SV Gallant Fox

Critter Count: Sharktown, Cetacean City, and Pinniped Parliament

Seems like the best time to see ocean critters is when there’s no wind and the seas are flat clam. Ocean sunfish (the little ones, it turns out) drift along the surface of a calm daytime sea. The big ones - 10 feet or so, like what the Monterey Bay Aquarium has in their Big Tank - must hang out in deeper water. Because we’ve not yet encountered a fish that’s the size and shape of a barge floating sideways.

Seven gill sharks like flat water, too. In daytime when the seas are calm about 10 miles offshore, you’ll see triangular dorsal fins followed by an oscillating long tail fin, just breaking the surface of the water. There are a lot of this kind of shark, all leisurely cruising for whatever it is they’re cruising for, and giving one another some room but all cruising the same general area. We saw them from Oregon south to about Eureka, California, and when the light was right we could stand up on deck and see blue-whitish tips on their snouts and pectoral fins. Nice-looking fish. Looked to be about 6 feet from the safety of the Fox, but the Eureka fishermen told us they’re a bit bigger than that. I kept thinking about Quint’s remarks in “Jaws”: “You know how you tell the size of a shark, Chief? By looking at the distance from the dorsal to the tail.” But of course, all the field guides say the seven-gill shark is harmless to humans. So if GB has to dive overboard to remove a crab pot line from our propeller? No problemo.

Once we got as far south as the Bodega Bay area, we saw a large concentration of Dall's porpoise and grey whales. We welcomed the Dall’s porpoise, as the last time we’d seen them was years ago in Puget Sound. Their black-and-white coloring makes them look like miniature orca. They love to play with boats’ bow wave for a few minutes - and though they quickly get bored with anything that moves slower than 15 knots, they always return in the hopes we’ve somehow sped up. Sorry, guys. Nice to see you again, though.

We’ve seen a lot of grey whales since we rounded Cape Scott at the north end of Vancouver Island, but there were more greys in Bodega Bay than the total of all we’d seen until then. They seemed to be feeding in family groups of three, and they were everywhere. You’d think with so many large mammals surrounding the boat, I’d be able to get a photo of one of them. You’d be wrong. Here’s the best I could do - a disappearing grey whale showing his wee dorsal fin. Big guy - just seconds before, had come up with a mouth full of krill and sea water. Honest. Whale.

Maybe you'll forgive me if I show you a pic of one of our favorite birds, a brown pelican, soaring like a 747 over the water:

There is a very large population of sea lions in Monterey, all with their personal area staked out. One will bark an opinion, another one will growl a rejoinder, and soon everyone’s shoving and taking sides and the issues get completely out of control. I can only conclude from all this contentious behavior that Monterey is the capitol city of a Pinniped Parliament. Here’s a sea lion who’s had a very bad day at his government job and is making that clear to the photographer. I was actually snarled at. The harbormaster told me not to worry too much, though, as sea lions can only lunge about 20 feet, so a human being can usually escape their salty wrath. (On land.)

There are also sea otters aplenty in Monterey - many of them tagged for intensive research, which as far as I can see makes them more used to human contact and for my purposes, amenable to a tourist photo or two. Sure enough, the sea otter who owns our dock, gave a small sigh of resignation when I asked to take her picture, but remained polite. As much as I wanted to give her furry self a snorgle, I did not. Because earlier, I saw her eating a sea urchin she had nabbed - and she has mighty sharp teeth and strong jaws to crunch through all those urchiny spines. Here she is, making herself boo-ful for the camera:

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Down in Monterey

California, that is. We arrived in Monterey in the early evening of August 28, 2007, and we plan to head further south on Saturday, September 1, as early as possible. Fog permitting. Har.

We scored a great slip at the Municipal Marina (sorta tight entrance fairway, boys!) but found we had arrived at precisely the gap between the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Monterey Reggae Festival, and the Monterey Classic Car Extravaganza-a-Go-Go. Nothing left to do but tour the Monterey Bay Aquarium (second only to Newport, Oregon’s Oregon Coast Aquarium) and take the self-guided walking tour of Historic Downtown Monterey. What a treat.

Essentially, Historic Downtown Monterey is an open-air museum consisting of about 43 separate buildings spread over about 1-½ square miles of prime downtown real estate. We’re talkin’, early adobe residential buildings and gardens, the first brick structure erected in Monterey, the first church and oldest continuously-used church in the US - built in 1794 (a mere 2 years after James Cook negotiated terms for dividing the Pacific Northwest between Britain and Spain in Nootka Sound, BC), and Colton Hall, the white stone building in which the California Constitution was drafted. Better yet: many of these historic buildings are small museums in their own right. Think about the financing and organizational skills that are required to make something like that happen as part of an urban renewal/redevelopment plan. Do you have anything approaching this level of classiness, in your own community? Seeing Monterey’s Historic District for yourself is an excellent way to learn about California’s Spanish-Mexican-Anglo history - but I feel it’s an even greater lesson in how rare it is that a state, city, and private interests can collaborate long-term to preserve major aspects of their community’s history. One of the volunteer museum docents simply said, “We got lucky.” But this is luck that lasted for the decades it took to plan the project, finance it, and make it happen. If only every community could find such leadership - how much better things might be.

Enough of the sappiness. The Historic District makes a first-rate walking tour. Lots to see and learn, even if (like us) you stumble across this opportunity on one of those days when most buildings are closed to the public. No matter. Where else on earth do you have the opportunity to see an old whaling station, and walk on a sidewalk built entirely out of whale vertebrae? (Yes, actually, it IS disturbing.)

Think checking in and out of Customs is tough now, what with Homeland Security and all? Consider that in the 1840s, Monterey, California, was the one and only port of entry for California - and if you checked-in your vessel, you had to UNLOAD it and physically present all the goods onshore, at this fine Customs house, for the proper duty to be assessed.

After which, of course, you had to pay for guys to schlep it back to your boat and load it all nice and proper. Some things are easier in the 21^st century. Except that now, it’s hard to see the Customs house through all the masts of the private yachts that are in the Municipal Marina. John Steinbeck’s Cannery-Row days are gone forever now, man - it’s all galleries and curio shops and foo-foo 1600 square-foot $1.5 million waterfront condos. I am not making this up. My advice: buy a boat. Live aboard. Anchor out in front of these upscale condos. Lower property values wherever you can.

Heh.

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