Visit the Kelpforest (pt. 2)

The last of a two-week training course for senior volunteers is coming to an end today in our conference room. I can hear applause coming from down the hall occasionally. These are people, retirees and others, who donate large chunks of their time answering questions at fishing areas, assisting folks with licensing and regulation questions, and responding to others who saw a coyote or mountain lion in their backyard. Wardens are freed up to do more important work (like catching poachers), and the public gets a more immediate response instead of being referred from person to person in hopes of finding someone who can answer the question. They are becoming more and more important as wardens are spread thinner and thinner, as positions are eliminated and older people retire. We were talking with the warden in charge of the class and he said he to let him know if we needed volunteers for anything around the office - sometimes when budgets get tight and we can't even buy gas (for nonessential purposes), he can't send them out in the field, and the volunteers help around the office. With this class, he made that a condition of being accepted into the program - previous classes had people who only wanted to be working outdoors. I told him if they didn't mind helping to cut up dead mackerel, sardines and squid, we'd love 'em. In any case, I was glad to see there were a few women in this class.

When out at the docks last week, the same fisherman who gave me the dog-faced witch-eel awhile ago, flagged me down and said he had another fish he had never seen before. He caught it while longlining for thorny heads and sablefish, and saved it for us in his freezer.


We finally got a chance to ID it yesterday. It turns out to be a California slickhead (Alocephalus tenebrosus), an uncommon fish usually found in fairly deep water. Like many deepwater fish, it's almost completely black, although the fisherman said when he first picked it up, some dark blue color came off on his hands.

It's somewhat the worse for wear, since it was frozen for a couple of weeks. One of the diagnostic features for this fish is its flabby, mushy body, which also means it doesn't preserve too well. It was so dark, I adjusted the levels in the picture a little, so it would show up better.


Close up of head.

Gurgled by: señoritafish / 4:37 PM
  0 Bubbles floated to the surface.

Yesterday afternoon, after getting in an argument with John that I need to start paying more attention to real life, I took the kids to the beach to fly kites. Before we left, I tried making a tiny one I remembered getting off the bottom of a Slurpee cup as a prize when I was a kid. It's small enough that if you make it out of stiff paper, you don't need any supports and you can use thread as a string. I took along two we already have - they came in the same bag and are the same colors (turquoise, purple and black); a parafoil kite and one that's sort of a wind sock shaped like a plane, both with wind-spinner tails. We stopped at the drug store to see if they had any others and more string (I though we were short some). While the boys and I inspected the little carousel o' kites, Avalon took every opportunity to charge over to the next aisle, trotting as fast as her short legs could carry her. When I finally grabbed her by the hood of her long sleeved shirt, I got a nasty whiff of her pants - so after we picked out a Transformer kite, a simple easy-to-fly nylon delta, and a small box kite (which came with a CD on how to do tricks with it), we headed back home because I'd forgetten a spare diaper. Gareth had to visit Auntie Loo as well, so that was all right.

Back again to head for the beach. I thought it might be nice to go down by the pier; oooh, nope, bad idea. Mid-March seems awfully early for so much traffic (cars and pedestrian). Maybe there was some event going on at the beach I wasn't aware of, but the backup merely to cross Main Street at Orange stretched for nearly two blocks. I finally realized that any place I parked for free was going to be too far for a 6, 4, and 2 1/2 year-old to walk. I tried to head back to 17th by way of PCH, but much too crowded, so I took the long way around.

We finally parked on 17th in front an apartment, whose residents were letting their blue and gold macaw get some sunshine. While I was getting the kites out of the back of the Trooper, the kids went over to the fence to look at the bird, who was sitting on the back of a rattan chair on the patio. He seemed quite sociable, and as he was unattended, glad to have the attention, looking at them and making soft parrot muttering noises at them. As we started to walk away, he started squawking and screeching much more loudly, as if to say, "No! Wait! Come Back!"



We crossed PCH at a trot, all holding hands in a string, looked both ways before we crossed the bike path, and down the steps to the sand. There were several fermata shaped kite-surfing kites in the air, pulling their riders just past the surf line, and a couple being folded up on the ground. We stopped at a spot on the berm, dropped all the kite packages and I pulled out the delta kite, thinking it would be the quickest to assemble and get in the air. I put the support strut on the back, hooked on the tail (couple of red plastic ribbons), hooked the string on and we were good to go. The breeze off the ocean was quite strong, and while the kite started out making dramatic dives, it stablized once I had let out enough string. It still was exerting enough pull on the string to lift my arm away from my side.

I gave the spool to Angus to hold, and told him to hang on to it really tight, don't let it go! He held on doggedly, if a little distractedly; there was so much other stuff to look at. Other people, the kite surfers, gulls, there were even some people in swimming (hardy souls!). Then I started opening the package of the Transformer kite, thinking Gareth would like that one. Avalon was quite happy running in circles around us; and I didn't expect her to be able or want to hold on to kite. However, I wasn't prepared for Gareth's reaction.

"Mom! Mom! It's going too high! You have to bring it down!" - with a note of alarm in his voice. It was about 50 feet in the air, and with the strong breeze, the string was almost vertical. I'm not sure what he thought was going to happen.

I tried to reassure him that that's what kites are supposed to do, go up in the air and stay there, until you reel them back in. I showed in the Transformer kite and asked him if he wanted Optimus Prime or Unicron on the front (it was reversible, with a bridle on both sides), put it together, and launched it. This one proved to be really unstable, and Gareth was now almost panicking.

"No! No! You have to pull it back in!" And he grabbed the string and tried to haul it hand over hand. The extra pressure on the string caused the flimsy sheet of plastic that made up the bridle to rip clean off, and Optimus Prime crashed headfirst into the sand. I gave up and left him there while I tried to untangle the string from that kite and the thread from the tiny kite I had made, which Avalon had started dragging around, getting it tangled around her feet. I did try flying that one as well, but the wind was just too strong and was nearly folding the construction paper in half.

Gareth was now complaining about being cold and wanted to go back to the car. I put Optimus Prime back in his plastic bag, gathered up the extra spool, the little paper kite, Angus's shoes and othe bits and pieces and put them in the shopping bag. I took back the delta kite from Angus and started slowly reeling it in, trying to pull some in by hand first before wrapping it on the reel - I've had some reels break because of wrapping them directly from the wind-pulled kite. By the time I got it put away and gathered up the rest of our accoutrements, Avalon had heard "We're going," and was already halfway across the beach. The rest of us trotted to catch up with her (how did those little legs move so fast?!), but she was halfway up the steps by the time we got to the road at the foot of the bluff. I told Angus run and grab her hand. He at least stopped her so I could prevent her from trying to cross PCH by herself.

We sat on a bench on the grass next to the bike path to put some shoes back on, and empty sand out of others. Angus belatedly realized we were heading home, and angry tears began welling up. All the way back to car, he growled and yanked on my arm, "No, we have to go back!"

There was a gaggle of junior high-schoolers in front the apartment next to our parking place. Several of the girls were wearing low-rider jeans that appeared to have been painted on. One of the them noticed us, and said, "Hi Angus!" but he was too busy being mad, and ignored her. I apoligized for his being rude, and she told me she had been an aide in his kindergarten class.

The macaw was gone, presumably back indoors, and I buckled in the kids, and put the kites in the back. Angus growled "Don't touch me," as I fastened his seat belt. We drove home - next time, I'll just bring the wagon and we'll walk. John gave them the remainder of the cookies n' cream ice cream when we got home, and Avalon crashed almost as soon as she was finished. I promised Angus we'd go again the next time it was light when I got home. The time change is coming up soon, and it'll be light for a while after I get home from work. Gareth fell asleep on the couch a short time later; later, he actually got up and put himself to bed for the night (this still amazes me), while Angus and Avalon had a much needed bath. I wish I could get them to stop screaming when I wash their hair.

I meant to take some pictures, but my hands always seemed to be full of plastic bags, or kite strings, or little fingers, so instead here's a few from when we went for a walk on the beach in January:







There's supposed to be a kite festival at the pier sometime in April. That'll definitely be something to put on the calendar. I ♥ kites, I hope I can get the kids to ♥ them too.. :)

Like me, I know many of you are avid readers. How do your bookcases look? Are they overflowing? Or do you have books you can't wait to have other people read?

let me know about this, and I thought it sounded pretty darn neat. I know I have more than one copy of a few books, some I probably will never read again, and some I would love for everyone to read. This is like a tag-and-release program for books, a way to share your friends with others. You can register a book, then give it to a friend or just leave it somewhere for someone to find. Hopefully, that person will come to this website and make a journal entry so you can see where it's been. Some books have travelled all over the world this way. It sounds kind of fun and exciting to me. I know some of you do this to some extent already - wouldn't you like to have some means of knowing what happens to your paper friends? Check it out - I think it's a good thing.

Click...



I've only released one book to the wild so far, but it was a pretty exciting feeling.

Plus you can get a free advance reading copy of a book, Wild Animus by Rich Shapero, too (look in the left margin).

Gurgled by: señoritafish / 11:37 PM
  0 Bubbles floated to the surface.