Awesome abs

About 30 years ago my dad let me take scuba diving lessons and he learned at the same time. We used to go out diving at the kelp beds in San Diego and hunt for abalone. Sometimes we got skunked but we usually managed to get a few nice abalone if we made three dives. Now days they don’t even allow the take of abalone south of San Francisco because there are so few left.

Let me tell you this place we are at now is just awesome for abs. We first came here a few years ago on vacation mostly just passing through, that is when I heard that there are abalone here. And that is also when I started planning for the time I could come see if I could actually get an abalone again. It's been over 15 years since I got one of the tasty creature...

It is not allowed to take the abalone using scuba gear so you need to free dive for them or by rock picking. Five days in a row we both got our limit. That is a lot of abalone! Ben is getting good at finding them and prying them off the rocks, and let me tell you that is no small feat. Low tide is the time to go "rock picking" as they call it.

We just suit up and go feel the rocks below the surface of the water until we feel an ab, then we pry it off and measure to see if it’s at least the legal size of seven inches. We are allowed to take three each per day but not more than 24 in a year. It is very regulated and with good cause. There are a lot of poacher out trying to ruin it for the rest of us. Every week there are reports of the game warden arresting someone or a group of people poaching. To do it legally we need to buy an abalone card. It has 24 tags and we must attached a tag to each ab as soon as we take it out of the water. We write down the date, time and location we took the abalone on the tag, and again the same info on our card.

My good friend Joe used to go ab diving with me often when I first learned to scuba dive and I wish he could be here to see this place.

It seems like the ab hunt takes the whole day even though we have been getting back by 9:00a or so with our limits. First I need to clean the wetsuits, then we go to the this cool cleaning station the RV park has set up for cleaning the abs. After we get them all cleaned and sliced we need to start the soup, made from the trimming, and pound the slices. It’s a ton of work but oh so worth it!

Have you ever eaten Abalone?

Bill

Eating right

This is a view of our colorful counter top in the bus. Since I've started reading the book "You are what you eat" -recommended by my good friend Marie-Laure-I'm being more aware of what I put in my mouth. I'm thinking more about what my body needs are rather than what tastes good. Though, I've always been reading the ingredient list from what I buy to avoid artificial colorants, preservatives and other huge words impossible to read. We have a smoothy made with fresh fruit every morning (or so)... a motivation from my friend Tricia who makes yummy ones.



But today....I got a very special treat. Unless you are a raw vegan, you probably don't know that Fort Bragg has a very special culinary institute. Well, I had no idea either until I stumbled across a flier for a Organic Gourmet Raw Vegan Lunchon...so I went! What a treat, it was wonderful and delicious. The theme was "flavors of the Mediterranean". Au menu: hummus, falafel with tahini sauce, tabouleh, greek salad, carrots with moroccan spices, dolmas with middle eastern marinara, apple baklava and music. I wish you could have been there, Marie-Laure! People from all around the world come to study raw food in this institute. Some of the students that prepared the lunch were from Japan, Iran, Mexico, Wisconsin, Texas, California and other places that I've forgotten already. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a raw recipe book... can't wait to try some!


Bon appetit!

Sylviane

Abalone

So far my dad and I have caught 25 abalones total.
There are so many ways to cook abalone:
- You can fry it,
- You can sauté it in butter
- And you can make ab-relleno
So far I mostly like the ab-relleno and the fried abalone.

Ben

The trees

In bodega bay we went to "the trees". Over there it’s like the coolest jungle gym ever! I said I could survive there for ever only if I had my dad’s 22 (riffle) because you can see quail down the road. The only problem is that there’s no fresh water. Me and Eva found our own little places where we would sleep if we lived there. At my place I could hang my binoculars, backpack, water and hat. And we even had a picnic there.

Ben

Rhododendron park

We've been staying at Pomo RV park since we arrived in Fort Bragg last Sunday. It's a peaceful campground where each site is surrounded by greenery which makes it very private...perfect for doing my yoga outside. Through out the whole park (it really looks more like a park then a campground) we can see a lot of rhododendrons which were in full bloom when we arrived... gorgeous! That reminds me of a beautiful one we had in our yard when I was growing up. My Dad and my brother, as landscape gardeners, would really appreciate this sight.

We've seen rhododendrons since Bodega Bay, wild in the woods, through towns and on the side of the roads. There is a rhododendron National reserve North of Bodega Bay, unfortunately we didn't get to stop there. It's easy to notice them now that they are in bloom. We are going through this area at the perfect season!

Today is a travelling day. We are moving camp....not too far though, only a couple of miles south to Caspar Beach. We won't have the privacy we have here as the campground is smaller and everyone is right next to each other with nothing in between them, but the location is ideal. Right across the road... is the beach. We'll be there for about three weeks. That's our latest plan!

Sylviane

"That’s why we call it Blowdega Bay"

That is what the park ranger called Bodega Bay when I asked if the wind always blew so hard. Prior to arriving at Bodega I had visions of launching our sailing dingy and fishing up a storm while visiting this area. The first day that I mounted the mast on the boat, and pulled the halyards to raise the sails, the wind just kept gaining strength. Finally by the time I had the boat ready to launch the wind was blowing about 25 knots and gusting over 30. Ben was even more bummed out that me when I decided it wouldn’t be safe and we had to abandon our sailing trip. The next day we tried again. But still it was just too much to set off at the boat ramp. The wind wasn’t so bad across the sand spit at the beach so we wheeled the boat over to give a go at a beach launch. I had the mainsail reefed down hard and we did manage to get out on the water with our fishing poles and gear. Ben, Eva and I took off with a spurt as a gust grabed the sails just as I pushed away from the beach, it left me wondering if this was really a good idea. I told the kids to hold on tight as a gust healed us over. I eased the mainsail sheet and headed into the wind but my heart was thumping a bit. I came about and headed back to the beach where we launched from. A few more gusts, and lots of tracking down wind, and we finally got back to the beach but further down wind than where we began.

So I unloaded the kids and fishing gear and figured I should get out by myself just to learn how the boat handles in these conditions. I did ok and I was more at easy not having to worry about the kids but still it was just too gusty for this little 10' dingy. Most of my sailing experience was on our old yacht Thelma, she liked these types of conditions.

The cold wind never let up and we didn’t even try to sail after that. We did have a bunch of fun in Blowdga bay despite the cold bitter wind, especially at the very cool location on the bluff that had trees that made a natural fort of sorts. The trunks and branches were huge and grew along the ground making a great jungle jim and rising up to a canopy that resembled a roof. The kids each found there special spot to have their picnic. I brought my plant book to try to learn what local plants are edible. Eva fell off a branch and twisted her ankle, she ended up hopping on one foot for a few days but she is doing better now.

For a school trip we went to the marine lab ran by UC Davis. They gave us an educational tour and it was very cool. Ben was able to answer a few of the questions asked by our tour guide too, he already has learned quite a bit about sea creatures.

Oh yeah I collected up about ten small sea urchins when we went to the tide pools and ate some nice uni. Lots of work and much smaller egg sacks than the ones in San Diego but still they were tasty and fresh.

Hope to have more to say in the next few days. With luck I will get to do some spear fishing and we will be on an ab hunt...

Bill

Fort Bragg

We are breathing the cool fresh air from the ocean again. As you can see I'm doing my morning exercise as I've been doing every week day for many weeks now.

We realised yesterday that next week end is Memorial weekend...didn't make reservations in advance but luckily we found a great place to stay near the beach. I think we'll be here for a while...lots of fishing, snorkeling, abalone hunting... Bill's in paradise! I also found a great yoga studio and read an add about an African dance class in the area. Soooo exciting! Can't wait to go try it on Wednesday. I did some African dance in Vancouver , Canada where I was studying English eleven years ago and really loved it.

What's your plan for Memorial Day week end?

Sylviane

Cloverdale

Here we are in Cloverdale with good internet connection, yes! We'll be here for a couple of days just long enough to warm up our bones from the cold wind of Bodega Bay and to catch up with laundry (6 loads so far and 2 more to go) since we were dry camping in Bodega ( no hook ups).

The weather here is drastically different...as I'm writing this, I'm sitting just under the AC that is blowing nice cool air. The children and Bill are gone fishing at the catch & release pond and I bet that when they come back they will be ready for dip in the pool!

The bus is filled with a wonderful smell of fresh bread baking... no, we didn't get a new bread machine, Bill made it by hand like he used to do on the boat when we were cruising.

Tomorrow we'll be hitting the road again to go north back to the coast to Fort Bragg area. We are all set up to do some snorkeling and go abalone diving, well Bill will do the diving we'll be watching him from above. I hope that the conditions will be ideal and that we'll have internet connection to tell you all about it.

Sylviane

There are new pictures on the photo gallery to check out!

The tide pools

Today we went to the tide pools. It is very cool there. There is lots of little
sea urchins, a sunflower starfish and a lot of little star fish, little fish, and dad found a not- very-lively Crab.
We got a lot of big mussels and sea urchins. But we found out the mussels weren’t safe to eat so we’ll use them for bait.

Ben

Blog written last Tuesday

Computers...arrrg

Sorry for not keeping in touch lately, we’ve had computer problems….well, we still do! If it’s not the computer itself, it’s the connection! We’ll get our computer back next week but our cell phone connection here is not good at all which is what we use for the internet. Someday, maybe, we’ll have satellite connection. For now we need to go to the town to make it work. We are staying in Bodega Bay at the moment.
We arrived here last Tuesday after a short stay in Modesto. It was wonderful to see our friends again. Each day was filled with play dates and dentist appointments since our favorite family dentist is in Modesto. Dr Mullins (on Coffee rd, in case you’re looking for a good place to go to) is very gentle and patient, he showed Ben and Eva how each tool works and tell them everything he’s doing. It’s precious. And the whole staff is friendly and makes you feel at home.
Unfortunately we didn’t stay long enough in Modesto to see everyone and the children still wanted to do a lot more with their friends. We should be back in November or so…

Our first day in Bodega Bay, which is north of San Francisco, was a school day, foggy, rainy and chilly. We still managed to have PE on the beach without getting wet. Bill led us in doing some stretching exercises, jogging and sprinting but soon PE turned into science when we found the remains of a seagull, a sand piper and even a seal which attracted about a dozen turkey vultures. It was nice to see them so close.

I wish all to the moms a wonderful Mother’s Day filled with love and surprises like mine.
Sylviane