Prospecting for Jade

It all started with a friend of a friend of a friend, who is a jade sculptor. I had no idea that jade could be found naturally in the area, but apparently it can - south of Big Sur, at a place aptly named Jade Cove.

The sculptor dives there for the big bits he needs for his business, but smaller bits gets washed ashore on to the rocky beach - and anyone can go "prospecting" for them. I fancied the idea of going and checking it out for a while now, and the current four day weekend seemed like an ideal opportunity.

Jade Cove is about 65 miles south of Monterey, and with low tide occurring in late afternoon, I hatched a plan - leave late morning, grab a sandwich for lunch and eat it at the condor hangout - maybe I can get a decent shot if I'm lucky - then head on down to the cove.

First photo below is of the Big Sur coastline - most of the 65 mile long drive is in scenery like this - can't really go wrong!

I call in at the deli in Big Sur and get a tuna sandwich to go and head down to the condor hangout. There's no-one else there and I sit on the guard rail eating my sandwich looking out for condors.

About three bites into the sandwich I realize there's one perched in one of the trees nearby - just standing there. I decide to finish the first half of the sandwich as the bird looks to be quite content sitting there.

I finish, go to the car, unpack the big lens and the camera and fix it all up, glancing at the bird to make sure it doesn't fly off before I'm ready. Thankfully it didn't. I point the camera at the bird, and it's a little far away, even with the big lens, but I snap a few shots and see what's what.

Then after about a minute, it decides to leave and flies right past me and heads south by the side of the highway - I snap away! It then disappears around a corner and then comes back for another lap a couple of minutes later (again, I snap away). I now have my cool condor photo. It's not the one below (my cool shot has the whole bird in it) - this is a close up as it initially flew past - note the radio aerials attached to its wings.

After the bird didn't return a second time, I headed on down the coast to Jade Cove. I found the cove easily enough (there's a big sign - Jade Cove - it'd be hard to miss), parked the car and headed off down the trail towards the rocky beach.

My big problem is that I have no real idea how to tell if something is actually jade. I know it's supposed to be green-ish, but that's about it. Thankfully I get lucky as I end up talking to a guy who knows what's what and he showed me the best places to go and what to look for.

The trail down to the rocky beach gets steep and slippery and the waves were large today too, but I followed this guy's lead and headed to the best bit of the cove that the waves permitted us to get to (we couldn't get to the best bit as the waves kept crashing in all over it).

The photo below shows some of the waves crashing in on the shore.

After a while, hunting around in the rocks, I started to get a feel for what was jade and what wasn't. The local expert checked rocks out for me, and after an initial no clue what so ever, I was up to around 60-70% correct when I was identifying jade within the hour.

I came away with a handful of small, low grade pieces of jade - but it was a very cool experience - now I need to learn how to polish the bits I have, just to see what they'll look like in their best light.

I'll have to go back again sometime as the drive itself was worth it, but the fun destination made it all the more compelling.

Thanksgiving in the Company of Condors and Beach Boys

As typically happens, I spent my Thanksgiving in a non traditional US way - 'cos I'm not really a traditional US resident.

Instead of the typical turkey dinner, I went in search of Condors (not to eat, I hasten to add). I went down to the place where they often congregate, but today they weren't hanging out there.

The weather was great though, so I decided I would hang out there for a while, and then I spotted one flying over the top of me - of course, the camera was still in the car.

I headed down to the second place they're supposed to congregate and again hung out and enjoyed the weather - and again, one flew over me, quite high above me, but this time the camera was ready.

I drove a bit further south as that's where the birds were heading, but no joy. I turned around and was heading back up to Monterey, but as I approached the original location, I saw the condor docent waving her aerial in the air, so I pulled in and checked in with her to see if she was picking up condor signals.

She was not picking any up. There was also a couple of folks setting up a camera on a tripod to take their Christmas photo with the Big Sur coastline in the background. After chatting with the docent for a couple of minutes, she headed off in search of condor radio signals and I ended up helping this couple (a brother and sister) take their holiday photo.

I got chatting with them and they too were locals who are into the condors so we all decided to hang around to see if condors appeared or not. We got lucky as another appeared, again high.

While this condor was flying over and I was kneeling on the ground trying to keep the bird in the viewfinder with the big lens on the camera, some other guy who had pulled into the turnout was asking me about my camera.

I did my best to answer whilst still trying to take photos of the bird, but needless to say, he didn't get my full attention and the couple stepped in to help him with his camera questions.

After the bird had left, the guy left too and the couple came over to me - "do you know who that was?" - I had no clue, but apparently it was one of the original Beach Boys, Al Jardine (I've looked him up online since and yes, it was him).

I hung around chatting with the brother and sister, eating her home made chocolate chip cookies and hoping for more condors and just enjoying the lovely weather (I was in a t-shirt and it's the end of November!) - we saw one more condor, but it was a way aways.

Finally, I drove back up home as the sun was setting - in my book, a really nice Thanksgiving day - and in the spirit of the holiday, I certainly did feel thankful sitting on the guard rail at the side of highway 1 in the sunshine looking out for very large birds and taking photos of them.

The Upside Of Storms

Well, this isn't really much a storm, just some rain on and off for a couple of days, but the upside is both much needed precipitation and cool skies as the rain approached when I was out for my run this morning.

So, presented below, three photos from the run.


First shot is from the coastal trail in Pacific Grove looking sort of west-ish towards Lover's Point. Second shot is looking back (east-ish) towards Monterey from Lover's Point (my turn around point on my run).

Third shot is a fishing boat docked at the municipal pier in Monterey.

Not Just Another Day At The Beach

Today dawned sunny. I did get up briefly before dawn to see if the weather might produce a glorious sunrise, but I could see stars everywhere, so I just went back to bed.

After a bit of a lig, I got up and went mountain biking in the sunshine. It was pleasantly warm and very sunny and I ended up tacking a few extra trails on to my ride as I was enjoying being out in the hills so much. In the end I rode just over 16 miles.

Back home and showered, I only had one definite task for the rest of the daylight hours - go to the library and pick up my library card that I'd signed up for online the other night - yes, I've finally joined the local library.

The library opens at 1pm on Saturdays, and it's almost that as I leave the house to go grab some lunch and then meander to the library on the opposite side of town.

It's warm enough for shorts (as long as you're in the sun) though I am wearing a thin fleece too. I decide to take advantage of the weather and grab myself a carne asada burrito and go eat it at the beach, a favorite pastime of mine on such nice days.

The guy in the burrito store gives me one green and one red salsa container; given my predilection for saving my favorite for last, I decide the first half of the burrito will be consumed with the green salsa, the second half with the red. I'm sat on one of my regular benches overlooking the ocean watching the world go by and I'm just about done with the green salsa half of the burrito when it happens.

I feel my hand jerk and my burrito explodes all over me - what the...? I looked down at the burrito and it looks like a grenade went of in it - there's about 2 inches of tattered tortilla hanging all limply before you get down to what remains of the filling - it looks like one of those sticks of dynamite that just went off in Tom the cat's hands thanks to Jerry the mouse.

I realize that the missing filling is all over my leg, my arm and the floor around the bench. It takes a second to realize that the large seagull that is currently pulling a tight 180 degree turn in front of me was the cause of the explosion. It had swooped in from behind over my right shoulder and attacked my burrito - no idea if it was with its beak or its feet - I assume the former.

As I sit there piecing together what just happened, what seems like a thousand birds of various shapes and sizes suddenly descend on my area - no doubt attracted by the debris field of meat, guacamole and pico de gallo spread over my limbs and the surrounding areas.

I feel like Tippi Hedren waiting outside the schoolroom. The smaller birds (pigeons and sparrows) are encroaching on my space the most brazenly, while about three varieties of seagull, one of which is rather large, are only a little further out - and all of them are inching closer. I wave arms and legs at them to get them to back off, but I feel it's only a matter of time before I end up like Tippi Hedren in the attic, and then boom - another seagull (maybe it was the same one, I didn't get that good a look the first time) appears over the same shoulder and has another go at my burrito.

At this stage I give up, wrap what's left of my lunch back up in its paper bag (it's about to get tossed in the garbage, I'm not going to eat the rest of it - I've no idea what germs or diseases seagulls might have imparted). I get up and leave the area of the bench at which stage there's an avian free for all and within a couple of seconds, all evidence of the debris field is gone.

I spent a while, and three napkins, cleaning up the mess from my extremities, and then I carried on to the library.

Having spent the whole of the journey from the beach to the library and back home again reeking of lunch, I am now changed into new clothes too.

My favorite red salsa never saw the light of day.

A Nice Morning Ride

I had a nice morning bike ride out along the coast this morning. There was some sporadic low cloud here and there, but the sun shone for most of the ride.

On the way back into town, I noticed that there was some mist or haze right down at ocean level which gave rise to the photo below.

The closest (darkest) bit of land is Lover's Point in Pacific Grove, behind that (the medium darkness bit of land) is Monterey and the lightest (and tallest) bit of land are the hills to the east of Monterey.

The only real reason for this post is I quite like this photo - even if the point and shoot it was shot with struggled mightily with the range of brightness in the scene.

Hot November Days

We're having a mini heatwave here for a couple of days - it got to just over 80 degrees here today (just googled it, 27 degrees in Celcius) - in the middle of November. The temps are setting records!

I, of course, decided to make the most of it. I went mountain biking first thing before it got too warm and caught a bit more air over the jumps as the trails were in excellent condition (recent rains had removed some of the sand and firmed up the trails), though by most accepted standards, it was still tiny air.

Then I had lunch at the beach (yes, my staple lunch at the beach, a carne asada burrito) and wandered around town just enjoying the weather.

As well as the nice temps, the visibility was awesome too. In the photo below, as well as the weird building at the end of an old cannery building, you can see the hills across the other side of the bay. The direction this photo was taken meant those hills are around 30 miles away, so it was definitely clear.

It's supposed to start cooling down and getting back to normal tomorrow (though normal isn't supposed to be reached until Monday or Tuesday), so I'll be looking for more stuff to do outdoors tomorrow too.

They're Alive!

Well, the two dead salamanders from this morning are still dead, but this evening, when I popped out the house to get myself a squid burrito (which was very tasty by the way), I was on the look out for salamanders, and I wasn't disappointed - there were three of them on the front step this evening, and they were all alive.

They were all small (about an inch in length each) and I got to use the macro mode in the point and shoot to get the shot below of two of the three.

Hopefully blasting them with a camera flash doesn't harm them!


I wonder what's causing the sudden influx of salamanders - there is a full moon at the moment, and the dew point means that the front steps are covered in dew - I wonder if that's what it is?

Salamander Massacre?

I was coming back into the house from my morning bike ride this morning and noticed something on the front step that looked a bit unusual.

On closer inspection, I realized it was a small dead salamander. Then I noticed another, even smaller one on the other side of the step. Weird.

I assume they were babies as the adult salamanders I've seen before have been a few inches long and these were tiny.

I moved them next to each other and put my key next to them for scale to take the photo below.


No idea why baby salamanders would be on my front step and why they'd be dying there, hopefully it's a one off occurrence, though I assume it must mean there's a nest (or the salamander equivalent of a nest) nearby.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Ack, it's only November the 13th and they're already sticking the Christmas Tree (or is it a holiday tree these days??) up on Cannery Row.

It's not even Thanksgiving yet.

The world has gone insane.

They should wait until December.

I wonder how long before Santa will be at its base on the weekends.

Ack.

My First Half Marathon!

Today was the day I ran my first half marathon. The route takes you around downtown Monterey, Cannery Row, downtown Pacific Grove, out along the coast to Asilomar and then back to Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey.

There were three of us running in amongst the 5000 folks taking part, John (in the middle, a friend who used to work at Cellfire and the guy who cajoled me into doing it) and Jonathan (on the left, another friend from Cellfire who I work with every day).


The run starts at 7am, so we got down to the start line around 6:45am. The runners are in different corrals based on anticipated running pace, so the faster folks go first, with the elite runners starting when the gun fires.

Us folks back in corral 'C' actually crossed the start line about 5 minutes later, but you have a timing chip attached to your shoe, so your time starts when you cross the line.

This blurred shot is our view of the start line (the red hoop) - it's barely dawn, so it was easy to take blurred shots (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).



I had my GPS watch on to help pace myself, and Jonathan and I, both firt time halfers ran together using my watch to make sure we didn't get over excited and go too fast. John, who has run these before, started with us but then gently pulled away.

There are live bands, drink stations, toilet stations etc. along the route and it was fun running with so many folks all going around a similar pace.

It did shower on us a few times, and we were feeling it near the end, but we were feeling good enough to speed up for the last half mile.

At the end, they had those silver mylar blankets to keep warm with, so we grabbed one each and then headed over for the free beer and soup (yes, beer at 9:30am - it had to be done).

Then it started to rain more heavily, so we headed home wrapped up in our blankets and grabbed some hot showers.

It'll be interesting to see how the legs are tomorrow!

My official timing stats are below:
Overall: 2821 out of 4258
Men: 1345 out of 1668
M 40-44: 185 out of 223
Age/Grade: 45.13% Place: 3351
Finish: 2:18:54 Pace: 10:36

The GPS trace can be found here (note, includes detour down the alley by the aquarium for a toilet break at the public toilets there!).

The next question is, will I do it again sometime? - we'll see (let's see how those legs recover first).

A Vaguely Smelly Training Update

Yes,
Final training run before Sunday's half marathon saw me run a 10k this morning. My normal 10k run takes me past the senior center at the junction of Dickman and Lighthouse, which happens to be my local voting station in today's presidential election.

My plan was that I'd check out the voting station as I passed, and if there was no line, I'd go for it.

So, I'm 6 miles into my 6.4 mile run (yes, I realize it's a little more than 10k, but 10k sounds better than 6.4 miles) and I'm passing the station and there's no line.

Therefore, I'm in the polling station, out of breath and sweating rather profusely. To their credit, the folks manning the station take it all in their stride, make me sign my name and give me my ballot.

I took it to one of the booths and filled it in and may have dropped a few drops of sweat on it too.

Then I was back on my run.

I was wearing my GPS, so the photo below shows my path through the voting station (I guess it got a bit inaccurate given I was indoors) I'm just happy that I didn't get called for being too smelly.