Don’t get too bored with this
Beautiful sunsets in La Jolla are so commonplace, that they might get you know, a little boring. That’s alright with me. I will take them everyday. I thought winter was supposed to be coming? Well, I guess not for now. Mitt Romney apparently moved back in the neighborhood so he is at the beach watching these sunsets each night after losing the elections. He must be pretty happy with that at least.
Lobster in San Diego
They can reach up to 3 feet long and weigh in at 26 pounds if your lucky enough to find one. I am talking about the Spiny Lobster which primarily resides in the waters from Monterey California into Baja Mexico. San Diego is home to one of the largest fleets of Lobster boats in the California and I have heard that 70% of the Spiny Lobsters are caught from La Jolla to Point Loma. That might be a little high but the sea ground and rocky coastline in these areas make an ideal place to get lobster. Lobster fishing in San Diego runs from mid October to mid-march and in San Diego that means you’ll see the Lobster boats right off the coast and the beaches for most of the winter season. In addition to the boats you’ll find independent fisherman dropping hoop nets off the rocks, off their boats and in many cases night diving to catch them under the rocks. My brother Bill was a very big diver for Lobsters and we routinely would go out and he would catch 7 legal size lobsters every time he would go out. He packed his freezer full of Lobster tails and we would have a Lobster Festival every year (usually in January) where everyone could try any recipe with the lobster tails that they wanted. It was fantastic.
Lobster fishing is great in San Diego. If you have dive equipment you can go basically go right off the rocks in the calm waters of Mission Bay or the beach and grab lobsters with your gloved hands and put them in your bag. You need to carry a lobster bag and a lobster gauge which ensures the tail of the lobster is at least 3 and 1/4 inches. Unfortunately if you are going to be fishing for Lobsters off a pier you also need a fishing permit. You need fishing permit to catch lobsters period actually. The best Spiny Lobsters for San Diegan’s is actually not even in San Diego but south of the border. We used to get loads of lobster down in a tiny port town of Mexico called Puerto Nuevo. You go into these restaurants and you can order lobster, salad, tortillas and fantastic bean soup for $12. It is pretty amazing and a really fun experience.
The best bait for lobster fishing is to use a bait that is oily and really smells. The best bait are things like squid, mackerel, bonito, sardines and raw chicken. Mackerel is what the professionals use because it is really cheap in San Diego and when it gets old it smells worse than any fish that you have ever smelled. The other thing about smelly fish is that even if you don’t get a lobster you might end up getting a crab. They basically love the same stuff that lobsters like but they move a lot slower. The Lobsters have hair trigger response to things and they propel themselves with great force by their tails at the slightest movement. I mean they have been known to break divers mask because they propel themselves at such high speeds when they are startled. To catch them by hand you have to pin them to the bottom. If you are night diving you have to watch out because they look alot bigger underwater than when you get them to the surface. That’s why you have to carry a lobster gauge because you will get fined if you take a lobster that is too small.
I headed down in the afternoon to the port of San Diego to see what I could see there and I noticed that all the lobster boats were back in and there boats already cleaned. These guys catch tons of lobsters on their boats. Here is nice little boat called Rosalia’s. It’s a well kept traditional lobster boat that just looked so nice and blue in front of the San Diego backdrop. This little boat chugs out there on the cool and misty mornings and the lobster man pulls his traps to see what he has caught the night before. Sometimes his trap is loaded with fresh lobster.
Lobster boats are very unique and this is a traditional Maine style lobster boat. Atlantic lobster is the lobster you are used to seeing. It has the big snapping claws that can bite you. The spiny lobster is just as dangerous. They can slice your hands open underwater if you try to pick them up without gloves. Their spines are so sharp they are like blades.
These lobster traps are empty now but you can see the ropes and buoys in them. They pack these traps with stinky mackerel. The lobsters hop in to get a free meal and then next thing that they know they can’t leave. They call lobsters in San Diego bugs. Because they kind of look like bugs underwater. When you see a spiny lobster underwater at night it is pretty creepy. They remind you of huge cockroaches. And they hang out in groups and are very curious as to what your light is. You get used to it though. And the best part is getting them home and eating them.
This little dinghy here was tied up to the end of the pier and it was called the “Taitanic” which I am not sure if that was on purpose or a mistake. It had lots of scribbling and writing on the inside and it said something about fisherman being “poody heads” whatever that means. I think some kids had fun decorating their little dinghy. I am not sure who uses it but it didn’t even have a motor on it so maybe it was just derelict there.
It was another beautiful day in San Diego and tomorrow morning the Lobster fisherman will be out again catching the best lobster you could ever taste.
Charlie, “It’s Acting” Giron
Let me introduce to you a young and up and comer in the acting business named Charlie Giron. Charlie performed live yesterday and for a few days prior at North Park Theater in a musical named “How to Succeed in Business without Trying”. The musical was phenomenal and flawless with beautiful sets, costumes, vocals and acting. I was actually surprised that this was an amateur musical with high school kids because it was even better than some musicals that I have seen on Broadway. It is a shame that they only had 5 performances because I do think that this could be a hit if they took it nationwide. Unfortunately that is not something that will happen since most of them are still in school.d But, my gosh it was great.
(Click on the link below to see the whole gallery of pictures)
http://www.frankiefoto.com/Family/Charlie-Giron-Actor/26582846_g7NwbX
Here is a little video of Charlie flipping out. The whole audience cheered when Charlie did this flip. Check it out for yourself.
Charlie dances with other pirates. This is actually a good dance to remember because if you ever become a Pirate you can dance like one easily since you already know it.
Handsome Charlie is what they call him and the title fits well with this classic 1960’s Mad Men look.
Cute couple. Who knows. Showmance.
Charlie always gets the mail there on time.
Mila was a star too, here she is walking around North Park just enjoying the nice weather and the show.
Autumn
Autumn means the end of summer, a time to go back to school and a time to move the clock backward. The Autumn winds feel different than summer. Sometimes it feels like there is a touch of cold even when it is warm. The trees have the most to lose. They lose all of their leaves and all of their color. The trees go to sleep in the Autumn and won’t wake up for many months.
Autumn means football and early Sunday dinners and new TV shows to watch. There is something about the weather that makes it ok to be inside and do inside stuff.
In Autumn, when the leaves fall you have to rake the leaves up. Then they fall again and you rake them again. It keeps happening until all the leaves fall down. Then everything just gets wet. Wet and cold. But Autumn is beautiful and makes the skies bluer and it makes the sun go to the side which makes everything look better and more vivid. People love Autumn because they can wear sweaters again. People look better in sweaters than T-Shirts.
In Autumn you feel the excitement of Holloween and Thanksgiving. Everything is orange and dark red in Autumn because everything is trying to match the color of the leaves on trees. And also corn. For some reason people start putting dry corn cobs on things. I am not sure why that is but I think it is because the Indians used to bring that hard corn to things. The Pilgrims were all, “Here have some delicious Turkey, and by the way we made some nice creamy mashed potatoes too”. And then the Indian guy would be all like, “here have some hard corn. It’s tasty if you can get used to the extremely hardness of it” The Pilgrims were polite and kept taking it and now we have dried corn as decorations.
If you live in higher regions of the world, Autumn means burst of color – more color than spring and more color than summer or winter. One time I was traveling down a mountain road in Canada in Autumn. The road was lined with gold trees. It was like following the yellow brick road.
No matter what it is, Autumn is still one of my favorite seasons. Being in a warm place we don’t get to see it too often but when we see signs of it, it is so beautiful and a time of change.
Lighthouse in Bandon
Tu, Rinnie and I went to Bandon Oregon as part of a West Coast road trip about a month ago and there was a super cool Light House in Bandon Oregon. Bandon is a tiny seaport town right in the middle of the Oregon coastline and one of the most picturesque places in Oregon that you could visit. There are small shops, little fish markets and lots of interesting coastline. One of the most interesting things about Bandon is it feels like you are going back in time to an old seaport town. It has lots of charm including this lighthouse that we went to visit. I always like Light Houses because they just remind me of the old coast line. Sure they are still functional but they really remind me of a time when the US Coastline was being explored and they were needed to help big ships that didn’t have modern GPS avoid rocky coastlines in the fog. Between Lighthouses, fog horns and maps the ships didn’t have any instruments to tell them when they were close to wrecking on the coast.
I took this picture and processed it with selective color using Silver EFX software from Nik. It is some of the best black and white processing software out there and I use it on almost all of my photographs that I process in black and white. I love Black and White photography and I really like playing around with selective color too. It came out looking pretty cool.
Geno!
Went to go see the awesome Geno play soccer today. Actually it was an all soccer day because after watching Geno play soccer we went to a San Diego Soccer’s game and watched more soccer. It was a soccer saturday which in San Diego is actually much better than a Football Sunday considering the state of the San Diego Chargers. I took lots of pictures but only had time to go through a few to post them to the blog.
Geno is actually really good at Soccer and getting better everyday. Last week he scored 2 goals and today his goal was to score 11. He didn’t make it but as you can tell from the pictures he had a pretty awesome game.
Rainy Day’s Coming
I woke up this morning and I could hear the rain pounding on the street outside. It isn’t very often that you get to hear rain here in La Jolla so it was something different and actually a bit odd considering that we just had 100 degree clear blue skies on the beach just days earlier. When I went outside, I noticed it was cold outside which is also odd but apparently a real cold front is marching through California and expected to bring some heavy snows into the mountains. Winter has finally arrived and this is our first cold front to move through San Diego this winter. There might not be too many more but you never know.
By mid-day it was quite beautiful but chilly. I took my camera out after lunch and went down to the Cove to see how things looked down there. The cove had more seals than I have ever seen there. There was not one grain of sand left for them to camp out on. The beach was maximum capacity – apparently the rough waters made them tired and they needed to come in for a nice long rest. Well it will rain again tonight so maybe I’ll get to hear the sounds of rain drops again tonight.
