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May 18, 2010 – Santa Barbara, California
By Dr. Michael Reynolds
Today we are in our fifth day in Santa Barbara. This town is a splendid experience, but before we can talk about it we still need to catch up on the Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island visits. This we will do today and we will be fully up to date. As before I will provide a series of journal entries that highlight the receptions, lectures and school presentations. Material for this letter comes from Captain Schrader’s daily log and from my own notes.
Sunday 9 May, Dinner at the Walton’s.
Before we leave San Diego, I want to mention our delight at getting to know the famous basketball player, Bill Walton. Bill was a powerhouse for UCLA and went on to a career in the pros. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. When he heard we were coming to San Diego he came to the dock to meet us. Herb, our official sports fanatic, talked about that experience in his blog that day. After Herb left town for a short family visit in Newport, Bill insisted that all of the OW crew and guests join both him and his wife, Laurie, for dinner at their house. Sorry Herb! The Walton home is a warm, open bungalow complex tucked into the hills behind Balboa Park, just a few minutes from the marina. In spite of a busy calendar, Bill wanted one last opportunity, in his words, to thank the team for the important education and awareness work we’re doing. I’ll admit, that’s nice to hear, and it’s wonderful to have his support.
My son, a news anchor, sports fanatic and trivia guru, told me Bill was a well-known fan of the Grateful Dead. Sure enough, the Dead were at full volume when we arrived, and in the middle of his living room was the largest array of drums I, an old frustrated drummer, have ever sat behind. The drums were provided by Mickey Hart (the Grateful Dead drummer) with active Walton enthusiasm. Plenty of drumming goes on in this room, much to the chagrin of the neighbors I expect.
Monday 10 May, The trip up from San Diego was not easy.
Finally, we are tied up at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey. This simple hop from San Diego was a battle and we are all a little tired. To be here on schedule, we left San Diego immediately after returning from the Walton’s. The main sail was hoisted before turning outbound toward Point Loma. We expected an easy, slightly rolling sea, but what we found wasn’t so pleasant. Instead a strong northwest wind blew into our faces, and the waves came from at least three different directions which produced what are called “square waves.” It was the Baja Bash revisited. For several aboard, it was a rude introduction to Southern California sailing and an impossible way to digest a meal. After a thorough bashing and a stalled engine just two miles from our dock, we pulled cleanly into our slip at the California Yacht Club (33º58’55.24”N, 118º26’52.15”W). We owe a debt of gratitude to sailing legend Jim Kilroy and his elegant wife Nellie for our welcome to Los Angeles.
Tuesday 11 May, School tours on OW and at Pt. Dume school.
Our time in LA has been busy but productive. Today, in order to meet our obligations we had to split into two groups. While Dave Logan and Roxanne hosted visits from eight LA inner-city area schools, which included classroom presentations as well as a boat tours, David Thoreson, Kirsty, Mark and I had the pleasure of visiting the Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School in Malibu. The 260 kids in this school welcomed us with a concert, a choir, a cheer and a stack of handmade ocean conservation “books” with their ideas of how to help heal the ocean. This elementary school has one of the most sophisticated marine science labs we’ve seen in any school anywhere.
Our school visit was followed by a luncheon at the sea side home of PTA president, Kelly Meyer. Kelly is a dedicated ocean conservationist and she wanted us to meet a few of her colleagues and friends. Gabrielle Reece (volleyball/model/actress) offered her support. Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen are part of a growing community who are calling our attention to the growing garbage patches in gyres in all the world’s oceans. Coretta Anderson is a director of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). (Go to the NRDC home page and listen to NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discuss alternate energy options.) I’ll stop here and just say we were humbled by the respect and support we received from all these new friends.
Wednesday 12 May, continued School visits toOcean Watch.
This is our second day of school visits to Ocean Watch. Yesterday and today we have received school groups, public and parochial, to Ocean Watch. Many of these schools are from the poorer neighborhoods in L.A., but these are kids with goals and a future. It is such a pleasure to be in a classroom with boys and girls who literally sit on the edges of their seats and soak up everything we say. If I ask, “Who knows what pH is?” every hand raises. They know their geography, history and science and they participate with a glowing joy that fills me with hope and confidence in a better future. The Kilroy foundation plays a big role in the lives of these children. It’s great to see wealthy people making such significant contributions to the future. As we have seen, many are, and for that we are grateful.
Thursday 13 May, Goodbye L.A. and a visit to Santa Catalina Island.
Today we are visiting the USC Wrigley Institute for Marine Sciences on Santa Catalina Island. In the early 1900s the Chicago-based Wrigley family (chewing gum and Wrigley Field) was negotiating to buy a huge tract of Los Angeles property when, as an aside, an enterprising real estate broker said that for a mere three million dollars more they could also buy Catalina Island – so they did, sight unseen. It turned out to be a happy purchase which eventually led to the establishment of this research and learning asset. The campus was quiet at this time but we gave a presentation to the children and staff, then were given a tour by Sean Conner, the assistant dean. One activity here is a marine sciences camp for inner-city children of all ages from Los Angeles schools. According to Sean many of these children have not even seen stars, let alone marine animals.
Dr. Bill Nelson is a permanent resident and microbiologist at Wrigley Institute, lucky guy. He kindly showed us his laboratory and we discussed his research. The lab tour and discussion were brief and far out of my field of expertise, but maybe I can give you an idea of the research and its profound implications. By using a very modern gene sequencing machine he and his staff are examining a deep ocean bacteria called “archaebacteria,” (also called archaea).
Note: Bacteria are a major part of the world’s biomass. They are everywhere. For instance in a gram of soil (1/28 ounce) there are typically 40 million bacterial cells, and there are a million bacterial cells in a milliliter (1/5 teaspoon) of fresh water. In all the world there are approximately five nonillion (5×10^30) bacteria on Earth.
Archaea are very important. They are a primitive form of bacteria. Most live in extreme environments, such as hyperthermal vents, where they are called extremophyles. Other Archaea species are not extremophiles and live in ordinary temperatures and salinities. Some even live in your guts! Archaea requires neither sunlight for photosynthesis as do plants, or oxygen. They absorb CO2, N2, or H2S and give off methane gas as a waste product the same way humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Scientists are hard at work trying to understand how the ocean absorbs CO2 and it is possible these play a big role in climate adjustment.
Another topic on which Dr. Nelson is working is a tiny beetle that eats holes in the rubber hoses in automobiles. Scobicias declivis is a tiny wood-eating beetle which is also known as the “lead cable borer.” It was first discovered on Catalina Island in the 1980’s. Last June the 8 mm (0.35”) insect changed its diet from wood to plastic and rubber hoses. Fuel dock gas pumps, portable gas tanks and automobile hoses began to spring leaks from tiny holes. Today we are in Santa Barbara and the newspaper headlines are talking of an infestation. We wonder if this tiny bug will do what green politicians and environmentalists are trying in vain to do: drastically reduce our dependence on the automobile.
Finally…
With this blog we are, more or less, caught up on our port calls and activities since hitting the coast of the U.S.A. In many ways our voyage has changed from long at-sea legs to a series of short hops up the west coast back to Seattle. We will be in Seattle exactly one month from today, on June 17. The core crew are pulling at the reins, the barn is in sight. But before going home we need to complete our program in Santa Barbara then make stops in Monterey, San Francisco, Portland and Port Townsend. Tomorrow we will write about our Santa Barbara experience then on Thursday we head for Monterey. This is so much fun!
-Dr. Michael Reynolds with photographs by David Thoreson
*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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