Three boats — S/V Peregrine (Eleanor and Steve York), M/V Mariposa de la Islas (Ellie and Mark Cooper) and S/V Ecco Bella (Peggy and Rich Ciolino) — set out on the scheduled cruise to Catalina. We were supposed to leave a day earlier, but the wind was predicted to be coming from an unfavorable direction for crossing over to Catalina, and the departure was delayed one day. Unfortunately, S/V Libertad (Virginia and Dennis Johns), couldn’t afford the delay and weren’t able to make the trip. We luxuriated the first night at the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club (always many thanks to them for letting us tie up at their dock) in the Channel Islands Harbor and left early Thursday morning for Catalina. M/V Mariposa motored all the way, being a power boat, but kept with us until we got close to Catalina. At that point S/V Ecco Bella and S/V Peregrine, who had been motoring, also finally got enough wind to sail and had a spritely couple more hours finishing off the crossing by sailing into Two Harbors. We had a delightful time while there…only wish that a few more of you could have made the trip. Thank-you Eleanor and Steve for being the Point People on this event.  See their article in this issue with further details of this great trip.

I hope everyone has seen the flyer for the Annual BBQ and Meeting Saturday, September 8, at 12:00PM at the Swallings hilltop home.   You can download the flyer and map for easy printing, by clicking here.  It’s always a great get-together with delicious food, swimming if you like, and the white elephant auction that raises money to help fund our activities. I am the point person on this event, so contact me with any questions — Peggy Ciolino — 805 682-4543.

Tom Koch led seven of our teachers in the USPS Instructor Development Recertification class on August 28.  This satisfies a USPS requirement that teachers of public courses be certified by USPS.

 

We are now ready to start accepting two new ways of letting people pay for various things we sell – credit cards and PayPal.  Up to now it has always been cash or check but we have had a lot of requests from students taking classes to handle credit cards.  Some don’t even have a checking account!  Ah the millennials …

For credit cards we have set up a Square account and purchased a chip card reader which works with most phones once the Square app is installed.  I’ve been testing it for the past few weeks and all looks good.  The money goes right into our checking account (minus their 2.75% fee which is pretty typical).  I’ve set up categories for classes, ships store, events like Holiday Dinner, PCYC, etc. so the transaction get clearly identified.  Our first big test will be the evening the Engine Maintenance class kicks off.  I’ll be there to let students pay by credit card. We will also train some of the other squadron members on the Square reader.

The other payment method we now can accept is PayPal.  For the moment, this works through my personal PayPal account.  First the buyer must have their own PayPal account.  Then the buyer transfers money from their PayPal account to my account.  I then transfer it directly to our Squadron checking account.  There is no fee for this transaction so that’s a plus for us.  Eventually I want to see if we can set up a PayPal account for the Squadron so the money does not have to go through my account.  In the meantime however, we can get started.

I’d be interested if you have any comments or suggestions about this.  Drop me a note at shyork@yahoo.com.  Thanks

Seven students took the take-home exam for the Piloting class and turned them in on the 21^st for grading by National.

We have a good turnout so far for the Engine Maintenance course that will run from September 11 to November 20.  There is still space so if anyone else is interested please contact me. 

I’m talking with the Harbor Office to arrange a schedule for our next ABC class to start shortly after the Harbor Festival in October.  One issue there is our normal Tuesday night “reservation” use of the Marine Center Classroom will be used for the Engine Maintenance class.

As reported in our Administrative Officer’s Message, Tom Koch led seven of our teachers in the USPS Instructor Development Recertification class on August 28.  This satisfies a USPS requirement that teachers of public courses be certified by USPS.

All in all our education staff is keeping pretty busy – If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me at rdciolino@cox.net or 805-682-4543.  Sail safely

Pirates were sailors.  Navy personnel were/are sailors.  One thing they did not have in common was – pirates wore eye patches!  At least the way they are generally portrayed in stories and film – the eye patch, and their peculiar manner of speech, are uniquely pirate.  It seems that there is no accepted reason for this depiction other than it is a manifestation of stories, for example “Treasure Island” and films such as “Captain Ron”.  ( Each of these examples have other redeeming values.)

One explanation for the use of an eye patch was that pirates lost an eye during the many battles they had while fighting other ships, what with cannonballs crashing into the side of wooden boats and splinters flying everywhere – but why just one eye, and why not so many sailors? 

Another explanation is they covered one eye in daylight on deck so that when they ventured below to a darkened ship’s hold they could remove the patch, or switch it to the other eye, to have instant good visibility with the eye that had been in the dark all the time – but that would mean they’d have very poor depth perception all the time seeing through one eye, which could be quite dangerous working on a ship or fighting in a battle.  By the way, this idea of covering one eye was proved “plausible” by the TV scientists on “Mythbusters” a few years ago.

And still another explanation is that sailing navigators of old used sextants, or other older versions of angle measuring devices, to take “sights” of the sun to determine their position and consequently suffered eye damage.  While I like this one best there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of records to support this either.

So, what does all this have to do with a Safety Tip?  Well, it’s a stretch but, how about “night vision” on a boat?  Those of us who have sailed at night are certainly aware of both the nuisance and help that light provides at night.  Our visibility becomes very keen when our eyes are nicely adjusted to the full darkness of our surroundings.  But then we have to expose them to artificial lighting when we read our instruments. At some point we will go down below to take a nap or get some food or something.  Since you can’t see very well in the darkness you turn on a light and are immediately blinded for a time while your eyes adjust, and you’ve illuminated the cockpit somewhat which affects others who might be on watch.  To get around this problem we installed a combination red and white LED light in our saloon.  The human eye works well enough with red light so that you can do what is necessary below and return to the cockpit with little readjustment to darkness.  During nights at anchor or in a slip we use the white light and while underway at night we use the red light.  It’s a better solution than putting a patch on one eye when going below, turn the white light on, then take the patch off when returning to the cockpit.

If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me at rdciolino@cox.net or 805-682-4543.  Sail safely!   

www.hooklineandshooter.com

Boaters out of Santa Barbara found a consistent bass bite on both calico and sand bass, along the mainland coast and at the Channel Islands. Halibut action was good and spearfishers reported large concentrations at mid-depth. Shore-based halibut action was also good. Outings for bottom fish were excellent and reliable.

“For the umpteenth week in a row, the calico and sand bass bite has been off the charts and now the halibut bite has settled in strongly, so I’m weaving custom Vague Rods for bassers and halibuteers like there is no tomorrow,” said Capt. Tiffany Vague at Hook, Line & Sinker fishing center in Santa Barbara. Similarly, on M/V WaveWalker charter trips the bass bite has been so fun that groups with kids never want to leave the fast-paced action. On other trips, halibut have been the target or charter groups have decided to go after the sure-fire thing… rockfish and lingcod. Those bottom fishing trips were also run admirably well by the crews of M/V Stardust and M/V Coral Sea, both of which fished either Santa Rosa Island or the mainland coast near Santa Barbara.

Halibut populations were surprisingly high along the mainland coast. Capt. Chris Goldblatt, founder of Fish Reef Project (our best hope of inshore reefs off California) said, “I spearfished off of Mira Mar and found loads of halibut in the 50-foot depth range, however the water was clear and the fish were very spooky.” All up and down the coast near Santa Barbara and Goleta, boat-based and shore-based anglers were hooking into halibut. The bite was up and down but most folks knew the fish were right there waiting for good feeding conditions.