September 2013 Volume 54 No. 3

Transcription

1 September 2013 Volume 54 No. 3 Proud recipient of multiple USPS National Distinction in Journalism Awards. Quarterly publication of the Peralta Sail and Power Squadron, San Leandro, California 1

2 BY P/C ALAN SMITH, P It has been another summer of adventures for me. My boat, MicroYacht stayed in the garage again and I climbed aboard my motorcycle to head out across the U.S.A to experience the broad plains, the rolling hills and to climb the lofty mountains once again. In the process I set one of the world records for fuel efficiency at the Vetter Competition in Ohio. I took third place in the national fuel competition. I recorded 144 miles per gallon. This motorcycle trip took me the farthest east that I can go without a boat, right up to the Atlantic Ocean. I also enjoyed the back roads of the Ozark and Appalachian Mountains. They are fantastic. The Ninja 250 really runs well on those back roads. This is the third year that I have ridden my Ninja to the east coast. The miles add up and the bike (and my rear end) now have logged over 43,000-miles. The recent up-grades on my streamlined Ninja 250 over the Winter and Spring seasons have transformed my motorcycle into a real 100- Miles-Per-Gallon machine. I've been averaging MPG riding coast-to-coast. Speeds were generally 70 MPH. A few times I did cruise MPH but that dropped my gas mileage to 96 MPG. So far I have been really lucky with the weather. One afternoon I happened to stop as the rain and lightning storms were about to hit. My fuel prices along the way ranged from $2.99 to 3.39 per gallon. Of course I did not need gas when the price of gas was $2.99. In the past week I have been in Utah at the Bonneville Salt Flats helping and watching the worlds fastest motorcycles. Today I was on the interview of the first blind motorcycle rider to run on the Salt Flats. Tomorrow he us supposed to make his first run. I was also at Bonneville Speed Week where the new record of 451 mph was set by a bike called The Speed Demon. I ll tell you more about this at Peralta s End of Summer Barbecue on Sept. 21 at San Leandro Yacht Club. Peralta Sail and Power Squadron BRIDGE Commander P/C Alan Smith, P Executive Officer P/C Melba J K Hale, P Education Officer P/D/C Norman W. Pennington, JN Asst. SEO P/C Ricardo L. Mares, P Administrative Officer P/C Richard Folger, AP Secretary Lt/C Barbara Waldstreicher, AP Treasurer D/Lt/C Judith A. Pennington, P EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE P/C Arthur L. Dwyer, AP P/C Bill Manolis, AP P/C Ricardo L. Mares, P P/C L. Conway Pendleton, JN GENERAL COMMITTEES Auditing 3 Year Term - P/Lt/C Fred C. Holmes, AP 2 Year Term - P/C Arthur L. Dwyer, AP 1 Year - Lt/C Barbara A. Waldstreicher, AP Nominating 3 Year Term P/C L. Conway Pendleton, JN 2 Year Term - P/C Bill Manolis, AP 1Year Term - Patricia A. Folger, S Still walking on water! My 1990 Geo Metro going through sea trials five-miles from shore. As long as the water is not too deep I can go anywhere on the water. 2 Rules 3 Year Term - Lt/C Krystal Kaaye Nekudova, S 2 Year - Lt/C Barbara A. Waldstreicher, AP 1 Year Term P/C Alan Smith, P

3 Educational Officer s Report D/LT/C NORMAN W. PENNINGTON, JN Over the past few months, we have held one ABC3 course at the Outboard Motor Shop. We have also held one Seamanship course at the San Leandro Yacht Club. Unfortunately class enrollments are way down with only three students in the ABC3 course and two students in Seamanship. Soon we will be holding engine maintenance at the Peninsula Yacht Club. This course is expected to run until just before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, several of us in Peralta will be attending the Navigation Course presented by the Santa Clara Power Squadron. The Navigation Course is expected to run until February of next year. By the time you read my report I will be on my way to Houston, TX to attend Boat Operator Certification, to become certified as Advanced Coastal Navigator. This will be followed by a trip to San Antonio Texas, to attend the USPS Fall Governing Board. At the Governing Board I will be attending Boat Operator Certification (BOC) meeting as well as the District Educational Officer (DEO) meeting. At the BOC Committee meeting we will be reviewing procedures, get an update on the program, learn about recertifying certifiers as well as get an update on the last level of certification that is Offshore Navigator. Routinely in the District Educational Officers meeting at the Governing Board we learn all of the latest changes in course material, new course and seminar offerings, changes in pricing, policy and procedures. It is also an excellent opportunity to meet with my colleagues from other districts as well as being able to discuss issues with Educational Department leadership. Attending district and national meetings is not all work there is a little bit of fun, after all the tagline of our organization is, Boating is Fun Let us Show You How! Hopefully while I am in Houston I will have an opportunity to visit the USS Texas, a WW I battleship, the only surviving battleship serving both WWI and WWII. While in San Antonio I plan to visit the Alamo and some of the other sites of historical interest. Coming up on October District 25 will be holding its Fall Bi-District conference in Reno. This conference will be held jointly between District 13, our neighbor to the south and our district. I hope to see as many Peralta members as possible at this conference as we are planning to have a great time. Lastly, Peralta will be holding a general membership meeting and barbecue on Saturday, September 21 at the San Leandro Yacht Club. At this meeting I am planning on giving a brief slideshow showing the highlights of the St. Francis Yacht Club Commodores cruise to St. Martin, and the surrounding Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. Mark your calendar and plan on attending as we will have a great time. 3

4 Photos by Lt/C Melba JK Hale, P 4

5 Executive Officer s Report BY P/C MELBA J K HALE, P Pat gives Em a little snuggle. And How Did YOU Spend YOUR Summer?...Amen! USS Iowa prepares to depart Richmond Elsewhere in this publication are articles about various adventures had by some very active members of our Squadron. Surely, you will enjoy the read(s). Personally, I would enjoy hearing from even more of our members regarding their summer vacations. Perhaps you will be inspired to share a bit say maybe at our BBQ/Membership Meeting later this month. If you are so inclined and I hope you will be send me an and I ll forward the information to those that are preparing the agenda for the evening. My address is an easy one to remember: mhmeltoast@aol.com On the facing page are pictures of some of the beautiful scenery/events I enjoyed this past summer. And how did YOU spend YOUR summer? Why don t you bring some of your pictures to our BBQ. Thanks! and thanks for being a part of our great organization - Hope to see you soon! BFF best friends forever, Barb and Melba. Sandi s Mona Lisa Smile. Peralta s 2013 Calendar of Events Monday, 9 September Executive Committee Meeting, San Leandro Yacht Club at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 21 September Peralta s End of Summer Barbecue at San Leandro Yacht Club, 20 Mulford Point Drive, San Leandro. Gathering at 5:30 p.m. for burgers, dogs, salads, chili beans and ice cream sundaes. Only $10 per person. Travel adventure presentations follow. October Bi-District Fall Conference at Silver Legacy Hotel, Reno, NV. Monday, 14 October. Executive Committee Meeting, San Leandro Yacht Club at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 26 October Spooktacular Dinner Party at San Leandro Yacht Club. Monday, 11 November Executive Committee Meeting, San Leandro Yacht Club at 7:30 p.m. Monday, 9 December Executive Committee Meeting, San Leandro Yacht Club at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 15 Peralta Holiday Party and Pot Luck Celebration at the San LeandroYacht Club. USPS is almost 100 years old. Many things will be happening in 2014 when the real celebration begins. Surrounded by such beauty, Bill s evil eye involuntarily pops out. Is published in March, June, September and December P/C Dick Folger, AP, Editor or dickfolger@aol.com Quarterly publication of Peralta Sail and Power Squadron San Leandro, California 5

6 Administrative Officer s Report BY P/C DICK FOLGER, AP Adventurers! When I was in fifth grade I couldn t wait for lunch. It wasn t anticipation of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich or the apple, cookie and container of milk that filled my brown bag. It was the chance to go into the library and read Richard Halliburton adventure books like The Royal Road to Romance and New Worlds To Conquer. Halliburton swam the Panama Canal, circumnavigated the globe in an open biplane, and travelled everywhere. He was eventually lost at sea attempting to sail a Chinese junk across the Pacific Ocean. That same year my buddy and I left school at lunchtime and tried to make a fast, two-mile bike ride down 82nd Avenue to the lake at the base of Rocky Butte in Portland, Oregon. The lake was a shallow swamp that formed from the rains in the Spring. There were some wooden pallets at the edge of the water and we each stepped on to one of them. Powering ourselves with a stick, we pushed away from the shore and out into the foot deep waters of the open sea. It was my first experience of being aboard my own yacht, floating free. It was wonderful and exhilarating. We were definitely going to be late getting back to school for fifth period. Seed dreams that are planted when you are eleven years old never die. Fast forward four decades and I found myself on the deck of Calaveras, a 45 Explorer Ketch motoring out of Long Beach bound for the South Seas. Other yachtsmen in the marina tooted their air horns and waved good luck to us as Gary Parker helmed us toward the waiting Pacific Ocean. We felt like rock stars and I grinned at my watch mate Emery Zajec. With Gary and his wife Betty, and our friends Pete and Judy we soon found ourselves amid a school of dolphins criss crossing our bow. The sails went up and we turned south, passing Catalina and on toward our first night at sea. Our Commander, Alan Smith, is an adventurer who has heard the call now popularized by Star Trek: Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldy go where no man has gone before. Inspired by the call Alan s adventures by motorcycle are legendary and there is little doubt that he would take his boat MicroYacht all the way to the gates of Hell. Emery Zajec stayed aboard Calaveras after Tahiti and went to New Zealand and all the way back across the thousands of miles of open sea. Emery also sailed his own Patrice to Acapulco and back. Norm Pennington conquered the Caribbean with Arnie Goldschlager and Ricardo Mares has taken Pronto all the way to the Farallones and lived to tell the tale. So, on Saturday, September 21, our End of Summer Barbecue will be a night to share stories and kindle our common dreams of wind and water, sunshine and starlight, and perhaps in the process rediscover the seedling dream of our own call to adventure; to find who we are and what we can be. 6 Right: Emery Zajec in mid-pacific Ocean, 1983; Below : Norm Pennington cruising in the Caribbean Pronto arrives with Ricardo Mares and Josette Judy approves the pot luck cuisine. Alan Smith, from the Amazon to Appalachia Dick Folger, bound for Nuku Hiva

7 Marine navigation on a desert sea of salt BY CDR ALAN SMITH, P My summer boating adventures did not work out as planned. As I write this I am sitting a cargo container in the middle of the desert. It is the only place dark enough to type my input for the Helmsman. I have a temporary job working in a sea of salt, the Great Salt Lake that is. I m installing temporary weather stations across the salt flats. This job is very similar to work I did for the government; working is isolated parts of the world. In some ways the work is the same. Unlike being on the water there is no dock to worry about. Hazards on the salt flats can be similar to open waters: sun burn, dehydration, getting lost, etc. At least I don t have to worry about falling overboard! Oh you don t want to break down because it is a long walk Alan in his makeshift office. I m not sure if this office would pass an ergonomic inspection. At least during the day the cargo container is well heated. The navigational boating skills that I learned from our Power Squadron classes have come in handy for navigating across the sea of salt. Someone already pounded 3-inch diameter poles into the salt. My job was to find the poles and mount the electronics. Trying to locate places without a GPS is challenging. For a map (chart) all I have to work with are some rough sketches. For this assignment I used dead reckoning to navigate. If bad weather did strike like a dust storm and visibility did drop to zero we could use GPS to navigate back to civilization. Even when we get to the intended location some of the 3-inch diameter poles could not be located. Spotting 3-inch diameter pole miles apart reminds me of looking for buoys on the water. When I arrived at the wrong location then it is time to scan the horizon in all directions to look for them. home. Don t bother bring any fishing gear; the fishing is not that good. All we saw was Salt Sharks. Photo, at right, shows a Salt Shark fin. Like Piranhas in the Amazon River or salt water crocodiles in Australia, stay out of the water. 7

8 16 Cobblestone Lane, Belmont, CA To Peralta s End of Summer BBQ WHERE: San Leandro Yacht Club 20 Mulford Point Drive, San Leandro WHEN: Saturday, September 21, 2013 TIME: 1730 Hours (5:30 p.m.) MENU: Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Green Salad, Potato Salad, Chili Beans Dessert - Make your Own Ice Cream Sundaes PER PERSON: $10.00 Following Dinner presentation of: Peralta Travel Adventures Norm Pennington will show a few slides from his recent Caribbean Charter Cruise Cdr Alan Smith will show slides from his National Motorcycle Competition Dick Folger will show excerpts from his 1983 movie Calaveras featuring Dick and Emery Zajec enroute to Tahiti aboard a 45 Expiorer Ketch And other members who will be invited to share their summer experiences Please RSVP by September 19th to: Judy Pennington ( ) or judypenn@sbcglobal.net 8