The Great Seal Mystery

The headline in the Bay Crossings said "the seals are back"! Well, no, they are not back at Pier 39 - only about 300 out of 1700 are back there. This is just a small part of a pack that showed up in Moss Landing, at least a couple hundred. They were frolicking and making their honking sounds, swimming and eating in the channel and probably wondering why they didn't go to Moss Landing sooner. The former tenants in the fishing boat harbor are also back on the dock, trying to maintain the fact that they were there first. Otters breed in the small estuary and great herds (?) of pelicans fly down channel swooping out to feed. There is a small beach where we can run the dogs, carefully as a lot of other people know about it. These dog run beaches are like gold. Years ago, when we first came to the Bay area, Moss Landing was a very funky place with yards full of antiques and two streets of falling down buildings. It is now a place of bed and breakfasts, a KOA trailer park and a lot of real antique stores. It was fun to explore - now we hit the fruit stand and run the dogs wondering how this place became tourist central for people and seals.

Fifer

We only saw Fifer leave the dock once when we used to live at Pete's in the 90s. and it was an event with great honks of it's horns and a lot of prayer that the current wouldn't carry it into the docks. The boat was used in the Dunkirk evacuation, according to one of the stories and the second owner was Melvin Belli of San Fransico, a flamboyant attorney. There is a photo of Prince Philip, (the queen's husband for those who are not so informed) in the salon. Evidently they were aboard in the 50s when Elizabeth visited North America. As she is doing the same cost cutting as the rest of the world, I don't think she is interested in buying Fifer, as I understand she just sold her helicopter. Fifer is for sale for $1.4 million. For that amount of money, unless you are a history buff, you can buy something new with electronics that work and perhaps have some $s left over for fuel. It is a lovely ship.

We had a tour via the cousin of the present owners, who had lived at Pete's for 30 years.

The photo of Prince Philip was more than interesting as we had just watched the program that proved, through DNA, that we are all related and descendants of people, 40 - 50 thousand years ago in Africa. So Cousin Philip got take a tour of Fifer years ago. We get to see it every day at the end of our dock.