An Interesting Afternoon

Who says we don't have seasons in Southern California? We do, and fire season is one of them! I've been saying I need to get out of the house more often, so after Bible Study yesterday, MOTH and I drove over to Oceanside Harbor -- about 10 minutes away. As we were leaving we commented that there looked to be a small fire on Camp Pendleton -- just a small column of smoke in the sky. Half an hour later this was the view. Fortunately no-one was hurt, but about a thousand acres was burned. There's a LOT of acres on Camp Pendleton to burn. They're predicting another Santa Ana at the beginning of next week.



How's this for a day's catch? A 200 lb and an 81/2 foot sword fish. We just got there as they were weighing it. A couple of young guys caught it earlier in the day, two miles off the coast at Del Mar -- just a 20 minute drive down the coast. They were pretty pleased with themselves.

There's always something interesting to see at the harbor. Here are some pelicans on the bait dock and a seal in the water nosing around, hoping for bait.



It's good to see how many brown pelicans there are now. When we first came down here in the 70's, there were very few. The use of DDT, now illegal, meant that the shells of the pelican's eggs were very thin and few of them survived. It's certainly a different story now. They look so majestic on the water -- like the swans in England. By the way, did you know that all swans in England belong to the Queen?





Later we stopped for a while to admire the harbor view and thought this one legged seagull had found an appropriate perch.