Salty Sez™

Nasty weather blues, and SAD (Seasonal Adjustment Disorder) really get adjusted by fishing in Los Cabos. I hi-tailed down to Cabo del San Jose to adjust myself. Did the usual: drove to Playa del Pamilla and hired a barca con capitan from Julio D. No panga this time. Trolled for 4+ hours. Nada, pero muy bonito there out on the ocean, sun tan lotion, sun burst waves at our wake. The wind was way too high. no fish for no one for two days.

Then Yahoo! Dorado, tuna, a marlin (Yes, I released it.). At Bahia Santa Maria, I laid upon the VERY BEST sand in the whole world and watched two juvenile grey whales show off for a sight-seeing boat about 1/8 a mile off shore. Why is it the best sand, you ask? Because its tiny grains are like polished beads, oblong, smooth and they all fall off when they dry upon your skin.

I prefer San Jose del Cabo over San Lucas because the real working town section is easily apparent, it is more complex culturally, less of a party-til-you-drop atmosphere, more regular interfacing between tourists and the locals and a much more relaxed pace.

The slowing of the United States’ economy is felt in Los Cabos now. Beaches are a about half as full, the vendors and shopkeepers are really squeezed: few tourists.

But the sun, the sea and the whales don’t care and neither did I. Especially thinking of my seafaring friends toiling upon the Bering Sea. Hi guys!

Stay clear of the rocks! Til next time. -SaltySez

The Salmon season was not too good, the limits on fishing generally held down everyone: This summer looked like a small pond drying up with too many fish int it. Now this oil spill has shut down Tomales Bay and that area and the crab season is delayed - But Safeway still wants to get paid at the check out stand. I just hope that the herring season won’t be trashed by the spill.

The way I figure it, since a vessel of the size of that container takes over 1/16 mile to appreciate a change of course, the northerly turn out of the south bay was made too sharp or too soon.

‘Til later - Stay off the rocks AND away from the oil.

Northern California crabbing season is always interesting, and sometimes lucrative. Wonder how heavy the catch will be? Wonder if the Cresent City crowd and the San Francisco - Half Moon Bay crowd will ever get along? With the price of fuel, I wonder what the margin’s gonna be: not so good, I fear.

Til next time, stay off the rocks.

Seems there soon may be a new decision of the United States District Court concerning an employer’s duty of care to its mariners insofar as job hazard analysis and the I.S.M. 33 C.F.R. Pasrt 96 is concerned. I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, STAY OFF THE ROCKS!

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY OF THE SEA: IT’S NOT THE SEA THAT IS CRUEL. IT’S THE MARINER WHO MAKES IT SO.

I’m an old man now, but when I was young, I was strong enough to go crabbing for my living. One season, I joined up with an outfit out of the San Francisco Bay. Small boat, maybe 35′, single house. But the thing is, it looked kinda “not right” is some way I couldn’t figure out; so being 19, I ignored it. the crab was running heavy and it was day voyages and sleep ashore.

Anyway, one day we went under the Golden Gate Bridge and turned north; then started sending traps over. At that time, we got some word that weather was coming in from the south. Most of our traps had already be in the water up north for three days and we didn’t trust them to be there (or at least the buoy markers) after the storm. Even then traps was costly and these should have had lots of crab.

We headed north towards Point Reyes. Finding the southern end of the most southerly string, we started pulling like crazy, then north, on to the next, then on to the next. Done. Now to home.

But the boat was a wide bucket and now it was riding deep. It always sailed a bit drifty and it wasn’t getting better because we were driving into the winds from the south: and the seas, too. You know what I mean. Angry seas driven by 30+ knot winds. By the time we came abaft Point Bonita Lighthouse - getting ready to think of that left hand turn into the Bay - those waves were 30′ - 40′, I swear.

So there’s a piece of the Pacific Ocean at the Marin County coast that’ll kill you if you don’t watch it: the Potato Patch. Beats me why it’s called that. But what it is is an uprising from the ocean floor so that the ocean bed is deep, then rises up to close to the surface, then falls down again, making a natural channel between the Patch and the shore.

There we were in the channel, or so we thought. Just as we’re clearing the channel and we turn to port, this huge, huge wave hits us on the starboard forward quarter: green water rams all the  forward windows of the house clean inboard and the wave runs through the house, blowing me, the Captain and the other hand out the portside windows. The vessel rolls over and there I am, underneath it, the back of my foul weather gear caught on something.

It was quiet and not churning and the light from above, peeked around the edges of the hull making it seem like a church; but I could not get loose, no matter how hard I struggled. Then, just as I was getting ready to let the Lord take me, something gave and I came free.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that hope is all a mental thing: breaking free like that put enough air in my lungs somehow so I could make it to the surface, which I did, only to re-discover hell.

There was crap from the vessel floating all around (flotsam they call it); not a life jacket nor raft to be seen. But I found a wide ice chest lid and held on for my dear life. Ever get buried by a 40′ wave? Try it some time. You really don’t know if you’ll come out the other side alive; at least I didn’t.

Then I saw the other two men. Each had scrambled upon some flotsam and there was about 50′ between me and them. They were close to each other. We drifted along in the storm with waves separating us, making us disappear from view, then reappear. Then, after one wave, nothing; not any sign of them. We’d been about a quarter mile from the shore, so I turned and kicked like crazy. After way too long, I started catching the incoming tide, it seemed; then I kinda surfed to the beach eventually. Boy was I lucky. Most of the shore was nasty rock.

Turns out that the vessel was not designed to got out like that. Instead of smaller windows slanting aft from top to bottom, these were large, slanting forward from top to bottom and seated so that they was held in place by glue, not resting upon the wood framing. A damn lake boat I figure.

And don’t ask me about the survival suits. There were none and no time for anything.

So Salty Sez: Ask around about the Captain’s abilities and judgment before you join. And don’t put one type of boat to another type’s use.

I’D LIKE TO HEAR YOUR STORIES TOO. GOT ANY?

Til next time, keep off the rocks.