Visit the kelpforest....

A few years ago my dad had me sign him up for Tin Can Sailors - a group for people who served on naval destroyers. I think I mentioned before he served on the USS Stormes in WWII. This morning I got an email from someone in that group who'd put up some movie footage of that vessel - although 12 years later. I emailed him back thanking him for it and wished I could show it to my dad. He knows someone who may have been aboard the same time my dad was, and they might have known each other. I linked him to some pics of my dad in earlier journal entries here although after almost 60 years, who knows if someone would remember.



Dad would have also liked that there was a Navy Week this past week in San Pedro. We tried going to see the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln Wednesday when I had the day off, but it got shut down early for security reasons. So we went to the Maritime Museum instead, which I haven't been inside of since we took Dad there for his birthday when my mom was still here, although I drive by it every time I go to the docks. Then runsamuckwas starving, so we had some lunch at the Crusty Crab (not the Krusty Krab; this one's been there since before Spongebob) at Ports O' Call.



I had to work Thursday, but the rest of the fam damily tried again on Thursday, along with some friends from school. They left about 8 am (ships didn't open until 10 am) to secure parking and get aboard the mandatory shuttle to the ship. It was all a self-guided tour, but the most exciting thing, I hear, was the plane elevator from the lower deck to the flight deck. Quite the E-ticket ride, I understand. Gareth took some video of it, but being 11, excited and not a trained videographer makes for a rather motion-sickness inducing recording (plus it takes freaking forever to upload); but I may put it up later. Some photos here.

Theme: Oceans of Life - Celebrating the Diversity of Oceans, and efforts to keep them that way.

About four years ago, I started a marine life art group at DeviantArt.com focusing on just that theme. It was inactive for awhile, but since they changed their groups format, I got it active again recently. There have been some pretty good artists who joined just in the last couple of weeks, so if you'd like to see some pretty cool marine life art, please check it out.

(Well crap, forgot to put on a blue shirt today...:p )

Morning Fog
Los Angeles Harbor
San Pedro CA
Canon EOS 1000D
23 October 2009

( +1 )

Smoke from the Santa Barabara fire. We heard later that even downtown SB was very close to a mandatory evacuation.

Oddly, I thought the horizon was tilted in this photo, but when I went to straighten it, it really wasn't that far off (less than a degree).

Wildfire smoke trail
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
6 May 2009

Went for a walk with fry down to the beach again, and turned out there was a kite festival going on. These two were absolutely huge, maybe 10 feet across. The way the octopus's tentacles moved was rather hypnotizing (video here, if interested).

In like a lion
Huntington Beach CA
Casio EX-Z80A
1 March 2009

( a bit more sobering... )

Docks - it was a gorgeous morning after a rain. There were no boats out, but I went up to Pt. Fermin for a few minutes just in case. While I was there a pair of ravens soared by below me, which I thought was a great perspective. I caught this one, perilously close to passing over the sun streak on the water.

Pt. Fermin raven
San Pedro CA
Sharp VE-CG30
16 December 2008

( Angel's Gate )

The fry wanted to go the beach again, so we checked out what some recent rain had done. The concrete pyramid is placed in from of some drainage pipes for street runoff; to prevent erosion, I guess. However, there is a big channel cut into the sand all the way down to the water, so I don't know how effective that is.

Huntington City Beach
HB CA
Sharp VE-CG30
29 November 2008

( Very low tide... )

The sky was just flaming as I drove home from work, so I had to stop at the Dog Beach to watch for awhile...

Dog Beach, looking toward L.A. Harbor and Palos Verdes
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
15 October 2008

( 2+ )

This is a really nifty little video. I always wondered why flying fish have that extra long lower lobe on their caudal fin (tail); sort of the opposite of a shark. This shows what it's used for - the fish is actually extending his glide out of the water with it by beating the water as if he's swimming!

Longest recorded flight for a flying fish:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7410421.stm

Around here, flying fish are more active at night, and in Avalon, out on Catalina Island, there's a very old tourist attraction of boats with spotlights taking visitors out to see them skimming along the water. This reminds me of a story someone told me when I first started working here; one of the older biologists - retired now - was piloting a small boat at nighttime out there. He was standing up, driving the boat along at a pretty good clip and looking over the windshield, when a flying fish jumped and smacked him right in the face - and they are hard bony little fish, too. He went flying into the back of the boat, while his coworkers were wondering why they'd suddenly stopped. Broke his nose, I think. Ouch. Hazards of being a biologist?