feral cat

Another feral cat showed up

at the house on Sunset Beach.

Barely.

twister

When the wind blows downslope here,

it blows so hard it can twist the sunset. 

This same angry wind turned into 

the tornados that recently killed so many people 

1000 miles east of here on Leap Day.

Scary.

local fauna

I promised no palm trees, so here's the local fauna report...

First spotting was Sluggo's head in the seat ahead of me. Yikes.

No matter the destination, whenever I have to leave my homedog behind, I sorely miss him. To me, dogs are always as important as anything else. Anyone who knows me knows this is just who I am. So whenever I'm separated from my better half, my canine appendage, my tail if you will, I tend to lose my place and/or my mind and become so distracted by even the sight of a dog that I drift off.

A few sightings yesterday made me realize that I may have a deeper condition than just abject doglove. Seems I have a limit for seeing nothing but humans for too long. The occasional company of any animal does a thing for my oxytocin levels which I can't deny.

I went to down the beach to Sunset Point last night to watch the you-know-what set and was thrilled to run into a familiar dog. She's sort of the official beach-greeter-bitch and is there every evening. An equal-opportunity friend, she seems to know that some people just need to get them some doglove. She always makes me feel good.

When I got back to the house, I was greeted by a little feral cat. We haven't seen our last feral, Fortitude, for a couple of years and miss him every time we come back here. This sweet thing was like a messenger and stayed long enough to meow and yeowl and rub against my ankles 'til they sparked and then was off down the beach.

Then, this morning, I saw my first holy-moly mongoose. Considering their local history, he did nothing for my oxytocin, but I did take note and a picture. It's like a Hawaiian raccoon. Garrett would know just what to do...

instead

Sorry, it was a NO GO on Thursday for the Eddie.  The judges judged that the waves were big enough but not consistent enough. If the conditions kick up again before February 24th, they'll call everybody back from around the world and do it.  As all the invitees said, they don't care where they are or what they're doing, they'll catch the first plane and be here.  No matter the cost. After all, it's the Eddie. 

Lucky for us, all of the world's best Big Wave riders were already here, all jacked up and nowhere to go. Apparently, word got around that there were monster sets up here at Sunset. By 4 o'clock, they all (40 or so) were here with 5 PWCs (jet skis) and began tow-in surfing.  For the next 3 hours, we got to watch the most amazing athletes do the most amazing things (vocabulary fails me here) and still live to tell about it.  It was absolutely breath-taking.

Instead, though we'll probably never get to actually see the Quiksilver, we did get to watch the best surfers in the world do stuff that was too crazy even for the Eddie.      

  

morning at sunset