Morning Blues
We woke up on Saturday morning encapsulated in a fog bank.
Beto & I had signed up for a trip aboard our favorite dive boat with the hope of taking advantage of the calm, flat seas we had observed all week. Unfortunately, no matter how flat the ocean is… if fog prevents the captain & crew from seeing the divers in the water, we don’t dive. Sometimes, if the fog is thick enough, we don’t even leave the dock.
With this in mind, we drove down to Monterey Harbor, prepared to go with the flow. Despite the fog, we found the captain & crew in excellent spirits and willing to venture out to see how things looked down the coast.
When in doubt, go with the flow
I joined Captain Greg on the ‘bridge’, and we motored south on mirror-flat seas. The fog had lifted slightly as we made our way past Point Pinos and Pt Joe; at times we were able to see the coastline. However, just as we neared Cypress Point, long greedy fingers of dense fog reached out from the coast… wrapping the boat in a thick, white cocoon. Greg slowed the boat & began sounding the horn, so that other boats would be aware of our presence.
Determined to keep going, we pushed onward, hoping for a lucky break. After 10 long minutes, the fog began to dissipate… and just as we drew even with Carmel Bay, the skies opened up! There was a ceiling of clouds high above us, but as we looked south to Big Sur, we could see the sun shining– lighting the contour of the mountains, creating a magnificent ‘land & sea-scape’.
Soon afterwards we saw the spouts of humpback whales off shore, and we set our sights on Sur 20, enjoying the breath-taking beauty of the California coast as seen from the sea.
Harmony under the Sea
We dove the Sur 20 pinnacle, which is one of the most diverse & dynamic natural underwater structures off of our coastline. Every inch of the 2 main pinnacles is covered with hydrocorals & color, and 3 teams of divers scootered amid clouds of thousands of golden-orange juvenile rock fish hovering over their rugged underwater home. The visibility was wide-open, and teams circled the base at a depth of 165ft and then flew through the canyon of the structure. We lingered at the top of the pinnacle/s, blending in with schools of juveniles & blue rockfish. During decompression, we drifted with jellies and smiling faces.
Our second dive was at a ‘new’ site called Castle Rock. Beto and I scootered the perimeter of a long ridge, weaving our way through kelp strands and feeling the insistent tug of unexpected surge. Our favorite moment was hanging at 20ft, dodging rays of sunbeams amid the kelp forest as a mixed school of senorita-fish and baby perch formed a 3 dimensional mosaic above and around us.
The Rhythm of the Whales
Our boat trip concluded with a humpback whale matinee. Riding at the bow with my ‘whale-dar’ switch on, I spotted a series of spouts in the far-distance off-shore. Taking a deep breath & a leap of faith, Capt Greg turned the boat in the direction of the phantom spouts, and before long we were in the midst of 5 humpback whales.
Two of the whales surfaced every four minutes or so… while the other three came up with them after every few breath cycles. My guess is that we were watching a mom & maturing calf, who were being followed by 3 male ‘suitors’. From the behavior of the 3 males, it seemed that each was trying to demonstrate why he was the most ‘suitable’ of all! When we finally (reluctantly) pealed away from the quintet, we were rewarded for our ‘we have to go home now’ discipline by a fly-by visit from a blue whale.
… and all that Jazz
After our boating adventure, we headed to the Monterey Fair Grounds to see if we had scored tickets for the Jazz Festival. We were in luck! Beto picked up our passes for the evening arena shows. Neither of us is a jazz aficionado, however we decided it would be ‘a good thing’ to branch out beyond our entertainment-related comfort zone.
To my untrained musical ear, jazz has always sounded like I was listening to the relationship dynamics within a family. Groups of musicians get together to play in sort of a family-unit, and all of the individuals have something to express, and well… they just kind of go for it.
Within some family-units, there is comfortable cohesion, whereas within others the relationships fit together sharply or awkwardly. Some family conversations occur on roughly the same page… whereas in other families, members kind of wander off on their own pathes. There are stories told within the music… moods, emotions, and feelings are expressed along the way. Somehow, no matter what the family dynamic, it all fits together more or less. That’s what jazz sounds like to me.
So… off we went to the Jazz Festival, having no idea who any of the artists were, but intending to fully enjoy the experience.
Branching out of our comfort zone
The first show we saw made us wish we’d done some homework, because we knew we were listening to fabulous performers… but we just didn’t have the ears to appreciate the music fully. We had to try hard not to second guess our ‘branching out’ theory.
Then… with the second show, we were caught up in a wave of harmony, humor, and rhythm. Dianne Reeves hooked us on her version of jazz! She sang & performed to our hearts’ content, and just when we thought we’d heard the best song of all… she flowed into an impromptu “Let me tell you about my day…” song.
Synchronicity
Dianne Reeves basically paraphrased and gave musical flight to our day! She jazzily described her parallel experience… she “woke up at 6:00 a.m. in a ‘cloud’… joined her 11 friends for an early breakfast & drive down the foggy-foggy coast… where they drove up into the hills to go horse-back riding… each horse was chosen to fit the personality of their rider… her horse was named ‘Clyde’…
…Clyde said to her,’Come over here– I want to show you a little something’… and he trotted over to the highest ridge of the mountain just at the edge of the fog-line… where the entire expanse of the Big Sur Coast opened up before her and was bathed in sunshine… and she felt a surge of joy & appreciation… and was so happy to be here in California… and that was her day!… and she wanted to share it… and now she was on stage… in front of all of us… singing and loving life!”
Wow! We were carried away in her joy & her rhythm… and well, it was just the most perfect synopsis of a perfect day. An outstanding performance by Chick Corea punctuated the evening for us… giving us another compelling reason to learn more about– and appreciate jazz!