monterey bay

 Sometimes the ocean is like a quiet lake--Light plays with  wisps of winds on the deep blue canvas. The tide creeps in and out barely noticed even by the snails on the rocks.  If the plankton is not blooming, one can see straight down to the sea floor, where red starfish and moon jellies  mirror the universe above.  On days like these, its hard to imagine the other side of the sea, when all is upside down.


 I had not seen the wild side of her (the sea) until my first night back in the fall last year, but i had indeed been warned of winter storms by just about everyone.  Though the pump house had been used as an office, no one had every LIVED in here.

 In the dark of the night,  the sea began to roar and shake the very core of the little pump house.. The hollow well beneath the floor, churning with suction and vibration.
The spray of crashing waves hit the windows, already green with rust, like being inside a car wash.

The waves still rolling on by till they  reach shore.  what a place to live.

I love every minute of of.. And yet, i sleep with a therma rest as my headboard, a bit of flotation if it all goes crashing into the sea..
i am hoping not on my watch!

pump house blues...

For over a year and counting, i have been living in a hut which dangles above the tides and surf of Monterey Bay in the thick of Cannery Row. Sandwiched between Steinbecks/Doc Ricketts' Marine Lab and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is an old cannery, long and lean, which,  more than a quarter century ago,  morphed from canning  sardines to  putting footage "in the  can". 


Sea Studios, a collective  of inspired marine scientists and filmmakers led by Mark Shelley,  have long been making cutting edge, award winning  films to help our ocean and its creatures survive the onslaught of modern times.  I have been the project manager on the latest project, an 85 minute feature-doc, donned for theatrical release,  about the southern sea otter and the curious young woman who happens to find an orphaned otter pup on the beach one day.

The pump house out back is my office and residence, all in one. Its is high-fi wi-fied, but lacking plumbing. So though water is all around, none is flowing through the structure, per se. (which is probably a GOOD thing!)

This blog, for the moment, is about my life in the pump house. About my observations of the animals who are my neighbors and of the sea itself, so full of moods. 


Its not the first time that i have hunkered down into a little space, but it is certainly among the most special....