The sun comes up later and the shade, with the breeze running through it, is warm but not unpleasant, however the sun is scorching hot. This is important because the difference in heat and shade makes the weather very schizophrenic, and the breezes pick up during this time to get stronger and colder and sharper off the Pacific. You start to notice them more, even as the sun burns. You can take mid-day walks in this, if you stick to the shade. I mostly walk in the early morning, before the sun comes up, because as soon as the sun hits you, even at 7 AM, it burns with heat. You really feel it. We also get winds from both directions. Right now there is downslope wind out of Nevada, over the top of the Sierras. This summer there's been more rain in Nevada than in California, mostly due to hurricanes shattering off the Mexican coast and their moisture surging into the Mohave desert and through Vegas and north to Idaho, or sometimes over the peaks of the Sierra to rain up there. But not down here. Down here we get heated air. Warm winds.
The north coast, from around Fort Bragg north to Canada has been getting rains all this time, and most of the weather that heads for California from Hawaii merely makes clouds here actually rains up there to my northwest. The North Coast, as it is called, is very weird. Its mostly commercial fishing, until the California Aquaduct killed off the Sacramento River delta salmon in 1980 (by Gov. Brown!). California used to eat a lot of salmon before then. There was plenty to go around. But when Brown turned on the pumps it cuisinarted all the baby salmon, killing them entirely. There were no new fish to grow and harvest. All the fishermen lost their boats. That bankrupted all the north coast and central coast fishermen reliant on them, collapsing both areas into horrible bankruptcy and divorces and crime.
The north coast turned to logging, which only employed some of them. Redwood decks were popular with liberals in Berkeley, who hypocritically build their own decks, then joined the anti-logging movement and actually started murdering loggers (spiking trees shatters saws operated by loggers) who cut the trees that built their decks. This really happened. The movement died by Judi Bari blew herself up with a bomb in her car in San Francisco, between hate rallies where she was bragging that it was justified to murder loggers. I saw video of her saying this on my local news, which her followers denied, but it was on video. It was on my news. I saw her lips move. She really did say it. Her death ended the killings. Good riddance. Unfortunately, at this point the fishermen had lost their boats to bankruptcy, and their homes to the logging jobs being shut down by hypocrites and murderers from Berkeley who returned south to a well earned IPA on a lovely redwood deck, content in their hypocrisy. And that's why I hate Hippies. They are murderers.
The north coast is heavily faulted, being a location where the Juan De Fuca and Pacific Plates meet with the North American Plate and make complicated geology, and seismology. The Volcanoes start north of that point too. The ones south of there are dying out because the Pacific Plate is underneath us and has cut off the lava source. Unless there's breakage of the plate edge, which happens, and would cause huge surges of volcanism in weak spots, as well as new volcanoes all over the place. When a subducting plate (edge) breaks all bets are off. That would be worth studying, provided you moved fast enough not to get stuck in the way of all the eruptions. *geologists gleam*
Anyway, this heat has had me pondering small sailboat sailing on lakes. Most of them are missing half their water so this is not a good summer for that. I am waiting for the rains to refill them, then I plan to join the yacht club, sail their boats and see if I really like it or not. It will be my additional practice time. Sailing is a special kind of fun because it is exercise, but also requires your brain, like driving a car. You need to develop special skills to listen to the wind, to feel its direction and use its strength. This is tricky in the mountains because there's lots of surges and gusts rather than steady blowing, though you sometimes get that too, just to be difficult. I've been reading about Day Sailers and Cabin Cruisers, which are popular boats on the California coast. San Francisco Bay, is HUGE, lots of places to sail in relative safety, though the gales make it more challenging, and the water is both cold and polluted.
The Pacific Ocean is cleaner, though it has a couple odd points. For one, sharks bigger than the movie great white from Jaws actually exist. They eat Sea Lions, which are bigger and meaner than seals. They sometimes bite people. So do the sharks. When a person gets bit by a shark on my coast, they usually die screaming. Only rarely do they live. The sharks here are BIG. 25 feet is not unusual. Jaws was 18 feet long in the movie. They can eat a sea lion whole in three chomps. And sea lions are about 350 pounds. So that's one particular thing about the coast. Another is the water is very cold, around 54'F. That's hypothermia in around 20 minutes, possibly less. If you go into the water, you stop moving in about 10 minutes and die in around 20. Or the sharks get you because they are attracted to blood and low voltage electricity from metals in salt water.
Another thing about the coastal waters is there's a north wind, which makes the water this cold and blows the fog inland. So going north you have to tack a lot. And going south you can go very fast. But the ocean swells also grow very large so the beaches are small, if the exist at all, and wash away without a source of sand, which is why Big Sur is all cliffs and no beaches. Same as south of France. They don't have beaches either. Claiming to sit on a beach in the south of France is proof you have never been there.
Cold water is full of nutrients. Especially dissolved gases. So cold water grows great fish. This is why there are sea lions and sharks. The north wind drags cold water to the surface and physically enriches the water, and that wind can also, post oil, provide the energy to power sailing ships with fishing nets. And rather than spend energy hauling lots of sailors, and their living quarters, you can spend less energy running electric winches and batteries. This lets you have a smaller boat, or one that carries more fish. Prior to steam powered boats, fishing was done with small boats and nets and men. Long journeys to catch fish go back over 1000 years. Cod, for instance, was popularized due to the discovery that Iceland has shoals to its southeast full of cod, which fishermen pulled out, cleaned, and doused in salt in barrels, which they then sold down in London as general protein. They did this, and kept records of how many were caught and sold, since around 800 AD. And this was all done with sails. That is quite amazing.
And more importantly, it is a way forward post oil. When we're exporting fuel for money, and saving the rest so our military can protect us from invaders and pirates and saving lives (fire fighting, air ambulance). Rich people won't pave the roads. They'll live near airports and just fly to their vacation sites. This is sensible if you have the money to protect your family. Hire veterans to run your airport and protect it. Same with the ranches and closed towns you visit at your destination.
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