We drove down from Vallejo today, through the city and down the west coast of the peninsula through Santa Cruz. Stopped at Moss Landing and saw some of the humpback whales right off shore that have been coming in close recently, apparently due to an increase in food supply in Monterey Bay. Back to normal posting tomorrow, I hope.
5 thoughts on “Back In LA”
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Oh, man, I’ve been through Moss Landing about six times in the last month, and ain’t seen nothing. Except for many many many fresh strawberries. YUM.
Lucky dog.
Story: Returning to Maui from a dive trip off Lanai, we had to keep slowing down and detouring because of the many humpbacks in the channel (it being sex season, don’t you know?). At one point, the skipper put a towel over his face. When questioned about this (he was driving, after all) he joked “The law says I have to stop engines if I see I’m within 100 yards of a whale. Unless I cover my eyes, we’re never going to get home.”
Well, we’d seen on the news a few days ago that they were close in to shore in Monterey Bay, and the pictures they showed were from off shore, with the power plant in the background, so it seemed like the most promising place to go. We didn’t spend a lot of time, maybe ten minutes (a chill wind off the ocean and we hadn’t grabbed our jackets, but almost immediately we saw a couple spouts, and some rolling, with a couple sailboats approaching. We got strawberries, too, though the Giant Artichoke place was out of jumbos, due to the heavy tourist weekend (I’m sure that the garlic festival in Gilroy probably increased demand).
Jumbo artichokes are rarely the way to go, IMO. I missed the Garlic Festival entirely this year (AGAIN) due to the funeral of the old NASA Ames radio room operator from my Dad’s era. so I was not responsible for the ‘choke shortage.
What’s wrong with jumbos?
IMO, the best size for tenderness is about 3.5″ diameter. Much bigger and they tend to get tough in the heart.