I’m no real fan of blue skies days. I mean, I don’t think every blue-sky warm day is “beautiful,” as I so often hear. Give me some clouds, a little fog, wisps of mist. Variety.

   Well, after lots of weeks of rain and dark skies, it was sunny today, and it was “beautiful.”Such a change.

    I’ve started paddling again (inspired by a young neighbor/waterman who paddles at night), and went paddling in the channel around noon today, crossed to the other side and spent an un-planned hour or more beachcombing, running, wading along the sandy beach. You brothers and sisters of the beach tribe will understand when I say it was an exquisite beach day (you can never tell until you get there, right?).

  Very few people on beach, bit of breeze so air was fresh, clear green water flowing in the shallows, lotsof new shells. The light, shadows, the warm sun, foam from small waves breaking on sand…all working together. I was so excited!

Over an inch of rain yesterday. I was heading down to Kevin Kelly’s in Pacifica for the 1st meeting of the Bay Area Screen Publishers User Group, a new group just formed “…to assist other like-minded folks in creating word-based content for the screen: small, medium, or large screens. Like iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Nooks and whatever comes after…”

I headed out to Trouble Coffee near the beach in San Francisco. This neighborhood is a few blocks from Ocean Beach, and there are lots of little beach shacks here and there. Check out these little gems. Stylin in the city…

Then this tough 4×4 van, ready for desert and mountains:

The ocean is powerful these last few days. It’s the 1st real tsunami I’ve ever seen come in locally. It didn’t wreck anything right here, but its presence was felt. The fishermen were worried about boats getting dumped upside down. Brothers and sisters of the Pacific Ocean, these are trying times.

Instead of driving straight down coastal Highway One, I cut across the coastal mountains on the Stewart’s Point/Skaggs Springs road. Of the 5 or so cross-mountain roads from Pt. Arena to Jenner, this is the nicest to drive. Not too many hairpin corners, lots of creeks, and the Gualala river was rushing; it was almost emerald green since it hadn’t rained in a few days — the time the steelhead start their upriver journey.

It was around 10 PM when I got into San rafael and I stopped at one of my favorite nightclubs, the 4th Street Tavern. You’d swear the place was in Bakersfield or Texas, for  that matter, instead of all-too-precious Marin County. Different band 7 nights a week, almost always a group I’ve never heard of, and almost always good. Friday it was Buckaroo Bonet and Los Tres Borrachos, funky rock n roll, loud and kick-ass, with a rockin guest singer. $5. cover charge.

The ocean has been vibrant these 3 days. Big swell, crashing waves. Surfers are a hardy bunch up here. This ain’t no stinkin Southern California. Water’s cold, there are rip currents, surfer dudes are tough.

Lots of driftwood on beaches. When I leave this cafe in Gualala, I think I’ll head back down to the beach where we went yesterday, this time with my backpack to pick up driftwood treasures.

On Wednesday, I skated for an hour and a half. First real skateboarding in months, injuries healed, thank the lord, or rather, body1 It’s a half-mile downhill narrow road, v. little traffic, going out to the Pt. Arena lighthouse. I bomb a stretch of it, what a thrill. I shot movies of the rides with my GoPro Helmet Hero HD video camera, will get into YouTube when I can. (Looks like I’m going faster than I am.)

I went down a little canyon path a few hours ago to shoot the above pic of the driftwood beach, and on the way back up, spotted this skunk skin, or rather,skunk fur. I probed around with a stick, but there were no bones, just this image of a skunk draped on the pine needles.

I’ve heard of Taoist masters who have died and supposedly left no physical traces. When monks opened the master’s room, there was nothing but the master’s clothing and hair. The body had dissolved into thin air.