Sunday, December 21, 2008

Wasting Time South of the Border

From the Log . . .

In order to waste time getting between San Diego and Ensenada, we decided to anchor at the South Coronado Island for dinner. We anchored there in a cove in the south island which is the property of Mexico at about 5:00 o’clock. There were about 3 or 4 fishermen, as well as some floating lobster pots, where they kept the lobster that they had obtained from the previous days fishing and had not yet taken to market.

On this island, there is a very amazing set of buildings that arise almost directly from the edge of the cove and extend upward for a distance of about three stories above the surging water of the cove. As a matter of fact, there are two such buildings containing in all, one would assume 3 or 4 room apartments. Directly above this, on the cliff, is the Mexican lighthouse, which operated the light for the southern part of the island.


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I've searched the web for information on South Coronado Island, in particular to see if I can come up with the kind of information (and photos) that I placed in the Sheep and Skulls and Submarine Nets Post. I've discovered that the amazing set of buildings was, at one time, a casino. Hmmm. I've also discovered the strange tale of the war time activities of the founder of the church of Scientology. Neither of these things warrant a link, if you want to find them (I can't imagine why), you can google it yourself.

I've held off my posting because I hoped to include some photos in this post.

But after finding The Skips Blog and Proper Course, and EVK4, I've been amazed at how effective and entertaining a good blog can be. With or without photos. So I'm not going to hold off posting just because I don't have images to share. It's time to get on with my grandfather's story as he sails south of the border.

I like Tillerman's blog so much that I've searched back into the archives of his, so I can read the blog postings month by month. I've worked my way through all of his 2005 posts. I've got three more years worth of reading.

Hmm, three years of Laser racing efforts to read as quick as possible (so I can get on to EVK4). I amazed that I'm not being put to sleep! He moves from his experiences on the race course to the clubhouse, to other venues to marathon training. With a good humor in every post.

I'm not going to be getting much sleep.

Admiral Anne came down from Redding to sail. She's a little concerned about my addiction to reading the sailing blogs I've discovered.

She sailed on Friday, and on Saturday, it was raining and not too warm today, so we didn't to sail today as we had planned. We hung out at the OCSC Clubhouse for a little bit, went over the sailing section of Chapman's Piloting and Seamanship (I gave her a copy for Christmas). Silly me! I thought it would answer many of her questions. One good answer leads to another good question. Oops! a lot of good answers seem to lead to a lot of good questions.

It's a good thing I like inquisitive minds.

Pondered Bernoulli's principle. It still doesn't make sense to me how flowing air can be lower pressure than the surrounding static air. There must be a pressure gradient for air blown out of one's mouth towards static air. The pressure must be greatest near your lips, and then slack off towards the static pressure of the room air, in order for your breath to physically move from high pressure to low pressure.

She's reading a book on sail trim, they use a mouthful of air blown across a piece of paper held between two fingers to demonstrate the principle.

I was a good thing we had the OCSC clubroom to ourselves for most of the day. We looked kind of silly blowing air across napkins.

The J105 'Energy' came in from a quick sail out to Angel Island and back. They said they averaged 7 knots without the spinnaker in the rain. They were wet, no longer cold, and very happy as they pealed off their gear.

Before I post this, a quick Tip of the Hat to Scheherazade. In Tillerman's post on Practice in November of 2005, he included a link to her Teaching Instinct post.

It was an email from Scheherazade, and The Hat from Admiral Anne that got this blog started

Thanks be to the both of you.

1 comment:

EVK4 said...

Cap'n...when's the next time you're going to be at OCSC? You should meet Zen who's a teacher there. Also, come by the boat for a warm beer (I have to get rid of the damned things, they take up valuable space!