Channeling the Magic of California’s Islands

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Natural Wonders of Channel Islands

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

California has eight Channel Islands off the coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego that are magical. Called “California’s Galapagos Islands” because of their ecological diversity, they have over 2,000 animal and plant species, 145 that are unique. With cute, tiny island foxes and screechy Scrub-Jays, many are rare or endangered.

Since 1980 the Northern five islands have been designated as Channel Islands National Park. These include San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara Island.

San Miguel. One-day trips, multi-day boat trips and overnight camping are all possible. The farthest West of the eight islands, it takes a 4-hour, 70-mile boat ride to reach it. The trip is worth it! Point Bennett, at the tip of the island, is a breeding ground for some 30,000 seals. You can also see numerous species of seabirds, dolphins, porpoises and whales, and island foxes that are smaller than a typical house cat.

Santa Rosa, the second largest of the islands, with two mountains and rolling hills, has 500 plant species, including pre-Ice age Torrey Pines that are only found in one other place in the world – San Diego. You can camp on the island and go on hikes surrounded by unique native bunchgrass and island bush monkeyflowers. There are over 100 bird species, mammals and amphibians and colonies of seabirds, seals and sea lions.

Santa Cruz is only an hour away and perfect for one-day trips or overnights, with the best weather and the most recreation activities. There are minimal services, though. There is a variety of seabirds to see, especially around Scorpion Rock.  Birdwatchers generally go to see the island Scrub-Jay, which is only found on Santa Cruz. The island also has some of the world’s largest sea caves that kayakers can explore.

Anacapa, also an hour away, is good for one-day or overnight camping trips. Its name comes from the Chumash Native Indian word Anypakh, which means mirage. Ancient shell sites show where the Chumash people lived thousands of years ago. The island’s a breeding ground for thousands of birds and California sea lions and harbor seals. A kelp forest and tide pools make it popular for kayaking, snorkeling, and diving. But, with little shade and no drinkable water, you need to bring your own provisions.

Santa Barbara, the smallest island, has impressive cliffs and one of the world’s largest colonies of rare Scripps’s Murrelets seabirds. There is an elephant seals rookery, blooming yellow flowers, and magnificent coastal views. The Horned Lark, Orange-crowned Warbler, and House Finch birds are only found on the island. One day trips and overnight camping are available, but Island Packers offers trips only from April through October.

The National Park islands are kept mostly in their natural states to preserve their ecosystems. So, it’s important to plan your visit – supplies, transportation, and lodging – because amenities vary and can be minimal. Companies providing access and tours include Island Packers, Channel Islands Expeditions, and Channel Islands Adventure Company.

Farther South are San Nicolas and San Clemente Islands (which are both used by the U.S. Navy and don’t allow visitors) and the most well-known of the islands Santa Catalina – of song and celebrity fame.

Santa Catalina Island is known for its two resort towns Avalon and Two Harbors, accessible by Catalina Express and Catalina Flyer boat service. You can also reach it by private boat, plane, or helicopter. Its charming coastal towns are perfect for relaxing getaways and the Art Deco casino in Avalon Harbor is a true showstopper, visible for miles. Nearby there’s wildlife, scuba diving, and Mt. Orizaba, the island’s highest peak.

Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr. (here on Catalina with his wife Ada) bought the island in 1919 and the Wrigley family still owns and preserves it. Home to nine endemic plant species and a thriving population of island foxes, it also has a herd of buffaloes descended from buffaloes left by a movie crew in the 1920s.

SurfWriter Girl Sunny knows Santa Catalina Island well because she’s visited it many times. She even had a job with the Santa Catalina Island Company selling tickets for island attractions on the Catalina Express boats. “The bus trips around the island and the glass bottom boat rides were really popular,” says Sunny.

Whichever islands you visit, your trip is sure to be a magical experience and a step back in time.

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Georgia O’Keeffe – Strokes of Creative Genius

Posted on by under Creative Energy, Environment

Art Blooms in the Desert

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

With wildflowers in bloom, now is the perfect time to remember famed artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), known for her colorful images of larger-than-life flowers. Called the “Mother of American modernism,” O’Keeffe found inspiration in the desert vistas outside her New Mexico home.

A child of the Midwest, she grew up in Wisconsin and attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League college in New York where she met her mentor and future husband photographer, avant-garde art promoter Alfred Stieglitz (who took this photograph).

Stieglitz introduced O’Keeffe to the works of Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne, Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso and other leading impressionist and abstract artists, encouraging her to push the boundaries of her classical art training to find her own creative voice.

Taking his advice, O’Keeffe “decided to start anew – to strip away what I had been taught – to accept as true my own thinking.” Saying, “I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me” she set out to put them on paper and canvas, creating charcoal drawings and vivid watercolors of both geometric and organic forms.

Later, working in oils, she developed a naturalistic style that amplified nature and created stylized images of familiar objects and scenes. Looking at flowers in a way that others hadn’t, O’Keeffe highlighted their curves and depicted their innermost structures.

Some of her works were influenced by music, in which she gave form to the sounds she heard, such as in her “Music – Pink and Blue” series.

Though known for her flowers and landscapes, O’Keeffe also did a striking series of cityscapes, characterized by straight lines, sharp angles and soaring skyscrapers that provide a totally different view of Manhattan. In executing the paintings, she particularly wanted to capture the light that filtered through the skyline and reflected off the windows.

In addition to the natural settings around her, O’Keeffe found an affinity with Chinese art and its emphasis on harmony and simplicity, incorporating some of these principles into her own work.

Complex and open to new ways of seeing, Georgia O’Keeffe was one of those legendary artists whose works are instantly recognizable, but never predictable. Like the scenes she painted and nature itself, she was always changing…and forever changed the way her viewers saw the world.

 

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The Gift of Wabi-Sabi

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The Beauty of Imperfection

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

 

The Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi celebrates the beauty of imperfection and of things that are impermanent and incomplete.

It is the beauty of things both humble and modest. It is the beauty of things that are raw, unrefined and unconventional.

Old Levi’s jeans, a comfortable chair, a weathered fence, a tree that’s been in your yard forever, your favorite surfboard, classic cars, watches that wind by hand, the neighborhood diner.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel have been learning about Wabi-Sabi, which dates back 5,000 years, and its emphasis on self-acceptance and finding joy in everyday things as they are.

We learned that in Japan cracked vases or bowls are often repaired with gold, highlighting the flaw and turning it into a mark of beauty that represents part of the object’s history.

Originally derived from Buddhist teachings, the word Wabi refers to rustic simplicity, freshness, and understated elegance – both in nature and in man-made works.

It can describe a uniqueness or elegance, too. Sabi represents the beauty and serenity that come from age…with visible flaws and worn patina adding to its charm.

Drawing from nature, Wabi-Sabi reminds us of the simple reality that things don’t stay the same, changing from day-to-day and season-to-season with different shapes and colors unfolding through the passing of time.

Putting aside the quest for air-brushed perfection in our lives, selves and surroundings, Wabi-Sabi is a way to de-stress. To relax and slow down, to embrace each moment, the people we love and the things we have.

Rather than searching for the next new thing to buy or do, we can find something much more valuable – an inner calm and the happiness that comes from being ourselves.

Wabi-Sabi is the perfect gift to give yourself – the gift to be imperfect.

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Arctic Circle Comic Has Environmental Edge

Posted on by under Environment

Penguins Chill Out at North Pole

book cover from Amazon
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

The penguin characters in Alex Hallatt’s syndicated comic strip Arctic Circle aren’t surfers, but they share the same environmental interests and fears of global warming. After all, the ice cap is their home.

Arctic_Circle_signHallatt’s strip, which King Features first syndicated in August 2007, is about three penguins who have migrated from the Antarctic to the small town of Snowpeak within the Arctic Circle. In their adopted home, the penguins’ neighbors include a polar bear, a snow bunny, a lemming and an Arctic tern.

charactersTogether, from their Northernmost vantage point, they make the best of all the modern day issues of the 21st Century from climate change, new technologies, relationships and ocean pollution to genetically modified organisms gone wild.

arctic oil ship

loch ness monster at north pole

bottlenose dolphinAs for how she happened to put her penguins in the Arctic Circle, Hallatt explains in the book she co-authored, The Art of Cartooning, that when she first started the comic strip “I didn’t really enjoy drawing. I thought the Arctic would give me lots of lovely, white, blank space with no complicated backgrounds.”

arctic_ice_flowSince then Hallatt says her attitude toward drawing has changed and “I’ve engineered my Arctic universe to include a lot more than snow, sea and ice.”

igloo built on whaleSurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel love Arctic Circle’s mix of humor and ecology, which reflects Hallatt’s background. The British-born cartoonist has a degree in biochemistry and she worked in the pharmaceutical industry before deciding she was destined to be a cartoonist.

Alex Hallat2An artist and adventurer, Hallatt currently resides in New Zealand and has also lived in England and Australia. So you never know what she will draw on for her daily comic strip.

crowded seas

Whatever it is, you can count on the penguins and their friends to put their own, slightly quirky spin on it.

recycled airplane

RecyclingWhether you read Arctic Circle online or in your morning newspaper, it’s definitely the way to jump start your day. Thought-provoking and laugh-evoking, it’s the perfect way to chill.

wine at room temperature

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Leave it to Beavers!

Posted on by under Environment

Nature’s Builders Help Ranchers and Farmers

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Often viewed as pests by ranchers and farmers, nature’s dam builders, the beavers, are now being hailed by many as “ecopartners” whose dams are helping to provide water to parched lands.

The phrase “busy as a beaver” is well chosen given that beavers are non-stop workers who gnaw away trees and foliage in the blink of an eye and build dams overnight. But, when this happens in the wrong spot, flooding one field or drying another, landowners get fighting mad. By the late 1800s in the Northwest, trappers reduced much of the beaver population to get rid of them and make money from their fur.

Lately, though, landowners and the large rodents are forming alliances. Becoming “frenemies” of a sort. That’s because the beavers’ ponds are providing new water sources to augment scarce rainfall and snow runoff during the West’s drought periods.

SurfWriter Girls learned that the beavers’ ponds – created by damming rivers, streams, and lakes – are also improving water quality by helping to filter sediment and recycle nutrients. Fish and wildlife are benefiting, too, finding shelter and hydration in the cool, clear waters around the dams.

The beavers have useful skills to offer. The trick is finding how to work with them. Federal and state government agencies are helping landowners in western states, including California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, and Idaho, create environments that attract the beavers and to identify the best places for beaver colonies to do their work.

By moving beavers from one area to another and routing dam water runoff to maximize water storage and reduce flooding, beaver construction crews can be valuable allies. Rather than adversaries to get rid of. But, to maximize these alliances landowners and government agencies must be open to new ways of thinking about the beavers and existing laws and practices that affect them.

Now that’s something to build on!

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Make it Fun!

Posted on by under Lifestyle

The Art of Living Joyfully

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Remember when you were little and your parents said at dinner, “Don’t play with your food”? Children have a natural sense of fun whatever they’re doing. Good manners are important, but so is having fun and celebrating life’s moments.

Life is serious stuff. But finding the funny side can make us happier, especially when dealing with difficult situations.

Award-winning science journalist Catherine Price, author of the recent book The Power of Fun, says we need to “prioritize having fun.” Fun not only makes us feel better, but “brings people together. You’re embracing your shared humanity.”

She hopes that people will stage “funterventions” where we look for opportunities to have fun. Even work, family responsibilities, health matters, and other concerns can be made less stressful.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti agree that adding fun into our daily activities energizes us and keeps us in a good mood. Singing along to our favorite songs, doing yoga, taking selfies, cooking new recipes, wearing fun T-shirts, watching rom-com movies, turning a cup of tea into a tea party!

Recently we came across Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Happiness Diary: Practice Living Joyfully, a bestseller that explains that happiness doesn’t come from obtaining stuff or being perfect. It comes from “savoring and ingraining the good things you experience.”

The book provides exercises, reflections and journal prompts that help you to grow an emotional garden of flowers to pick when you have challenges to get through.

To increase your level of happiness, Kipfer says spend time in nature, do something positive, feed your mind through reading, learning and being creative, try something new, travel.

Even lounging – doing nothing (without feeling guilty) – is a skill we all need to learn. Just look at cats lying contentedly in the sun.

Yes, life can be demanding, and these past years have been difficult times, but adding in a measure of fun and learning to live joyfully can help to make things better.

Let’s keep the Ho, Ho, Hos happening in the New Year. Happy New Year to all.

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Washoku Seasonal Cooking

Posted on by under Food, Lifestyle

Japanese Honor Nature and Harmony

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

With hearth and home so important during the holidays, this is a good time to explore the Japanese cooking style of “washoku.” This creative, healthy way of cooking can add beautiful and festive new dishes to your table.

This traditional method of Japanese cooking gets its name from the Japanese kanji character 和食 (wa), which means Japan and harmony, and 食 (shoku), the word for food.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel were drawn to washoku because of its harmonious approach to cooking that satisfies all the senses. The food is beautiful to look at and delicious to eat, in tune with the seasons.

Included on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List, washoku is a study in contrasts with food that is both simple and sophisticated.

A key aspect of washoku is its respect for nature and the four seasons. Food is prepared during its peak season (its “shun”) and cooked in a way that best showcases its flavors.

Spring is the time for asparagus, cabbage, eggplant, snow peas, shitake mushrooms and sanshou (prickly, green berries). Bonito tuna, cuttlefish and rock fish are plentiful then.

Summertime is the shun for edamame soybean pods, kyuri cucumber, and Japanese ginger. Fruits include cherries, peaches and watermelon (often blended into Kakigori, a shaved ice concoction). Eel, flounder, sea urchin and sea bass are in season.

In autumn, during harvest season, some of the fruits and vegetables in their shun include the Asian pear, Matsutake mushroom, persimmon, sweet potato, Japanese pumpkin, sudachi citrus fruit, and kuri chestnut.

The first rice of the harvest, shinmai (or “new rice”), is a softer and sweeter rice that’s greatly anticipated and only available from September to December.

In winter, yuzu, a citrus fruit like an orange, and strawberries come into their own, along with daikon, a winter radish. This is also the season for fugu, the Japanese blowfish that’s both highly desirable and potentially deadly, if improperly prepared.

Wagashi, Japanese traditional sweets often served with green tea, utilize seasonal ingredients, too, especially sweet bean paste.

Whatever the season or the dish, washoku always strives to embody the concept of “omotenashi” – hospitality – making friends and family feel warm and welcome. Things that mean so much now.

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Ansel Adams – Nature’s Photographer

Posted on by under Environment

Nature Brought to Life in Black-and-White

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

 

Fall – when tourist crowds are gone – is the perfect time to enjoy California’s natural beauty.

California’s raw coastlines and majestic forests are not only breathtaking to see, but through the lens of master photographer Ansel Adams, they are immortalized for all to enjoy.

Working primarily in black-and-white, Adams’ use of light and shadow and his fine eye for composition and detail turned nature’s landscapes into unsurpassed works of beauty.

Growing up, one of his favorite spots to wander was in San Francisco’s still-wild Golden Gate area and the nearby sand dunes along Lobos Creek. As a teenager, armed with a Kodak Brownie camera, he first discovered the wonders of Yosemite in 1916 and would spend a lifetime capturing all the facets of its beauty on photographic plates.

Starting in 1927, with his portfolio of photographs of the High Sierras, Adams launched a career that would encompass creating iconic images of Yosemite, San Francisco, Monterey, and other points throughout the Northwest, including Glacier National Park, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon.

Though he preferred black-and-white photography because it gave him more control over the finished picture than the limited options of the emerging color photography of his day, Adams did experiment with the new color medium – and got some amazing results.

A son of the West, who was born in San Francisco in 1902 and died in Monterey in 1984, Adams was an avid environmentalist and used his photographs to help build awareness and support for preserving natural landscapes. He also served as director of the Sierra Club from 1934 to 1971.

Once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.

– Ansel Adams.

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A Taste of the Tropics

Posted on by under Food

Melissa’s Produce Has Just the Ticket

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

With autumn leaves falling, if you’re still longing for a summery taste of the tropics or a South Seas getaway, try heading out to the supermarket.

On a recent visit to Stater Brothers SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti came across a bounty of tropical treats just inside the entrance, beautifully arranged produce from Melissa’s, a specialty food company that provides produce from around the world.

Founded by Joe and Sharon Hernandez, Melissa’s has been providing fresh-from-the-farm produce sourced from local and global growers to restaurants and culinary professionals since 1984. The Los Angeles-based business has become the nation’s largest specialty produce company.

Now serving grocery stores, as well, grocery shoppers and visitors to its website can see what’s in season, get the latest harvest supply report, and find out what’s coming next.

SurfWriter Girls couldn’t resist looking at all the exotic fruits and vegetables and thinking about the countries they came from and the creative dishes we could make with them.

Strawberry papayas, blood oranges, finger limes, Kiwano melons, dragon fruit, Pinkglow pineapples, Passion fruit, Okinawan sweet potatoes, coquito coconuts, and more are currently center stage.

Seeing the beautiful fruits and vegetables on display reminded SurfWriter Girls of produce visionary Frieda Kaplan, the founder of Frieda’s, Inc. who revolutionized the food industry by introducing new produce that Americans had never tried before, including the New Zealand kiwifruit in 1962.

The country’s food knowledge has grown a lot since then, along with the desire to let our taste buds travel to faraway places. And lucky for us, produce suppliers like Melissa’s and Frieda’s have just the ticket.

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

 

Agatha Christie Combined Surfing and Suspense

Posted on by under Lifestyle

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Surfing in 1922. Whodunit? Agatha Christie dunit!

A 100-years-ago, at a time when most people, let alone women, had never surfed, mystery writer Agatha Christie – the best-selling novelist of all time – took to the waves in South Africa, Australia and Hawaii.

On an around-the-world book tour with her husband Archie, Christie discovered surfing for the first time at Muisenberg Beach in Cape Town, South Africa.

Eager to ride the waves herself, Christie soon realized that there was more to it than meets the eye. “Surfing looks perfectly easy,” she wrote in her memoir. “It isn’t. I say no more.”

As a woman, one of her challenges was finding swimwear that could stand up to the waves.

In Hawaii a particularly strong wave caused a “catastrophe,” as Christie put it. “My handsome silk bathing dress, covering me from shoulder to ankle, was more, or less, torn from me by the force of the waves. Almost nude, I made for my beach wrap.”

After that, Christie searched out something more practical, finding just the thing in a hotel shop – “a wonderful, skimpy, emerald green wool bathing dress, which was the joy of my life, and in which I thought I looked remarkably well. Archie thought I did too.”

From that point on, there was no stopping her. Christie put the same determination into learning how to surf as she put into devising the intricate crime thrillers that were her trademark. Murder on the Orient Express, Evil Under the Sun, And Then There Were None, The Witness for the Prosecution, and countless others.

“All our days were spent on the beach and surfing,” said Christie, “and little by little we learned to become expert, or at any rate expert from the European point of view. We cut our feet to ribbons on the coral until we bought ourselves soft leather boots to lace round our ankles.”

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Madaug and Patti Kishel are in awe of Christie’s persistence in conquering the waves. Definitely hooked on this sport of Hawaiian kings, she described surfing as “one of the most perfect physical pleasures that I have known.”

Like others – from Captain James Cook, the first European to reach Hawaii, to the Father of Surfing, Duke Kahanamoku – Christie was captivated by surfing. There’s “nothing like that rushing through the water at what seems to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour; all the way in from the far distant raft, until you arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft flowing waves.”

Far from being an armchair novelist, Agatha Christie proved herself to be a true adventurer – as bold and mysterious as the characters in her books.

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.