campaigns. For example, ramming Japanese whalers in international waters and spraying their crews with pie filling! And it's legal under United Nations law! (Well, maybe not the pie filling part.) This man is the real deal - a committed lifetime environmentalist and friend to the seas and the creatures that live in them.

Wednesday, April 18th in Room 7 of Wood Hall at Lewis and Clark Law School, 12:00-1:30PM. Admission is FREE and donated food will be provided by Blossoming Lotus of Portland. Hell, yeah! Mosh pit in front of the podium!

Capt. Watson will also be speaking that evening at Pirate's Tavern but you'll have to make a minimum $5 donation to attend that event.

http://www.seashepherd.org/crew-watson.html

t street

T Street: a normally sloppy reef break just south of the San Clemente Pier, pictured above during one of its finer moments. As sloppy and as full of lumpy sections as it usually is though, this spot and other relatively low quality beach breaks in S.C. have been a breeding ground for very good surfers. Not only do the breaks in town have their moments, it doesn't hurt that Trestles is just south of town and Salt Creek is just a few minutes north. That said, what I like most about T Street is that it can hold some size. My favorite combination of conditions there is a hefty SW at low tide. The rights may be ridden the longest then, all the way onto the inside sandbar where you can sometimes get royally shacked.

abuela

Photo copyright Gazelle 2001

Independent granny, living alone. Getting all her stuff done. Cute as a button.

Galicia, Spain

home for the holidays

Photo copyright Gazelle 2001

Picture this: you live in the big city 6 hours drive from the tiny village where you grew up. Almost everyone your age and younger lives elsewhere now, but most are home celebrating this week. This is your chance to return temporarily to the way of life you wish wasn't fading, as the village shrivels into a quiet spot where the old folks pass away, one by one. You're probably an alcoholic, especially this week. Next week you'll be back at work in the big city, surrounded by millions of strangers.

Carnival 2001, Laza, Galicia, Spain.

old school recycling

"The objects around us, the make-shifts of fishermen ashore, often made us look down to see if we were standing on terra firma. In the wells everywhere a block and tackle were used to raise the bucket, instead of a windlass, and by almost every house was laid up a spar or a plank or two full of auger-holes, saved from a wreck. The windmills were partly built of these, and they were worked into the public bridges. The light-house keeper, who was having his barn shingled, told me casually that he had made three thousand good shingles for that purpose out of a mast. You would sometimes see an old oar used for a rail. Frequently also some fairweather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the coast was nailed up against an outhouse."

- from Henry David Thoreau's "Cape Cod", written in the 1850's

I am not sure what is so appealing to me about ripping parts off a shipwreck and making use of them, nor what exactly is so exciting about a shipwreck. I guess tearing apart a wreck is just plain interesting because you never know what you might find. With a shipwreck, I suppose the attraction is manyfold: the drama of a storm, the actual wrecking of the ship, heroic rescue and survival stories, and lives lost. But scavenging has its own thrills, too. It's old school recycling at its finest.