I think this past weekend (12/12/2015) could be the first true El Nino storm sneak-preview. Friday night was windy and hard to get sleep until the morning when it died down a little. Mia and I took a walk to see how big the waves were - we could see them breaking over the breakwall. The photo below is actually a pretty good example of what happened in just one day of the storm. Normally this beach has sand going out to about where the white-water is, and is a few feet below the brick wall. Thanks to high surf and a a 6 foot high tide, the sand was pushed up all the way against the brick wall and over onto the street, the seaweed was left at a new high-tide level almost at the street as well.

We walked up to the King Harbor Yacht Club parking lot, which was a little flooded from waves and sea spray over the breakwall. Apparently there was a fire at a store in Torrance, which I think is where the smoke in the photo is coming from. It burned for about 45 minutes, thankfully, because it was probably going to jump quickly from the high winds.

Watching waves splash over the breakwall and a fire inland

Mia and I walked over to the King Harbor bar/restaurant area for breakfast. Found an empty restaurant and sat on the 2nd floor patio to enjoy watching sailboats brave breaking waves wrapping into the channel and 20+ winds. We saw just a few sailboats head out. Explored a small parking lot car show, and then I sailed the dinghy in the heavy winds. It was great.

The boat is difficult to tack in light wind but today I didn't have that problem. I was racing around next to a guy who was sailing a Catalina 13 - the sailboat I used to own. At night, Mia and I tagged along with a group on Connor's sailboat to participate in the annual holiday boat parade. It was blustery, swelly, cold, and after 3 quick laps the parade was over. Connor won best boat under 32' back at the KHYC where we stopped by mainly to see what it was like inside. Curiously high-security, yet very nice and fun.

Philip SkinnerDecember 14, 2015

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