First - Packing up my stuff in preparation for next year's journey:

That's my future wife, helping me sort through a lifetime of material things.... The hardest part so far is just getting STARTED each day on the task. Once the stuff is packed, I feel an amazing sense of relief  - weightlessness and freedom. They say that behind every great man there is a woman - well, I'm no great man, but she sure is a great woman.

Here is what the bay looked like today after the first of 4 predicted "nightmare" storms passed through:

Hahaha... No boats out today, except a 1/4 mile long supertanker off of the Chevron refinery in Manhattan Beach - and he was hove to several miles from the mooring bouys....

;-)

I shot the photo through a pair of binoculars with my I-phone. Note the group of people in the foreground. Today seas were around 8 feet (16 foot max). The wind veered from the southeast to west as the front passed through, creating the confused mess you see in the photo. The water is shallow, so everything is breaking.

By the end of the week, surf is expected to top 25 feet, and seas are predicted to rise to 30 feet. (That means the biggest will be over 60 feet!)

I'll be staying in the harbor for this one, lol.... and lest this freak anyone out, I've been tracking this predicted change for the past week. The forcasters nailed it -  No reason to EVER get caught out in this sort of nightmare, though I've weathered worse than what you see in the photos abord Nomad...

Earlier, while the gale was building, I dressed up in my hiking boots and gortex shells and took a walk on the shore in in 40 knot winds and driving rain.

The gear is completely inadequate. My feet got wet, and rain got under my collars and up my sleeves. I have some West Marine "Third Reef" gear I'm gonna vet in the next two storms. These systems are supposed to be even more powerful, so my morning walk along the shore should be interesting....

=)

Better to find out your foulies suck on the beach in a whole storm than at sea, eh?