Alamitos Bay is between Long Beach and Seal Beach on the San Gabriel River. It is my favorite guest harbor so far. From my boat Pelamis, I attend the Marina Pacifica Fellowship Hall AA meeting every morning at 7am and then after some boat chores I kayak across the bay to the San Gabriel River passing through flocks of surf scoters with their fake faces on their beaks. Grebes and cormorants watch my approach and then dive gracefully only to reappear a hundred feet away. I leave my kayak by the harbor master’s office and walk across the bridge over the San Gabriel to the Seal Beach library, which usually opens at ten. After I get my hour or so on the computers and look up birds in the stacks, I return to my kayak and continue around Naples Island to the Bayshore Library at Second Street. There I usually finish my online work for the day and then, if I have the energy, I continue down the Cerritos Channel to the wetlands along the San Gabriel River, which can be accessed by kayak but not by boat. Once inside the boom and down the side channels, you feel as if you are in the wild, with banks crowded with waders, egrets and herons.
This is my routine when I have no business in Los Angeles, Santa Monica or Long Beach. It happens tomorrow, Friday the 26th, Wes Jackson is speaking at Farmlab in downtown LA. The journey on the metro system will take part of the day but I will take a book by Jackson with me.
My plans now are to stay at Alamitos Bay until after the MFSO install the Arlington West Huntington Beach display on the first Sunday. At that time I will begin paying by the day and leave on the first good wind to Santa Catalina Island.
Best wishes, Lane
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