Enjoying a bloody mary..

While Rick plays in the creek.

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Bob's 2nd shot on 4

That's my drive in the distance over his cap.

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Rick tees on 3

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Roy nicely out of trap on 2

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Live blogging Eagle Ridge

Bob is joining our group. He does not understand what he is in for. Or perhaps he does. He reminds me we played in the same group at Poppy Hills a year ago.

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Fishing in San Francisco

I think this must be the ultimate in urban fishing. Drain fishing in San Francisco. These shots are from an interesting cover story in the SF Weekly featuring local Kirk Lombard. I am going to have to meet this guy. Maybe sign up for one of his walking tours.

"Lombard's reservoir of fish-related knowledge is deep. He spent seven years as a catch monitor for the California Department of Fish and Game and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, where his jobs included interviewing local sport fishermen about what they caught, and accompanying sport-fishing charter boats, or "party boats," on trips outside the Golden Gate Bridge. Fish and Game still uses an educational placard he created on California surf perch and bait fishes featuring photographs he took."

This cracked me up:

"True to his background, Lombard's recreational fishing exploits are sometimes akin to performance art. In March, he treated an SF Weekly reporter and photographer to an unusual spectacle: fishing for surf perch through a storm drain in Mission Bay. Casting his line into the drain, which eventually opened on water flowing in from the bay, Lombard caught three fish in quick succession. "You think you're bad? You ain't shit, man," he cried, reeling furiously as a hooked perch gave him a fight. "You live in a drain." A female passerby, incredulous, stopped to gape: "Is that a fish in that little hole?"

Yes, yes it was.

Video of Kirk pulling a rockfish out of the drain linked here.

Bad day in Burkina Faso

Our tour group in Oaugadougou

Apparently the political storms sweeping the African Sahara have blown into Burkina Faso. I am embarrassed to admit I didn't even know it was the name of a country when we visited during our 2007 West Africa Tour. The journal for our 4 days in Burkina Faso are posted here, here and here.


The story of this uprising is getting almost no press coverage here. It is funny how travel changes your perspective. Undoubtedly I never would have noticed this story if we had not visited. The people we met there were wonderful and our thoughts are with them.

Our fist camp in a Burkina Faso village

Burkina Faso army mutiny spreads to fourth city

"An army mutiny which erupted last week in the West African state of Burkina Faso has spread to a fourth city. Protests have now broken out in Kaya in the north of the country, following disturbances in Po and Tenkodogo. The trouble started last Thursday when soldiers and presidential guards in the capital Ouagadougou protested about unpaid housing allowances. Hours before the revolt broke out, tens of thousands of people had demonstrated against high food prices. President Blaise Compaore, a former coup leader in power since 1987, has sacked his government and appointed a new head of the armed forces to try to quell the unrest. His government warned on Sunday that mutinous soldiers would face "the full force of the law". BBC Ouagadougou correspondent Mathieu Bonkongou confirmed that the unrest had now reached Kaya."

Burkina Faso army mutiny widens:

"The West African country of Burkina Faso simmered Monday as a mutiny by soldiers spread to two more towns and a student protest turned incendiary. Troops in the northern town of Kaya took to the streets Sunday night and fired their guns into the air until early Monday morning, residents said. "There was a panic in town and we have closed classes as a precaution measure," said Anatole Kiema, a teacher at a grammar school in the town of Kaya. A resident in Tenkodogo, a town east of the capital, also said soldiers shot into the air for hours Sunday night before returning to their barracks. He said they also stole cellphones and went to bars where they demanded free drinks."

Not paying your army and police is always a bad idea. OTOH - Going into bars and demanding free drinks is my kind of revolution.

Why we didn't get in the water on opening weekend this year.

It was a good decision. Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

"Mendocino County emergency personnel faced their first rescue this year barely an hour after the abalone season opened April 1. In that case, a San Francisco diver who entered the water in stormy conditions was swept half a mile from shore, where rescue personnel found him weak and hypothermic, fire personnel said."

In other World Wide Abalone Diver News:

"A diver has been killed in a horrific attack by two feared great white sharks near south Australia's Coffin Bay. The man, who has not been named, was savaged by the sharks when he surfaced after diving for the valuable mollusks abalone.Police said a search of the area had failed to find the man's body."

Well - that is Australia. Not even the same ocean really. And he was diving in "Coffin Bay". Who is going to dive with sharks in "Coffin Bay". These kind of attacks almost never happen to abalone divers in Northern California.

Heading back

This is getting painful.

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Strike 3

Never got in the water. Weather is gorgeous, but water is brown with zero viz, - still - with swells dropping to 8 feet it looked almost safe enough to go in. Alas, we ran out of time. No abalone for you.

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Sea Ranch Sunset

The sunset is a popular presentation at the Sea Ranch Lodge.

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Nevermind

Swells are too big. We'll check in again tomorrow.

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Your New & Improved Convenient Ca Fishing License...

... with Abalone and steelhead report card. Most California fishermen wear their fishing license with accompanying various and sundry mandatory report cards as a dashing sash or wrapped around the head like a turban.

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Abalone season opening day.

But conditions do not look good. Heading north to check it out.

Home again

Mission accomplished

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Russian River Estuary

Running high. Those little white dots in the center pic are seals.

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We have a driveway again

Bill climbed the tree with a chainsaw and made short work of the offending trunk.

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Brush fire

Trying to clean up some of the underbrush.  Like emptying the ocean with a teacup.

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Gualala estuary

Open and more rain coming.

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Yeah... That's going to be a problem

An incoveniently broken tree.

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At the ranch

Angy seas

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Over the bridge

Too early for abalone.  Winter winds made a mess of the trees and we need to clean it up before the season starts.

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Tsunami hits San Francisco

I woke up this morning to the news out of Japan and heard that the remnant of the tsunami would be hitting SF a little after 8 AM. Drove out to a bluff-top outlook of the Golden Gate just to see if there was anything to see. Can't say the waves looked any different to me, but got some pretty pictures. Here is the original post from the Pre, followed by other pics:
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Looks remarkably similar to any other 3 foot wave.

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