Words & Pictures

35mm - First Roll
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Unsure whether the manual Pentax camera even still worked since my mom gave it to me for my high school photography class, I got a roll of film from CVS and began shooting. Turns out the camera works perfectly. 

Nowadays most place don't do photo development but there is a company in San Clemente that can develop you negatives and provide the digital downloads of photos for a base price, and then offers a variety of options for prints and higher resolution. The company is TheDarkRoom.com

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Philip Skinner
Breakwallk
Shot of 35mm  

Shot of 35mm  

I had a weekend filled with a brunch and afternoon stroll down the MB pier with Mia and her dad - whose birthday is about a week away. Then Mia and I headed up to Santa Monica and met with friends just before we all went to West Hollywood to celebrate a friend, Tim, who was turning another year older and also accepted a job and move to San Francisco.  

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On Sunday Mia and I took a walk through the marina over to the Redondo breakwall to soak in the last of the weekends nice spring weather.  

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 Recently I've been trying to check off some minimalist lifestyle boxes by doing small loads of laundry, hand washing it in my sink and hanging it to dry in the cockpit. I use Dr Bronners and cold water for the first soak, ring it out, then the trick is to use vinegar with water during the second soak and rinse it, ring it, hang it.  It's great for boardshorts, workout clothes and other stuff I wear frequently. 

Philip Skinner
Shipwrecked
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Living near the beach in Los Angeles means decent trail hikes are tough to come by. Malibu has a lot of trails but it is about an hour drive away. Close to home is Rancho Palos Verdes which has a few designated trails, mostly short and crowded. There's a long trail with variations at the top of the headland that wraps all the way down to the beach, it gets packed on the weekends though. I wanted to try a new one which had reviews online saying it was narrow, steep and overgrown with vegetation. That sounds perfect. My friend Dante was passing through and we set off to hike Saturday morning and did the Lunada Canyon trail then walked to a second trail, going to the Shipwreck down on the beach.

A view from the top of Lunada canyon shows how foggy it was below,  the remains of the shipwreck.  

A view from the top of Lunada canyon shows how foggy it was below,  the remains of the shipwreck.  

Dante took a picture of me taking a picture 

Dante took a picture of me taking a picture 

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To me, this looks like it would be on a treacherous coastline, but in fact there's several multimillion dollar homes just above where I was standing. 

To me, this looks like it would be on a treacherous coastline, but in fact there's several multimillion dollar homes just above where I was standing. 

The first hike was about 75 degrees and sunny through tall bushes and grass, a few steep parts were a good workout. Then we went down to the shipwreck trail and were surrounded in refreshing fog. From our vantage point on the canyon trail we could see it wasn't just a fog bank, it was thick clouds that had to chance to burn off. In fact the weather at the coast all weekend was 20 degrees colder than a mile inland, overcast and foggy. It was actually welcomed by me because I just wanted to get some chores done without being tempted to enjoy a summer-like day.

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So the shipwreck was pretty cool to see. A 400ft ship ran aground in the 60s and they spent a couple days trying to rescue it off the rocks but failed. Then there was an auction for all kinds of elements of the ship that was being bashed and demolished on the beach. Now all that remains are long scraps of metal, mostly graffitied, and what looks to be the bow and some shell of the hull as well as this tractor/tank/crane machinery. Whenever I sail past PV point I would look for the wreckage on shore but this was my first time seeing it on land and up close. There isn't a trail going to the wreck, people have to hop along rocks which form a beach until they get here.

Other than that I installed some solar powered lights in the shell of the truck to help when finding something at night or when we go camping and need light back there. The solar rope-light was about $30 and designed for peoples gardens and backyards so it's waterproof. I just used zip ties to fasten the rope to the punched-angle metal on the ceiling.

Camper shell lights  

Camper shell lights  

Philip Skinner
Two Harbors/ Small Craft Advisory

It's February 28th and the air is 48, the sun isn't up yet, and I'm going to get in 58 degree water. By the time I get down to the water's edge the cold sand has numbed my toes and somehow 58 degree seawater feels like a warm bath. Not after the first duck-dive, though. Why do I do this? Because I'm smiling during every wave I catch. My hooting and hollering of happiness inside the barrels echo around me before it encloses me and crashes. That's a lot like a surf session. It's great at the moment, then it's gone. Just a memory. Now I'm sandy, and too numb to have the grip in my fingers to turn my car key. I'll spend the rest of the day tired and salty but it was totally worth it.

Connor letting autopilot steer the boat and using his GoPro and iPad to view dolphin videos. Technology has its advantages  

Connor letting autopilot steer the boat and using his GoPro and iPad to view dolphin videos. Technology has its advantages  

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Arriving Saturday - couldn't believe how green the island was

Arriving Saturday - couldn't believe how green the island was

You can see how it would be easy to lose a frisbee in this  

You can see how it would be easy to lose a frisbee in this  

The next day I got a text message from Connor that was just a NOAA style weather forecast for the weekend.

"What does this mean?"

"Catalina this weekend"

I went along with him on his boat, Sea Casa. We left around 8am Saturday and it was a mellow crossing to Two Harbors. The ocean was filled with dolphins, traffic cones, and party balloons. We got there and were among only 6 other cruising boats, went to shore to play frisbee golf and meet up with his friend who does research on the island and lives there. There's a frisbee golf course sprawled out around two harbors but with all of the recent rain the growth on the island covered some of the baskets, so after losing our only two frisbees in the thick green grass and drinking all the beer packed in the backpack (legal there - private land), we returned to the boat, donned Connor's suits to try to fit in with a wedding going on that night - which was the only other reason people were there, plus it over-took the bar/restaurant. Our plan didn't really work and we didn't want to cause any kind of disturbance so we ended up just being overly-dressed and sitting at the quiet bar at Two Harbors, entertaining people who questioned our outfits coupled with our exclusion from the wedding group. 

Leaving Sunday, smacked by all the elements of a small craft advisory  

Leaving Sunday, smacked by all the elements of a small craft advisory  

Connor works at Space-X and his enthusiasm for space travel was evident by this poster in the v berth where I slept. 

Connor works at Space-X and his enthusiasm for space travel was evident by this poster in the v berth where I slept. 


On Sunday a small craft advisory was setting to be in effect so we cancelled our plans to go diving and rock jumping at Parson's Landing, and set off in the building wind to cross the channel. When we started we could see clear across the channel to Palos Verdes and it was visibly raining there. About an hour out from the island, the last of the "nice patch" of weather was gone and we had fast moving walls of rain all around us. The winds gusted up to around 25 mph, the boat rounded up a couple times despite our reefed mainsail. Then the rain caught up to us, or we caught up to it, that's a difficult thing to tell when you have no landmark in sight or sense of how quickly your boat is travelling (7.2 knots at one point). Either way the waves were spraying over the bow, the wind was stinging us sideways, and I ran out of layers to put on to stay warm. By the time we got to the harbor entrance, the rain was gone and the wind was steadily around 25 mph, forcing waves to crash crumble and churn everywhere. It was quite a trip and I'm thankful that I was a passenger on someone else's boat in that ugly weather. As luck would have it, it was about 80 degrees and with calm winds the day before we left and the day after we got back, so the wild weather and sailing was meant to be. Connor is planning a trip to Panama and beyond on this boat and looked at it as good practice in case he gets stuck in bad weather.

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From Connor's instagram account. I wasn't able to move my fingers enough to operate my phones camera.  

Philip Skinner
Mt Wilson

I know I'm not the only person with wanderlust when I sit at my cubicle and stare at three monitors for 5 days in a row. By Wednesdays I am already thinking about sailing or driving as far away as manageable and going for hikes, breathing fresh air, and feeling self-sufficient again. Added to that feeling is the sad fact that my company laid off about 200 people throughout the week. With a couple potential plans up in the air, I couldn't just disappear this weekend, but Mia told me about how her cousin and friends were going on a hike Sunday afternoon before settling in to watch the Oscars. We had to do it. We met at their house in Sierra Madre which is walking distance to the Mt Wilson trailhead. Just a few switchbacks up the trail and you could hear water rushing past rocks down the stream down below, there was bright green growing everywhere it could and good conversation catching up with friends.

Views from the Mt Wilson trail, Mia looking out at our friend Connor who climbed up a mast on Sunday. 

Views from the Mt Wilson trail, Mia looking out at our friend Connor who climbed up a mast on Sunday. 

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Philip Skinner
31st Birthday weekend trip
Andrew really happy for me that everyone got together for scotts and my birthday

Andrew really happy for me that everyone got together for scotts and my birthday

Up highway 5 near Fort Tejon on a Friday nightbetween a sequence of the biggest storms so far this winter and we found ourselves stopped dead in a 2 hour traffic delay. The reason was apparently a mud slide, but after shifting from park to drive every 10 minutes for two hours, and filing into narrower lanes, we never even got to see it. We arrived to my moms house around 2:30am. Fortunately Mia was able to sleep for most of the drive and regain energy after a busy three weeks of late-night and early-morning work. When we woke up on Saturday we already felt like the previous nights extended drive was totally worth it. In a few hours Scott and Nicole came over with newborn Sophie and I finally got to meet my niece. A while later Matt and Julia came over with Andrew and it was awesome to be with everyone again. My mom made delicious pies for Scott and my birthday, Matt gave me three bottles of good whiskey to basically host my own personal tasting whenever I want, and it was special to see my twin brother as a dad for the first time.


Another storm was blowing in on Sunday with forecasters claiming it to bring the most rain that California has seen in a single storm for years. So Mia and I decided to leave Sunday night and drive to San Luis Obispo to see her family for a day. Be both took a day off of work, in combination with President's Day, meant we had a 4-day weekend to cover as much ground and family time as possible. In SLO, we enjoyed trips to the horses, the lush green hills everywhere, and homemade lasagna, cupcakes and pie (so much pie) for my birthday. I was so lucky, and I received a birthday gift of a Catchsurf foam surfboard - a super fun, durable, and much-less-harmless-than-fiberglass-surfboard 5'6" quad.  These boards are soft and can also be ridden finless, which I've been wanting to try for years. I can also leave this at the boat or in my truck without worrying about sun or heat damage like a normal surfboard. I've secretly (or apparently not so secretly) been wanting a Catchsurf board since I was working at Surfline 3 years ago and realized that I had a growing fear of getting hurt by the hard edges and sharp fins of my surfboards the more often I surfed. An injury felt inevitable. With these boards, they float better so you can surf almost any kind of waves, and they're foam padded so if you take a tumble you're a lot less likely to get hurt from the board. It lightens the entire mood of a surf session to be more fun and silly, which is what surfing is supposed to be about anyway.

Sophie Skinner's expressive stages of being a baby  

Sophie Skinner's expressive stages of being a baby  

Journey, cleaning the v berth, George on a walk in the rain, a new fun foam surfboard birthday present to me from Mia's family  

Journey, cleaning the v berth, George on a walk in the rain, a new fun foam surfboard birthday present to me from Mia's family  

Philip Skinner

My mind is always trying to remember a past weekends fun or setting expectations for the upcoming weekend. Last Saturday I took a written test for something and Mia dropped me off because it was nearby her office. Then we went to MDR because their fuel dock is the next closest place that I can replace my empty CNG tank. The law of supply and demand was in full force, it was $56 for the tank! The visit brought us up close to Asahi, a boat I see the masts of on my commute to work and we've seen at Catalina. 

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  woke up early on Sunday and met up with Connor to go bodysurfing. We last week on a Friday before work and it was raining, cold, but dang near perfect conditions for LA surf. Since then, he got a new wetsuit. swim fins, and handplane and I was stoked to not be the only board-less wave rider in the lineup. When we walked over to get a view of the beach, the sun was just starting to peak over the houses and apartments to show yet again, really good waves.

 

"There's a huge sale at Dive N Surf, the wetsuit was only like $100" he explained, as I pulled my 3 year old wetsuit on over my head and remembered the expanding hole on my thigh seam and the over-stretched neck opening that gives me a rash. I got to thinking, maybe I should swing by that shop after. I caught a bunch of fun waves and one delivered a first, I was in a barrel, I was yelling out a hoot of joy and the combination of barrel size and length, it was echoing my hoot all around me. Many of the waves were overhead and offered up rides on their shoulder all the way to the sand and then provided a whomping. I bodysurfed until my hands were so numb that I couldn't paddle efficiently anymore. 

Birthday presents and breakfast! 

Birthday presents and breakfast! 

Mia and I went to get breakfast and check out the surf sale, where she insisted to let the new on-sale wetsuit (and Da-Fin's!) be her birthday presents to me - I'm so lucky. After that, Connor called me and told me that we can and should take out two Sunfish sailboats that a neighbor on the dock owns and stores at the dock. So we rigged those up and took them out on the ocean for a few hours, basically for the rest of daylight. The Sunfish look totally retro, they weigh like 300 pounds and probably had water leaks so they were heavy and stable and a lot of fun. More boats were out being used on this February weekend than most summer weekends due to the rumor that whales were over the Redondo Canyon trench. We sailed around the area but never saw whales. On the way back we buzzed past my previous neighbors Chris and Mandy, as they were anchored in the channel, who tossed us a couple beers like the friendly sailors they are. We beached the sailboats on a shoal in the harbor, were drinking our Corona's and standing on a low-tide beach feeling exhausted and lucky to have enjoyed the ocean and weather so much in one day.

Philip Skinner
Project List

There's sometimes a silver lining to having a girlfriend who is a busy attorney. Mia's work schedule required her to work extra hours Saturday and Sunday. It meant that I was going to be alone and therefore hyper productive to catch up on the perpetual project list.

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I had originally wanted to do some of the higher priority tasks in the morning and then go sail the dinghy in Marina Del Rey. But the weather, as sunny and warm as it was, provided absolutely no wind all weekend. In addition, I haven't loaded the dinghy on the roof of my campershell before and prefer to run through that procedure with someone else to help so I know what to expect when I do it by myself.

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So the list, I had to replace a couple bolts on the campershell roof rack and loosen all the roof fittings to fill the bases with weather sealant. Now they're all finally waterproof. I had to mount a dodger snap-button back to the underside of the traveler because it had corroded off. Since this required me to buy a tube of 3M 4200, which doesn't have a shelf life after you open it, I used the rest for sticking the cupholders back on the dinghy and I taped off the base of the mast and gutted out the old sealant and resealed that. I taped off the v-berth skylight which has a slight leak, and cleaned out the old sealant and resealed that as well. I had to find a replacement cap for an external radiator reservoir because the original cap was metal and rusted through, unfortunately nowhere sells this type of thing without replacing the entire reservoir, so I got creative and hunted through Smart & Final for a bottle or jar with a cap that would work - I found one - hopefully whoever has this boat next doesn't doubt my ingenuity when they find a green chili sauce cap with a rooster stamped on it holding the radiator fluid in. I cut up a 12-year old wetsuit to use the neoprene as a removable chafe-resistant pad around my bow and stern cleats to protect the boat from the dock line rubbing, bonus, it will quiet down the creaking sound of the line which occures when it's really dry outside. I installed a couple of these metal anti-chafe (wearandtearpads.com) near my cockpit cleats to prevent chafe from the roller furling line as well as an additional dockline that I use. I took the dinghy for a couple of rows around the marina during both days, took the big boat to the pumpout dock and fuel dock for a CNG tank that they no longer supply, I went surfing in the middle of the afternoon thanks to some lingering swell and those nonexistent winds.

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It felt fulfilling to check this stuff off my list. All that is currently left of the list is building a lock for storage in the bed of my truck, going to MDR for the CNG tank, and then big project boat stuff.

Philip Skinner
A Cenoura in the rain to muddy horse walks at the farm.  

A Cenoura in the rain to muddy horse walks at the farm.  

my favorite of these is the center photo of the white fence and grass. Still learning the camera and how to best show these photos online.  

my favorite of these is the center photo of the white fence and grass. Still learning the camera and how to best show these photos online.  

MLK Jr Weekend provided me with a 3-day weekend and came along perfectly timed with a good weather break between much needed California storms. Mia and I left Friday nightafter work and drove up to San Luis Obispo to hang out with her family, see some friends, take horses for walks, go for a surf, freeze my feet surfing, get my cracked iphone screen fixed, etc etc and other things. There are constant reminders in this area that I would be lucky to live up here. Driving around to the horses or just to get groceries you’re on roads surrounded by people’s ranches, green land, wineries, and you see people outside hiking, riding bicycles, using the open space and enjoying the fresh air. It’s a contrast from Los Angeles, which has its benefits, but is overall crowded and concrete. There’s no shortage of moments I am thankful for when I am up there, so it was a good and relaxing weekend.

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On Monday in the late afternoon I was on a borrowed surfboard from James with him out in the frigid (to me) water at the Avila Beach pier, waiting for rideable waves to roll in, and keeping my eye on a heavy-duty sailboat a couple hundred yards away that had their crew in the cockpit having drinks watching the sunset before pulling anchor and motoring south, and super grateful for this exact experience. The sun went behind the mountains over Avila harbor and I was no longer able to prevent my hands and feet from going numb by keeping them out of the water to dry. I was in the shade and the temperature got even cooler. We bother agreed a wave or two more and we’ll paddle in. When I got back to their house I sat in front of the fireplace with my numb feet inches from the flames and barely even felt its warmth for the first 10 minutes. Finally I thawed out, though.

We stayed through until Tuesday morning and left super early to make it to work on time. There was something interesting, and mildly depressing, about it taking the same amount of time this morning to get from Ventura to work as it would have to just leave from home in Redondo for my regular 15 mile commute to work. We didn’t have much traffic and we were sneaking past most of the LA mess by cruising on highway 1 through Malibu into Santa Monica just after the rush.

 

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Installed fog lights on my truck before the wild 40kt wind and flooding rain. this weekend had probably the most heavy and consistent rain the area has had in years. 

Philip Skinner
I've seen this metal hung up in a parking lot close to the boat, finally had a reason to park there and go get a morning coffee with Mia. There's an artist loft / fabrication place behind the wall so I suspect they put this together

I've seen this metal hung up in a parking lot close to the boat, finally had a reason to park there and go get a morning coffee with Mia. There's an artist loft / fabrication place behind the wall so I suspect they put this together

"Bad" weather is actually good weather for everyone. Rain causes growth and replenishes water for the drought. I can't complain...except maybe that sleep is difficult at the marina during these so callled storms. The rain sound is nice on the boat, but as water collects it falls from high up on the mast and can drop onto the clear roof hatches in a torturing off-rhythm inconsistent thump. I finally laid down old towels to absorb the impact. People's halyards slap and in really high winds my own rigging sends a rudely awakening shudder through the hull. But I'm pleased to take the good with the bad. 

Took a walk to get lunch during work, snapped some photos.  

Took a walk to get lunch during work, snapped some photos.  

Philip Skinner