Sausalito

		Floating Houses VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, Sausalito is a quaint waterfront town, a 30-minute ferry ride (or 10-minute drive) from downtown San Francisco. Surrounding hills dotted with millionaires' houses overlook Richardson’s Bay. Hikers and bikers enjoy the adjacent Marin Headlands portion of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Tourists clamber up to Hawk Hill to get that postcard shot of the Golden Gate Bridge with them in the foreground.

Sausalito is one of the west coast's sleepy delights, all the better experienced while staying in one of the over 400 houseboats also known as “floating houses”. This name is more appropriate since there is no steering wheel or propeller. The Sausalito floating home community consists of various shapes, sizes, and values, with styles of decorations and architecture that befits the owner’s personality. The roots of the Houseboat Community lie in the re-use of abandoned boats and material after the de-commissioning of the Marin shipyards at the end of World War II. Following World War II, a lively waterfront community continued to grow out in the 60’s and early 70’s. Art studios, Venice festivals, and summer getaways from the city all added to the popularity growth.

In 1976 Fleetwood Mac stayed close to the old dockyard while recording their “Rumors” album. According to rock'n'roll folklore those recording sessions were drug-fuelled, as was the Sausalito of the 70s, when the houseboat community emerged from the flower-power era. Those who had gone to San Francisco wearing flowers in their hair for art and music had been gatecrashed by the drug drop-out crowd, squatting on vessels, refusing to pay taxes and bringing the community to the brink of eviction.

Thankfully, these days the feel of the early houseboat scene, forged from the 60s ethos of peace, love, understanding and ingenuity, has been sustained. OK, some of the funkiness, far-out art, and shocking personal touches may still exist, but there are also the remodeled, expanded, and designer styles also. The community may have derived from the 70’s counter-culture movement, but today they have well-paid jobs, probably don't take acid, and play with Xbox, not guitars, and they take pride in their expensive homes. But this is a more laidback, quieter, dreamy water-centric alternative to the city dwellers over the bridge.

While not embracing tourists and renters, renting is not excluded. We were very fortunate to find an affordable smaller one that allowed us to experience this lifestyle by participation rather than observation. Included in our rental were two kayaks and two bicycles for our use, which we found to be the typical transportation for this community.

Our living room opens up onto an attached dock area, with access to a floating dock. From this deck we can see many birds on the bay estuary, seagulls and pelicans flying overhead, who prepare to dive for tasty morsels. Harbors seals, playfully swimming around navigating the currents, occasionally disappear into a dive only to resurface, alert and looking right at us and then to dive again – for hours on end. Sunrises and sunsets provided a special show reflecting the colorful shadows of the nearby sailing boats and moorings off the water. Throughout the night, the effects of the tides going in and out could be felt as our floating house bumped against its mooring and strained against its rope restraints as through it preferred to be going out to sea.

All in all, this has been truly a unique experience and one that we will cherish and remember fondly.

Point Reyes National Seashore

		Elk, Elephant Seals, & birds VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Point Reyes is a National Seashore on the western coast of California, just north of San Francisco. It is a peninsula of land on the Pacific Plate and separated from the mainland (which is on the North American Plate) by the San Andreas Fault. The peninsula has moved northward 350 miles (so far) by these two plates rubbing against each other. Drakes Bay and Tomales Bay are inlets formed by the peninsula. With marshes (oyster farming and shorebirds), coastline (elephant seals and sea lions), pasturelands (historic ranches and farming), the Pacific Flyway (nearly 490 species of birds), the fault line (the land shifted 21 feet during the 1906 earthquake), and hills (deer, Tule elk, hawks), there is always plenty of hiking and exploring activities to do and unique sights to see. As a result, it is one of our favorite places and we return here whenever we are near.

The Spanish explorer  Sebastian Vizcaino  named the land Punto de los Reyes ("Kings' Point") when his ship, the Capitana anchored in Drakes Bay on the Day of the Three Kings (Epiphany or the end of the 12 Days of Christmas) on January 6, 1603.

Point Reyes' first inhabitants, the Coast Miwok, lived on the land for thousands of years. They left evidence of well over a hundred encampments on the peninsula, with a population estimated to have been nearly 3,000. As seasonal hunters and gatherers rather than cultivators, they were nourished by fish, clams, mussels, and crab, in addition to the deer, elk, bear, mud hen, geese, and small game they hunted with spears and bows. Sir Francis Drake's 1579 anchorage at Point Reyes was near a Coast Miwok settlement.

Two large mammalian species, the Northern Elephant Seal and the Tule Elk were nearly hunted to extinction. In 1978, ten Tule Elk were re-introduced to Point Reyes and have now grown to over 500. While slightly smaller than the Roosevelt Elk and Rocky Mountain Elk, they are, nonetheless, a special treat to see.

The Elephant Seals, with their protruding noses and trumpeting, bellowing sounds, managed to survive and have recovered to the present population of 1,500 to 2,000 individuals. They return each winter to mate and raise their young below Point Reyes' Chimney Rock. Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was shot nearby and John Carpenter’s movie “The Fog” was shot at the Point Reyes’s Lighthouse and the small, nearby town of Inverness, where we stayed this year. This attests to the coastal climate often encountered there and to the number of birds seen.