Farallon Islands

The day rather rough, with little squalls of rain.

We are passing the Farallon Islands, but I feel too bad to sketch them.

I get homesick when I think of the dear ones I left behind me.

I hope I may see them all in this world again.

Aye, had I known, I would have plunged overboard and welcomed the dirty fo'c'sle from which I had just escaped.

I was not allowed on deck till we had sunk the Farallones and the last pilot boat.

I appreciated this forethought on the part of my father and made it a point to thank him heartily in my bluff seaman's manner.

I could not suspect that he had his own ends in view in thus keeping my presence secret to all save the crew.

We have known them to be chasing the white sharks away from an area.

It also happened in the Farallon Islands.

But normally, the white shark would come back after a short while.

And that has been happening in South Africa.

After he lashed me to my station at the bilge pump, Captain Fusselli got his double-ender Monterey Dory on a plotted course to Sausalito, he hoped, and we plunged recklessly into the fog.

As nearly as I could catch his drift, there was a 50-50 chance that A, Hagen had found his engineer and would be halfway to the Farallon Islands before we could make it past Alcatraz, if we stayed afloat that long, or B, that he hadn't found his engineer and might be having trouble starting up those two diesels with the twin screws and the two-to-one reduction gears, whatever they are.

There she lies, matey.

Which one?

Just a little aside, he actually caught one opportunistic gull hitching a 75-mile ride on a trash truck to a composting facility, twice.

A few years ago, Shafer was tagging birds on the Farallon Islands, about 30 miles west of San Francisco, when large groups of humpback whales were moving through the area.

Shafer noticed that during the time the whales were present, the gulls were puking up krill.

A few days later, after the wind had shifted and the whales were gone, the gulls' vomit consisted of different items.

Aye, had I known, I would have plunged overboard and welcomed the dirty fo'c'sle from which I had just escaped.

I was not allowed on deck till we had sunk the Farallones and the last pilot boat.

I appreciated this forethought on the part of my father and made it a point to thank him heartily in my bluff seaman's manner.

I could not suspect that he had his own ends in view in thus keeping my presence secret to all save the crew.

Oh, not very far out.

Not past the Farallones.

Uh, good.

I'm astern.

The interesting thing about Monterey and that whole area is that a lot of the sharks that I've observed down here, I've actually documented connectivity between the sharks up there and the sharks that I'm seeing down here from the big sharks, the big ones.

So, you know, whether they go to Guadalupe or whether the Farallones tribe, I think that they just cover the whole West Coast.

I think they just go up the whole West Coast.

Yeah.