March 2014 – Road and Ocean

Paradise cove

March 22, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

We’re sitting peacefully at anchor at Paradise Cove as the sun rises over San Pablo bay. We arrived last night and dropped the hook a few yards off the end of the pier.

The morning high speed ferry powers past, sending a wake to the shore. The waves roll under the boat, making it rock; the cupboards make the click-clunk noise so familiar when out at sea in a swell. The half finished bottle of rum from last night nearly slides off the galley onto the floor- it’s just rescued in time by falling into the sink. A minute later, the waves crash on the beach, and then all is calm again.

A man is taking his morning swim in front of the huge, luxurious beach homes. Rose and I try to decide which is the ugliest house. She tells me about her studio mate back in Sausalito, a lady in her forties who was born and grew up in this area. The two of them were out with our kayaks the other day, Maude saying how when she was a kid, there were no houses here, and how they found old arrow heads in the dirt, wondering whether it was an old Indian settlement. How much things have changed, in not very many years. There’s hardly a spot of spare land on this peninsula now.

The sun has decided that it wants to be the boss again today, and burns away the morning cloud by ten. I’ve only connected one of my solar panels up so far, and it’s starting to do its job, trickling some charge into the batteries. Rose is getting on with her knitting, and I’m just enjoying being out here.

We’re only half an hour away from our dock, but I feel we’re well and truly down the road towards self-sufficiency, a taste of future adventures a long way away from people and civilisation. Yesterday I finished installing the new alternator, which means that, when both solar panels are also connected, we’ll be covering all our electrical power needs without any help from the outside.

Last night’s wind has all but gone, with only a light zephyr blowing from the north. It brings with it the faint sound of trains and ships, making their busy way back and forth across on the other side of the bay in Richmond. Not a hundred yards away on land, the green hills are filled with bird song, and every now and then I catch a snip of conversation between the men fishing on the pier.

All is well.

Joshua Tree

March 18, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

We left San Francisco late on Thursday afternoon, aiming to drive down the coast of Big Sur and find somewhere for the night before continuing on to Joshua tree the next day. Tight on time, it was dark not long after we left Monterey Bay, but we managed to get a fair way before losing the light. Rose found what looked like a nice camp site perched on the top of the cliffs overlooking the sea, and we figured that we could just turn up on a Thursday night and they’d have space. Turns out that this is a pretty popular spot, and all the pitches were officially booked – with paper tags attached to the posts, put there by the campground host. It was 10 pm and a few places were still empty so we took our chances and set up on one of them. Nobody disturbed us, and we woke to an amazing view over the sea. Our pitch was just metres from the edge of the cliff, and we could hear the waves crashing on the rocks below.

The sun started poking its head over the hills in the east as we prepared breakfast, and then once packed up we were off on the long drive across the hills to Joshua tree.

We turned off the coast and headed inland just south of Cambria, scooted down highway 101 for a short distance then continued eastwards on the 58 across miles and miles of hot, dusty, desert.

We were still a way off as we chased our shadow down the road, heading towards Yucca Valley, where a big American burger dinner was followed by a short hunt for a Motel and then some rest.

Next morning we were up early and straight into the park. The scenery changes so quickly as you gain altitude leaving the town of 29 palms, with the Joshua trees being pretty dominant amongst the scrub and smaller, similar looking yucca plants. The rangers at the gate said that all the campgrounds were full, but confident from our previous night’s stealth technique we thought it would be worth checking for ourselves. Yeah, it was pretty busy, but we did manage to find a spare spot, so we set up camp right away and then headed out exploring the park for the rest of the day.

I keep my longboard in the van all the time, and over the past few months we’ve driven along so many awesome skating roads, but I’ve not yet managed to stop. This time I couldn’t resist. “See you at the bottom!” … endless miles of perfect asphalt, hot sunshine, pretty much no traffic – an epic skate.

David had forgotten to bring a sun hat so we fashioned a head scarf that made him look like a real explorer.

I love the big, open, arid spaces of the desert.

The obligatory long-exposure night time shots of the desert, with some loon running around with a torch. It was full moon while we were there, which meant that as the sun went down the moon was rising, which was pretty awesome. And in the morning, the moon was just setting over the west as the new day was starting with the sun rising in the east.

Mum and David planning where their travels will take them next. We left early on the Monday morning and dropped them off in Bakersfield to pick up a rental car while we bombed back to San Francisco.

Out on the bay

March 8, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Mum arrived a couple of days ago with David, and one of the first things we had to do was get the boat out for a sail! We rode the ebb tide under the Golden Gate bridge and out to sea. I’ve stopped taking pictures of “the most photographed bridge in the world”, it feels too familiar now. Though it did make a nice backdrop to our lunch time anchorage, just inside point Bonita.

Buy an ELR, now

March 3, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

As the commercial came to an end, Rose and I looked at each other across the room, our eyes wide with incredulity.

Why do we work so hard?… for stuff? … in other countries they work, they stroll home, they stop by the café, they take August off. OFF. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hard working believers, that’s why… [bla bla] … as for all “the stuff”? That’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August.

This intense promotion of dark, greedy consumerism was lost on our hosts, who, being Americans with TVs, are bombarded by auto commercials all day every day. I, for one, sure ain’t going to go out and buy a new Cadillac off the back of this. It makes me sick to see the media pushing new stuff down peoples’ throats everywhere – stuff that they just don’t need. New phones, new gizmos and gadgets, new vitamin supplements, new cars, bigger homes … for what? To become “happier”?

We don’t own a TV. I’ve never owned a TV, and Rose hasn’t had one since we moved in together over seven years ago. Seeing this commercial reminded me why. Sure, there are lots of awesome programs on but you can get most of that on the internet now, which means you don’t have to sit in front of the goggle box, bombarded by messages telling you to do this, do that, buy this, buy that. We make our own choices.

I lost pretty much all of my meagre possessions when my camper van was broken into just after moving from Sheffield to Bristol in 2005, and since then I’ve consciously not been building up a load of stuff to hold me down like a ball and chain around my ankles. We now live on a boat that doesn’t have much room, and that’s just fine. We moved out here to the USA with just a few bags on the plane and now it’s a case of “one in, one out” when it comes to “stuff”.

When we moved out of our house, we figured we’d put a few things in storage. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that all we owned fitted into the six or so bags we were taking with us, plus half a crate in a storage warehouse for some books and paintings.

I came across this minimalist game the other day. See if you can make it through 30 days. I don’t think I’ve got enough stuff to!

//www.ispot.tv/share/7BkA