At Pillar Point

By David Joseph



Thursday night and Friday morning I experienced the biggest storm I've lived through on the boat. With seventy-five mile per hour winds, my boat was separated from its mooring. In the morning the boat was on the rocks. I contacted the harbor master on the VHF. Then I made a run for it on the jetty to shore through the stiff wind and rain. The Harbor Patrol men pulled my boat off the rocks. I'm in a slip in the marina now. There is a leak on the port side which is the side that ran into the rocks. A diver plugged it up with Splash Zone below the water line, and now the leak is much slower. It could have been much worse. The boat could have been totaled instead of in need of thousands of dollars in repairs. Oh, and I lost my dinghy too. I think it probably sank in the storm.



I guess it could have been worse for me. Some people have told me I could have died. If so, that would have been much worse.



But as it is I've got costly repairs reglassing the fiberglass going into several thousands, which I don't have. And I'm trying to get through the month on little money as most of it had to go for the temporary repairs, which are temporary as from now to several years. Oh, and I may have to take the boat back to San Francisco, as there is no place to haul out around here. Oh, and I drug my mooring ball with me all the way to the rocks, meaning the mooring chain broke, and now I don't have a mooring. So I may be getting charged for my nonexistent mooring as well as for the space at the dock where my boat is side-tied now. That's it, basically, I think. I'm not feeling so bad about it all really. At least it's my life that I'm trying to get on with.



Does anyone know someone who constructs moorings?



Does anyone know of a good place where the boat can live on the hard while being repaired?





The Mavericks surfing contest has been called to begin tomorrow. Pillar Pt. Harbor will be pandemonium. I'll either opt to escape or go walking on the cliffs with the 40,000 or so other people.



I'm playing a sort of waiting game now, waiting for the first of the month. But I'm finding some things to do in the meantime.



I went to West Marine twice this week before I picked up the right snap shackle and chain link to attach to my chain going to my mooring buoy. But since the mooring is destroyed for now, I don't know when I'll get to use them. For now they're attached to the chain.



Directions from Pillar Pt. Harbor to West Marine: south four miles on Hwy 1 into Half Moon Bay, left on 92 (a very winding road) to 101 and exit at Oyster Point exit, turn right on the frontage road and West Marine is 1/4 mile on the left.



I think I probably use more gas than I spend at the store, but that will also probably change too. And they just called to let me know that the lamp oil I ordered is in.



I had asked Peggy in the sports boat rental shop how to get to the Half Moon Bay Public Library.



Her directions: Go south on 1 into town. Watch for three lights. The first light the McDonald's is on the right. The second light the Burger King is on the right. The third light the Tres Amigos is on the right, and the More for Less gas station where I'll probably go for my next fill up is across the street on the left. At this light turn left onto Kelly, go one block to Church Street and turn right, go to the end of the street past the school. The library parking lot is straight ahead at the end of the street.



Although the Half Moon Bay city limits is only a few hundred yards from the Pillar Pt. Harbor, technically we are in El Granada. Yesterday I went exploring some of El Granada.



I picked out some vegetables and a newspaper from the meager pickings of the El Granada Super Market. They had no prices on anything else in the store. I decided not to buy anything else.



The El Granada General Store and Ace Hardware is a combination coffee shop, sandwich shop and hardware store. They made a chicken teriyaki sandwich for me that was not bad. I ordered a cup of coffee, and the woman behind the counter made it up for me on the spot. There were a lot of people going in and out, a sort of El Granada social center. Across the street is the El Granada Post Office.



I opted for going to see the Mavericks 2008 surfing contest, one of the premier sports events of the year. Besides, the cops had the streets blocked off due to the deluge of people coming to see the surfers. So it was a good excuse to go on a walk up to the cliffs and mingle with the masses and see some of the sights I hadn't gotten around to seeing yet anyway. So I saw the Princeton area on foot, some restaurants and bars. The event attracts business but is remarkably uncommercial. For example, the total cost for me: free. I couldn't see well from the cliffs, not even with my binoculars, so I went back down to the beach, where things could be seen up close on the jumbo tron screen. The Mavericks takes place in the water off the Pillar Point in waves about four stories high where twenty-four world-class surfers compete.



Local favorite Ion Benning placed fourth in the first heat, but was unable to advance. The Clif Bar Green prize, which benefits Save Our Beaches, went to Grant "Twiggy" Baker. And the Jay Moriarty memorial prize went to Jamie Sterling. The winning prize went to Greg Long, understandably as he hung two beautiful tens. The other prize winners were Grant "Twiggy" Baker, Jamie Sterling, Tyler Smith, Grant Washburn and Evan Slater.



There was a series of monetary amounts given for each of the prizes, including $30,000 to the winner. But Greg Long explained that the winners had discussed it among themselves, and they were dividing the purse equally between them all. The rest of the surfers got a payment just for showing up.



I walked back to the harbor along the beach having really enjoyed the whole experience.







Word is that Congressman Wexler's impeach Cheney first bill has garnered 200,000 votes so far and will finally be making it out of committee and going to the floor of the house on Tuesday when Congress reconvenes.



Today has been a recycling day for me: glass, plastic and metals. I cooked up some shredded zucchini and carrots topped off with some cheese. I was so out of it, though, that I forgot to pick up a newspaper and do a crossword puzzle or two. I did read articles in the Britannica on Canada and Canadian literature though. Also I enjoyed my own brewed coffee.



One person on the Billy Bragg site has a tag line that says, "When in doubt, go to the library." So here I am at the Half Moon Bay Public Library.



On my way here I saw a sign on a van that said, "Thrift Store --->."



So I asked a woman in the post office, and she pointed me off in the right direction. So I discovered the El Granada Thrift Store, and the woman there said it would be all right for me to donate my day packs and satchels tomorrow. Then on the way here to the library I saw another thrift store on Kelly Avenue. Oh well, I'll donate to the local El Granada store.





In other surfing news I noticed that Half Moon Bay (the bay, that is, not the city of the same name, though it does take place inside the city limits) is a major attraction for surfers. Passing by the other day I couldn't believe the number of surfers out there. It looked crowded, but everybody looked active. It's easy to spot when one is in the vicinity. Just look at the rows of parked cars on both sides of the Highway 1 road.



Another surfing highlight spot I discovered recently is behind the Taco Bell in Pacifica. It is a real scene. There was a sign that said the water was polluted, but this evidently is not absolutely so, and everyone was having a good time in the water. One thing I noticed was the number of young women surfers, not one or two, but scads of them. Some come alone, some with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. They're a real, integral part of the scene.



http://wexler.house.gov



Nearly a million have called for impeachment. Wednesday is a day to send a message to your representative. Mine is Nancy Pelosi. I've sent her a message anyway, because impeachment should be "on the table."



http://www.impeachbush.org





Yesterday I took a half dozen day packs and satchels to the El Granada thrift store. I checked the other store out, the one in Half Moon Bay, and it was definitely a lot more fou fou.



This morning, Ron, who has the trimaran moored out in the south harbor (nearby where my boat was moored), called and said he was bringing his boat over to the work dock and that on the way he was going to troll for my sunken dinghy. But I never heard anything else from him all day, and I didn't see his boat at the dock. I don't know what happened to him. Hopefully, he's all right. In any case I suspect that he didn't find the tender. Oh well, maybe I'll hear from him again tomorrow morning.



Terry Gross is interviewing people about whether and when "we" will want to get out of Iraq. She's doing it in two hour-long shows, the first one today. To her question I think the short answer is, "Never." Another way they answer in short is, "decades" or "years." Someone (John McCain?) said “one hundred years.”



For dinner I had black beans and salsa on toast followed by pudding cups. Delicious. Then I drove over to the Half Moon Bay Public Library where I am now.



I've added some names to my to list, and if you're one of them, you can send me an email if you want to continue to receive my daily journal or not. It's just a short note, usually, but not always day to day, so no real commitment necessary.



Anyway, here's a recap of the last couple of months or so just to get you oriented. At the end of November my young friends Eric and Sharka helped me sail my boat from Sausalito to Pillar Pt. Harbor on the coast, where we moored it to my buoy. I then took the Amtrak train to Seattle and visited with my friend Larry in Stanwood.



While visiting Larry I typed up the manuscript of the third of three books of Carol's works I've worked on so far. It's called Charity's No Substitute for Love, a collection of short stories. The other books are Letter from an English Prison (stories), and her Collected Poems, called Fire, or What Makes Us Human.



I drove back to San Francisco at the end of December and stayed on my boat on the mooring for about one week. Then the storm of the century blew through and blew my mooring off its chain and foundered my boat on the rocks. There was some damage on the port side which was sealed up below the water line, and now I'm staying at the dock while I try to figure out what to do next. Now you're up to date and up to speed.



I've finally figured out again how to add content to my website. For anybody but me it would have been easy, but enough self-denigration. I've changed some things and added some new pages. I think it's more readable too. I hope to be updating it more regularly now. To go to my home page just click on the link.



But first, a little preview:



Wouldn't it be wonderful if communism were really true? It is true.





Yesterday Matt Wilson pointed out to me a blue boat named Melesa and said that was the guy who works with moorings. I went down to the boat but didn't see anyone aboard. I went to the Harbor Master's to see if I could get a name or a number. A helpful person in the Harbor Master's told me it was Steve's boat and I could write a note to him to inquire about the mooring ball including my phone number and he'd pass it on. This same helpful person let me know this morning he'd spoken with Steve earlier and he would be giving me a call sometime today.



Early this afternoon Steve called. He thinks my mooring ball is in too shallow water for him to retrieve it with his big boat. So I'm still wondering how I'm going to retrieve it if that is my responsibility. However Steve went on to describe all the parts I need to get and where I could find them to put my mooring back together from scratch including the ball, shackles, swivels, chains and anchor. Then it would be a matter of dropping it into place. He said he'd meet me at five in the Ketch Joanne's bar and he'd draw me a picture of how the mooring looks under the water.



What's on the agenda? I've got to retrieve my mooring ball from where it is beside the rocks. I tried earlier today with a boat hook, but the ball was too far out to reach it. I've got to get the materials and reassemble my mooring and then drop it into place in the water, and I don't even know how much that will cost yet. Also I don't know how soon or where I will be moving the boat to haul out to put it on the hard to refiberglass the side.



Steve turned out not to be overbearing or super-macho. Instead he was a quite approachable and good-humored person. He told me I could call him with any questions that came up. He drew me a diagram of what my mooring is supposed to be like and what materials I need and where. He made it very comprehensible.



Congressman Wexler has really been pushing for impeachment of Cheney.



http://wexler.house.gov







A rainy Martin Luther King Day. The library is closed. It must be a day for Cafe Classico. The music is classical, classical rock, "Hello Goodbye" the Beatles, "Mr. Tambourine Man" Bob Dylan, "Maggie Mae" Rod Stewart which of course reminds me of "Maggie Wakes Up," "The Maggie Poems" by Carol, which takes me back to the sixties and seventies. I could be swept away here just enjoying the music. "What is Life" George Harrison...



My horoscopes say I'm going to do something decisive today. I'm wondering what that might be. I'm not going into the city until tomorrow to Coast Marine on Jefferson in Fisherman's Wharf to look for material for my new mooring. Remi suggests I create a blog. Barbara suggests I try a MySpace page. Maybe I'll try something new. You don't believe in horoscopes? It can give one something daily to focus on.







It was a cold morning. It snowed on Mt. Diablo. I had breakfast in Lucky Penny in the city: french toast. In Trader Joe's next door all the food prices have gone up. World markets have been dropping for two days in a row. Wall Street fell in the morning, but gained some back before the end of the day. The economists are talking about a recession in America which negatively affects the rest of the world.



I went over to Fisherman's Wharf and found Coast Marine on Jefferson Street. It's a huge place with all manner of marine hardware and supplies. The people were very helpful finding all the different sizes of chain and the hardware that goes with them. The clerk added up all the prices and attempted to use my VISA card. It was declined. So I don't have the money to buy the materials for my mooring.







I learned a lot of things today. I learned that a cell phone craps out when wet. I learned that a tide book and an address book take a long, slow, tedious time to pull apart. I learned that salt water tastes awful.



Getting into my kayak I fell into the drink. My PFD inflated just like it was supposed to. I love that PFD now. It was either swim to the swim ladder or to the dock. I must have been facing the dock. I swam there. To my cries for help two Vietnamese fishermen from the Elizabeth and the Jefferson pulled me out, one on each arm. They got me out to the waist, and I flopped onto the dock. They lifted my legs onto the dock. I'm very thankful to them. They saved me. I don't even know their names yet. We don't speak the same languages, but every time I see one of them I say thank you.



I was very lucky. I wish I wasn't such a fool. But live and learn since living that may be an option. It's a steep curve. I have to take it point to point a point at a time. But it's a long distance from the water to the dock.







A cold, wet, windy, rainy day. The next storm is due in tonight. It's raining continuously now. I think I hear thunder but don't see any lightning. Otherwise, an uneventful day. I like it that way.



I've got to call Credo, my Working Assets phone company, about getting a new phone. I'll need it. I wonder what that'll cost.



They've decided in Washington to give us poor tax payers three hundred dollars sixty days after passage of their bill. It could be a long time before we see our three hundred clams.



Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is conspiring with the White House to let the telecommunications companies spying on the American people off and give Cheney new cover. It's time for Harry to go. Go to The Pen:

http://www.usalone.com/step_down_harry.phb





When I was walking on the beach I had that song in my head. "Walking in the sand (Remember)." What was the name of that girl group? Was it the Chiffons? Was it the Shangrilas?



Somebody's boat was grounded high up on the sand. It had been blown onto the beach. But my mooring ball was nowhere to be found. Someone must have snagged it and taken it away finally.



Today some cleaning up and throwing stuff away. That always feels good. It feels like a relief.



Tonight the computer wasn't cooperating. One tries everything one can think of, and it either works eventually or it doesn't. It looks like it worked tonight.



One advantage of working in the library at night has been that I haven't had to listen to Bush's State of the Union speech. I'll find out later what lies he told.



James Tracy has a blog on the wordpress.com called Partisan Blockhead. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.





I met one of the Vietnamese fishermen who pulled me out of the water by my arms on the 23rd. His name is Thiet (pronounced tee-it). I asked him several times what his name is and couldn't understand his answer. He picked up a pen, wrote his name on the palm of his hand and hopped off the Elizabeth and showed it to me. Thiet. He used to fish out of Monterrey but had been here for about two years. He said the fishing was no better here than there. Often they don't find the fish. He doesn't speak English, and you know I don't speak Vietnamese. He doesn't understand if I ask him a question, and even if he does, he can't answer. I thanked him again and shook his hand, the one that still had the pen in it, not the one he wrote on.

Last night I met Sam of Resolution at the end of the H dock. He called the ambulance on the 23rd. He told me he'd fallen in only a few weeks ago himself and somehow managed to get himself back out. Anyway he certainly knows what it's like to be in the water. It saps you fast. We are both very lucky.







On my way to the county park I found the El Granada city park, Quarry Park. It's in the hills above and behind the town, and it's free. It seems that El Granada was planned to have 640 acres and this park another forty. It's just a short walk to the quarry which is a clearing in the woods with a lawn of grass and the rocky hillside behind it. The quarry supplied Highway One and the Half Moon Bay Airport with the rocks in the beds of their roadways. The woods around the clearing are mostly eucalyptus losing their leaves and peeling their barks. There are also a lot of trees with round bright yellow flowers which I don't know the name of, but they're beautiful though.



A one mile trail was supposed to lead to an overlook of the harbor. I rate this hike difficult. It's mostly steep uphill slogging all the way. The song that accompanies this hike would be "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" with the Tibetan cymbals gradually taking over completely before the song cuts out. It's a hike through eucalyptus and Douglas fir forest with smatterings of Pampas grass. I must have gone the extra mile, because I'm sure I walked two miles each way. There must be two overlooks. The one I saw had a great view of Pillar Point and the North harbor but the Johnson Street Pier and the South harbor were not to be seen. Beyond the parking lot I didn't run into another person coming or going. It was that quiet.





Evidently it's called the Half Moon Bay Library, but I always insert the Public into it. It's quite public and lively. It gets a lot of use, adults and teens checking out books, DVDs and CDs, children reading and being read to in their own corner of the library, an area of library computers with people on them, all very talky as the modern library seems to be.



Then in the opposite corner from the children's area is the quiet room, the room for people on their laptops, everybody intent upon something. There are about half a dozen of us right now. The room can accommodate a few more. So far I've always been able to find a place to sit down and plug in to the internet. Sometimes I've been the only person here. It's quiet in the quiet room, a place to find a book and read it, read a magazine or plug in to the hot spot.



Then the unexpected happens, the quick, hard jolt of an earthquake. When it's done everybody goes back to whatever they were doing.





Half Moon Bay is a town without any movie theaters. People here rent videotapes and check out DVDs from the library for free. The library has a once a month family movie night, and a local Methodist church also shows a film once a month. Other than that there's the cinema clubs like Ironweed, which I belong to, which send members a DVD once a month. And of course there are people's wide-screen TVs. If one wants to see a movie in a movie theater, one needs to go "over the hill." San Mateo?



In the Huck Finn Sport Fishing store where I get my $1.25 cup of coffee and 50-cent refill, Peggy the proprietor was telling me that right now there is no business. Salmon season is coming up, but it looks like it may be canceled this year and maybe several more years after that. They had a flurry of business for the Mavericks surfing contest in early January. Whale watching season is coming up, but boats may have to go twenty-five miles out while the whales are swimming south, and most skippers don't want to go that far out because of fuel prices. In March the whales will be swimming north and closer to shore. Then there will be more whale watching tours. But for now it's dead, nothing happening, evidently the recession is on. Peggy didn't charge me for the refill. All I did was talk to her for a little while.





Today I finally got the printer set up and printed Carol's book of short stories, Charity's No Substitute For Love. I also edited my Washington Journal which I tentatively titled Evergreen Notebook. Writing With Rain is maybe a better title, or better maybe as a sub-title. I'm hoping to print it up later tonight.



Friday night I attended a slide show at the Half Moon Bay Public Library given by John Muir Laws about the flora and fauna of the Sierra Nevada. He's created a beautiful, all-in-one guide. He was willing to give copies out for free with his address so one could pay him later, and I should have taken him up on it. But I was feeling like it would make me feel more indebted even though he would probably never ask for the money anyway.



I had found out earlier in the day that I have more bills than I have money. This has never happened to me before, and it's come as quite a shock. I don't know what I'm going to do yet.



Yesterday I spent in the library working on my journal entries and my blog.



Last night I watched some movies on the DVD on my computer. One, about the TED conference in Monterrey called The Future We Will Create, was visionary. Every year the world's most brilliant minds converge and talk about how their work will change the world. Just one example, a man is producing computers for children in the third world countries. Soon all the children will have their own computers and be able to communicate with anyone in the world.





Last night saw my Evergreen Notebook: Writing with Rain printed. I also found and printed my Dad's Library list of titles, authors and publishers. So. Ex Libris, Jack. My dad's tastes went to the mainstream, suspense, spy thrillers and such. But he read books and collected libraries of them too. It must be where I learned my love for reading. My dad was always reading at least one book and usually several at the same time. I also put up my obit of my dad on my web site while I was at it.



Today I went over to Coastside Hope just two doors down from the Easy Mart. Donna, the woman who'd told me about the place was there. I met my social workers, Fatima and Julietta. After asking me a few questions about my dire situation and entering the data into her computer, Fatima showed me to the stock room and helped me pick out a cornucopia of canned and dried goods, vegetables, fruits, beans, meats, soups, tortillas and pastas that are supposed to last me a week but look like they'll last much longer than that. I left with four heavy bags. So there's one expense I won't have, and I won't go hungry either. I have an appointment to go back next Monday.



Tonight in the library I did my taxes. Let's just say that what the Feds giveth, the state taketh away.

The Sign Display Local 510 union had a call-up for "B"s, but most of them went out today. The union agent had a message on the B-line to leave a message at his extension. I did. So far he hasn't called me back. He likely won't. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility by a long shot. I'm Rip Van B-man being the person on the B-list for the longest time, well, let's just say since forever. Everyone else who was on the list when I started have long since graduated to the A-list. I'm going to be paying close attention to the B-line messages, because if I can get some work, I might be able to pay some of my bills which right now I cannot pay.



I've got my cans and packages of food organized on the counter so I can find the ones I'm looking for. Now, let's see. Yes, I probably should do some dishes. I've been eating a lot of salmon patties, salmon patties and an egg for breakfast, salmon patties for lunch, and for dinner I may have salmon patties, or else I won't. And in that case I'll probably have salmon patties and an egg for breakfast tomorrow morning then. I'm eating them up before they go bad as I haven't been refrigerating them. I guess I should have just brought my refrigerator from out of the car. Go figure.



And as luck would have it there was a call-up and I couldn't get through.