“I heard there’s a shaman,” a man says as I wait to get into the new “Spektrum” exhibit at lille æske. “I don’t think I’ll be able to not say anything the whole time.” Meanwhile, his friend sniffs and puts his ear to a wooden stump before plopping down on it, giggling. Things are getting weird in Boulder Creek, and the main event hasn’t even started.
I’m sitting with five others around a fire, waiting to be called to enter lille æske’s new “Spektrum” installation. Everyone receives a numbered card, indicating what order they will be called in, and enters individually. Illuminated by a reddish hue, the exhibit starts with a warm and welcoming beginning, but the rabbit hole behind the door is enough to make anyone curious—or in my case, slightly anxious.
Upon entry, I’m fairly sure I’m going to be murdered by a masked man wearing a white apron. I’m not supposed to talk, but out of awkwardness I mumble a hello to the silent masked man and sit down. Music that sounds like it’s out of the ’50s quietly plays amid a vibrant orange glow in the retro kitchen. Twine is spiderwebbed around the ceiling and there’s nowhere to go but to a rickety kitchen table. My masked friend and I sit silently together, and with clammy hands I open a letter sitting in front of me and try not to look him in the eyes.
It reads: “Light of the World, isn’t it funny the way some things seem to choose you as much as you choose them? For example, why are you here right now? Do you even know, yourself? (Do you even know yourself?) Light of the World. There are so many things I want to tell you and of course there is no time. There is never any time.”
The masked man stands up and walks over to the kitchen counter, and I know I am going to die. But instead I’m led to the next room—five of which have somehow been fit into the tiny venue, each based on a different hue in the color spectrum (hence the name). Only 12 people are allowed in each night, given the individuality and personalization of it all, and the artist changes every weekend. There are several interesting characters along the way, some real and some fictional, all of them unique. It’s a journey through color and light, but also a journey into consciousness and awareness.
Leading me from room to room are silent masked hosts, who give a ghostly gesture between the sheeted rooms. The uneasiness of it all turns to comfort by the third room, where Los Angeles-based artist Black Mare waits to put on a show just for me. It’s delightfully gothic and magical—who knew I’d find solace in a masked woman wearing a kimono? She taps a large horn on her staff, hums and gives me a red rose wrapped in parchment before sending me on my merry way. I’m so glad that I’m not on drugs.
A truly sensory experience, “Spektrum” isn’t for the faint of heart, but rest assured it’s worth every second for those who have an open and curious mind. The rooms build on each other, and just when it seems like things couldn’t get any stranger, the fog machine, violet lights and canopied four-poster bed appear. From the rooms to the performances and art pieces, everything is intentional in this small space, and it’s a true wonder in itself.
Spektrum challenges what art looks and feels like. It’s awkward, cohesive and transformative at the same time, a range of emotion and otherworldly experiences all tucked away in a little wooden box in the woods.
“Spektrum” runs Thursday-Sundays through June 30. lilleaeske.com. $32.
If your idea of parents and offspring playing music together begins and ends with The Partridge Family, you may change your tune when you see Hearts Beat Loud. In Brett Haley’s engaging, gently calibrated story, a middle-aged father and his teenage daughter bond over a shared love of songwriting and playing music together. It’s a simple scenario brought to life by nuanced performances and a light and easy directorial touch.
Haley is becoming renowned for his small, indie films (I’ll See You in My Dreams; The Hero) populated by life-sized characters who look and act like, you know, actual people. There’s nothing tricky about his presentation; his unassuming movies earn our affection with their humor and honesty. Hearts Beat Loud touches on serious themes—financial hardship, broken dreams, grief and loss—but the movie’s attitude is refreshingly buoyant.
In the Red Hook district of Brooklyn, Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) runs an obscure little storefront shop selling the vinyl records he loves. (One of the movie’s pleasures is spotting vintage album covers hung up in plastic sleeves on the walls of Frank’s shop.) His few customers are curiosity-seeking young hipsters who are gentrifying the neighborhood.
An outwardly crusty, bearlike man, with something a little nutty going on behind his eyes that suggests he’s got some scheme or other in mind, Frank used to play guitar in a rock band on the fringes of the club scene. But he gave it up for the (relative) stability of a shopkeeper when his daughter was born.
Daughter, Sam (vibrant Kiersey Clemons, so noticeable in a small part last year in The Only Living Boy in New York), is off to college in the fall to study pre-med. Business has not been great at the shop—the rent is way past due—and she’s looking for financial security for the future. No big deal is made of the fact that Sam is mixed-race, but it’s gradually revealed that her late mother was black and sang with Frank’s band.
Sam has showbiz in her blood from both sides, and while she tries to be the grown-up in the household, she’s vulnerable to her dad’s wheedling when he wants her to take a break and play music with him. Her instrument is the electric keyboard, augmented by her own powerhouse voice. When Frank learns she’s been noodling around with some songs of her own, he buys an electronic musical keypad to augment their sound. The exasperated Sam insists, “We’re not a band!” which Frank adopts as their new band name.
During the course of the summer, they compose songs and record them in Frank’s makeshift home studio. (After he secretly emails one out as a demo, he has an exuberant epiphany at the local coffeeshop when he hears their song playing on Spotify.) Meanwhile, Sam starts to fall in love with Rose (Sasha Lane, from last year’s American Honey), a young woman from the neighborhood with artistic ambitions. Lane and Clemons are easy and likable together, although the part of Rose is underwritten.
But the rest of the supporting cast has better luck. Toni Collette brings shading to the part of Frank’s sympathetic landlady who wants to give him every chance. Blythe Danner (Haley’s muse and star in I’ll See You in My Dreams) has a couple of droll scenes as Frank’s wayward mother. And it’s great to see Ted Danson behind a bar again as the proprietor of Frank’s favorite watering hole, a cheerful stoner who has never quite let go of the ’60s.
The story’s main conflict is set up between Frank’s rock ’n’ roll dream, so long delayed, and the nature of Sam’s future. But Haley’s understated approach suggests that no option is absolute, and enlightened compromise might be the best way forward in this thoughtful, entertaining film.
HEARTS BEAT LOUD
***(out of four)
With Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons and Ted Danson. Written by Brett Haley and Marc Basch. Directed by Brett Haley. A Gunpowder & Sky release. Rated PG-13. 97 minutes.
Have you ever thought about what Philip Roth was thinking when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Peace Prize? Singer-songwriter Amy Rigby has. She even wrote a song about it, imagining the email that Roth would fire off to Dylan. (“When you’re standing in the spotlight where you’ve always been/I’ll be alone with the pen, alone with the pen.”)
“I kind of felt like probably a lot of us feel about Bob Dylan—not angry at him, but we will never be him, to have the depths of his talent,” Rigby says. “I felt like even Philip Roth would have to shake his head and say, ‘For all the hard work I’ve done, for all the body of work I’ve created, I just can’t touch that guy.’ He just looms so large.”
The song opens Rigby’s new album Old Guys, her first solo record in 13 years. It’s a welcome return for Rigby. The singer-songwriter was an indie darling in the ’90s, particularly with her solo debut in 1996, Diary of a Mod Housewife. She’s collaborated on several records with husband Wreckless Eric. The last record they did together was 2012’s A Working Museum.
Old Guys sees her confronting age, death and loss head on, particularly on the title track, which along with “Bob,” were two early songs she wrote and helped her establish the lens for the record.
“Over the last 10 years, I was starting to lose friends—not just musical heroes, but people that I worked with and were really important to my musical life,” Rigby says. “I didn’t want it to sound mopey and sad, but more of a gratitude sort of thing, like a celebration, and have a bit of sadness.”
This vibe carries through all of the record. Much of the lyrics have a strong sad bent, yet are performed behind a mostly upbeat fuzzy rock sound. She delivers the words with her weathered voice, which hides the depth of emotion to a certain extent.
The track “Playing Pittsburgh” is a seemingly sad song about her perpetual disappointment of playing in that city, which she grew up in and left at age 16. She always feels like homecomings are underwhelming, and the shows for whatever reason are not that great. Yet the music for this song is peppered with a pride in Pittsburgh you might not expect from someone expressing this level of sadness. (“I’m playing Pittsburgh tonight/I got the hometown blues.”)
“Something about the music made it feel like Pittsburgh in a positive way,” Rigby says. “I was looking for the sound of a crowd at Pittsburgh sporting event, people cheering, like you felt you’d gone to Pittsburgh Stadium to see a Pirates game or something.”
What it creates is an album that is highly reflective without being soaked in sentimentality, nostalgia or bitterness. Her earlier work was known more for its emotional rawness. Her new album is subtler. This is something Rigby attributes to working with her husband for so long, and also to living in France some years back and getting used to expressing herself to an audience that didn’t speak English.
“I was just starting to feel the expression that comes out of playing notes and volume and sound,” Rigby says. “I was falling in love with the guitar. In the past I saw it more as a tool I needed to write songs. It was liberating.”
It was this more impressionistic approach that moved the record into a new direction. On the surface, the record seems confessional, and it times that’s a major element, but Rigby approached the songs—even the ones intimately about herself—as an abstract project of projecting images into the words.
Even in that opening track, where Roth fires off at Dylan, there’s an odd ending where after Roth speaks his mind to Dylan, Rigby acknowledges the contradiction of Dylan both being an epic person that exists in a higher plane than the rest of us, and a symbol for all of us. She expresses this complex idea by repeating “Spartacus” as the song concludes.
“Spartacus is the slave that represents all the slaves. It wasn’t about him. He was doing it for everybody,” Rigby says. “That was just so perfect to me. The word sounded good, but what it meant was even more what I wanted it to mean.”
Amy Rigby plays at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 24 at Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $15. 479-9777.
A wine made in the Santa Cruz Mountains viticultural region was served at a special high profile wedding in London last month. An American actress was marrying a British prince, actually, and had ordered nine cases of one of her favorite Pinot Noirs for the reception. Yes, that royal wedding.
Blimey, I thought as soon as I found out about this, and quickly sent a Facebook message to the winemaker, hoping to find a bottle. Probably none left on the Santa Cruz side of the hill, he told me. But! I found a bottle at Shopper’s Corner a few days ago. And paid what turned out to be a bargain price of $35 for a serious bottle of Pinot. What a wonderful creation! Made from Dijon and California clones grown on the northernmost slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation, the Domaine Eden Pinot Noir 2014 unfolded in layers of spice and red fruit, with firm tannins and a graceful cushion of raspberries in the center. The balance of fruit, tannins, and structure was outstanding (14 percent alcohol). A hint of licorice and bay leaves emerged after an hour of opening. Winemaker Jeffrey Patterson has made a lovely wine, completely at home with food—we enjoyed it with roast local halibut and asparagus. Congratulations to Patterson, his team and his vines. “The 2014 has a density and tannin that is bigger than previous Domaine bottlings,” Patterson says. “Cranberry, raspberry, pomegranate flavors are strong with a touch of bergamot, bay and mint adding to the mix.”
The winemaker himself was impressed by the unexpected news of Prince Harry’s new bride selecting this Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir for the reception. “We are delighted and completely surprised that Meghan chose this wine. It is a personal favorite,” he says. Nice to know that the new Duchess of Sussex has such good taste. The other thing you need to know is that the 2014 is officially sold out. (I suggest you keep looking around such wine merchants as Shopper’s, Whole Foods, Deer Park, etc). But the good news is that there is a 2015 vintage of Patterson’s much-admired Pinot Noir already available. Fit for another royal wedding?
Appetizer of the Week
At Soif, a beautiful appetizer, large enough to share over crisp white wine ($18): This creation involved a thick wedge of Fogline Farms pork belly floating on a slab of polenta. Sprigs of infant mustard sprouts sprang from the top of the pork. Accompanying was a vivid emerald puree of mustard greens topped with Rainier cherries, and everything bathed in a rich cherry pork jus. Such a delicious collage of flavors and textures from the kitchen of Chef Marshall Bishop. Eye candy with flavor sparkle and depth.
Home Sweet Home
Consider checking out the July 22 Pork & Pint Party at HOME restaurant, where Chef Brad Briske and his adventurous team are always ahead of the culinary pack. For those of you who want to know more about the way that Briske works with Llano Seco Ranch’s environmentally conscious pork-raising practices, come on over to this special event where the rancher and chef will talk all things pig, plus a pig breakdown demo and an opportunity to make your own sausage. Yes, there will be plenty of beer involved from local Santa Cruz craft breweries. In the in-full-bloom back garden. Info at homesoquel.com.
Tidbits
Ocean2table has been offering magnificent porcinis and morels, harvested up in the Sierras and Mount Shasta region. If you’re a fan of these outstanding fungal specialties, definitely get involved with their program at: fi**@************le.com.
According toelection results released on Friday, June 12, Dutra sits at 27 percent of the vote, not far behind Caput, who’s at 34 percent. Those results have held steady over the past week and a half. So Felipe Hernandez, who’s currently at 22 percent, may be outside of striking distance.
In the race for judge, Syda Cogliati finished comfortably ahead of Zach Schwarzbach, by a margin of more than 10 percentage points.
Each of Santa Cruz’s three city measures, including the quarter-cent sales tax, passed in a landslide. All three local school measures passed handily as well.
In addition, according to the returns so far, more than half of Santa Cruz County voted for Democrat Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, while Antonio Villaraigosa finished behind Republican businessman John Cox. Cox trounced Villaraigosa statewide convincingly, after the Democratic former Los Angeles mayor slipped in the polls during the month before the June primary.
Those gubernatorial results are essentially just what Republicans had been hoping for, and presumably the reason that President Donald Trump endorsed Cox via Twitter in the lead-up to the primary. The mere fact that conservatives have a candidate for governor should drive Republican voters to the polls come November and increase their odds of holding onto control of Congress.
Beyond that, the conventional wisdom says that Cox doesn’t have a shot in hell at winning in November against Newsom, a popular Democrat.
Then again, the conventional wisdom also told us this was a two-man race between Newsom and Villaraigosa. Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here? JACOB PIERCE
They say men don’t like to ask for directions, but I, for one, love it. My only concern is asking the right person for directions. For Visitor Guide, we pulled together a team of quintessential insiders to ask for tips about what to do in Santa Cruz.
Want to know the latest food trend to check out in Santa Cruz? No problem, we’ve got Christina Waters writing in this issue about the bowl craze that has officially swept the county. Want to know about an offbeat subculture to explore in downtown? No problem, DNA is here to tell you about Santa Cruz’s long tradition of great barbershops. Heck, he’ll even tell you where barbershops started 5,000 years ago. Interested in Santa Cruz’s reputation as a center of alternative medicine, and thinking you’d like to try something that’s truly on the cutting edge? Maria Grusauskas is going to clue you in to craniosacral therapy. Want to see this place from an entirely new perspective? Jacob Pierce will tell you what it’s like to hover over the Santa Cruz coastline in a helicopter—and how you can, too.
Not to mention, there’s a handy guide to hundreds of local businesses specializing in whatever you’re looking for. And you know what? You don’t even have to ask. Just sit right down and let us get you where you want to be.
Join local artist and certified California Naturalist Sarah Ory in experiencing the beauty of the Arboretum’s botanical offerings through printmaking. Amid the beauty of the 135 acre “living museum,” attendees will create prints inspired by nature, by carving blocks and relief printing with flowers and leaves. Prints will be made on a variety of art paper that will be provided. Each participant will take home their prints and carved block for future printmaking. Class is limited to 15, so sign up soon.
INFO:10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, June 16. UCSC Arboretum and Botanic Garden. 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. 502-2998. arboretum.ucsc.edu. $45 members, $60 non-members, plus $10 materials fee. Pre-registration required.
Santa Cruz Art League’s newest show, Raíces y Alas, features work from generations of Latin artists that incorporates cultural inspiration. In Spanish, raíces means roots, and alas means wings. The exhibition is generational, and the elder artists are the raíces that make up the foundation. Their successors are the alas. The show will showcase artists that work in various mediums, including photography, painting and printmaking, to address social issues and cultural practices that are important in their lives, such as social activism, feminism and family.
INFO: Runs through July 1. Santa Cruz Art League. 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. 426-5787. scal.org. Free.
Saturday 6/16
Papás of the Central Coast celebrate Father’s Day
Celebrate Father’s Day with free food, music, raffles, arts and crafts and a costume contest. This year’s theme is Fairy Tales and Fatherhood, so whether it’s a king and princess costume or an ogre and mini ogre, all people, fairies, dragons, and ambiguous mythical beings are welcome. The costume contest categories vary from fathers, father-child and whole family.
INFO: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Ramsay Park Family Center. 1301 Main St., Watsonville. 763-3123. papassfi.org. Free.
Local contemporary Brazilian dance company Agua Doce Dance will be leading public all-levels dance classes this week, culminating with a dance performance workshop with Brazilian dancer and choreographer Vera Passos. This week-long cultural immersion of dance classes from Bahia, Brazil includes traditional Afro-Brazilian dances, Samba de Roda, and the Silvestre Dance Technique. Classes will be held at a variety of studios throughout the week, check online for details.
INFO: Daily classes through June 16. “Tracing Diasporas” show Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16. Motion Pacific. 131 Front St. E, Santa Cruz. aguadocedance.com/workshops. $15-$25 classes and performances. Photo: Crystal Birns.
Aside from rising temperatures, an increase in beach-goers and a preference for outdoor dining, the return of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s free screenings and concerts is a welcome summer ritual. It’s one thing about Santa Cruz summers that has never really changed—think The Lost Boys’ Corey Feldman and his band of Angels in the late ’80s. Speaking of The Lost Boys, it’s also the screening that kicks off the summer movie series on Wednesday, June 20. Grab a blanket, cooler and chair and get there extra early for a good seat to an old tradition. Performances and movies in advance online.
INFO: Friday concert shows begin at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. June 15 through Aug. 31. Wednesday night movies begin at 9 p.m. June 20 through Aug. 15. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. 400 Beach St, Santa Cruz. 423-5590. beachboardwalk.com/events. Free.
Santa Cruz Poke is a roll in a bowl—only better. Owner Brook Penquite and his family opened the Capitola store nine months ago. Penquite prepares each and every poke bowl himself six days a week, all in an 80-square-foot kitchen. They offer five different proteins (including a signature tofu), several base options, healthy sauces, and more toppings than you can count on two hands. Penquite also pickles his own ginger and makes his own furikake mix—a combination of toasted sesame seeds, seaweed and bonito fish flakes. Santa Cruz Poke bowls are a win-win for the mind and body, and a guaranteed summer go-to.
GT: What made you want to open this place?
BROOK PENQUITE: Capitola needed it. We’ve been coming down here for over a decade. We wanted something that was fresh and quick, we could go down to the beach or ride our bikes and eat good, healthy food. So we thought we’d create it ourselves. This location used to be a coffee shop, and we drove into the village and saw it was for lease and it all fell in line from there.
We also wanted to try and take it in a healthier direction, especially when you have so many places that have pizza, burgers, fish and chips, ice cream.
What makes your food unique?
Most poke places generally are owned and operated by Japanese owners, and there is a very traditional use of sides like white rice and a lot of similar tastes you’d find in sushi, which a lot of people love. But for me, I go more on the healthy and Hawaiian side. I have traditional Lomi Lomi which a lot of places don’t carry, and I have rice and quinoa, shirataki yam noodles, tofu and organic gluten-free toppings. I also make seasonal salads in-house. I think people are a bit more appreciative of how much work I put into creating a menu that is healthy and accessible for anyone, whether you’re a gluten-free, vegan or have food allergies.
Where do you source your fish from?
Royal Hawaiian Seafood in San Francisco—the only Northern California distributor that partners with the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch Program. Tuna is endangered, and in the restaurant industry it’s tough to go toward something you are negatively impacting. A lot of people just get into the business to make money. They will use thousands of pounds of fish per week. Here, this is a small footprint in so many different ways, we have a small business and it’s all environmentally and source-conscious, from the compostability of our materials to our grease traps, it’s all small footprint.
Sometimes important stories kind of sneak up on you. That’s what happened this week with Lauren Hepler’s report on the rise of whale entanglements in the Monterey Bay. It wasn’t originally planned as a cover story, even—we sent her out with the Whale Entanglement Team not knowing how much of a story was really there, but that the numbers on whale rescues in the Monterey Bay seemed to have jumped by statistically improbable percentages in the last five years.
What she brought back is a fascinating—and concerning—look at the future of the Monterey Bay ecosystem. It’s a complicated picture, and as with so many environmental stories, climate change plays a huge part. Within the fluctuations of the vast ocean off our shores, though, is a smaller but very dramatic story of two types of mammals trying to navigate around each other. One of them is 60,000 pounds, the other is roughly .002 percent that size. But as Hepler’s story shows, a few of those smaller mammals are dedicating themselves to saving the bigger ones, and making a huge difference in our waters. Their story is every bit as compelling, in its own way, as the larger picture here, and I hope this gives some much-deserved and needed exposure to their work.
Most people would agree that the primary goal of a university is to educate. One method of educating is to illustrate by example. Thus, UCSC illustrated principles for building a university by constructing examples. The visions of our early administrators—think of Clark Kerr and Dean McHenry—taught us how to start.
They recruited first-rate architects and planners, such as John Carl Warnecke and Thomas Church. “Church and the architects were so struck by the beauty of the UCSC site they convinced the Regents to move the heart of the campus out of the meadow and into the trees, where the flora and terrain would be both a challenge and an inspiration.” (See http://50years.ucsc.edu/new-campus/.)
The current proposal for constructing the new 3,000-bed housing project on the UCSC campus includes seven apartment buildings ranging from four to 10 stories tall near Heller Drive and—even more egregious—15 acres of buildings in the East Meadow near the intersection of Hagar and Coolidge Drives. (See https://ppc.ucsc.edu/planning/EnvDoc.html for details.)
The project is a bad example, and therefore bad education. It fails to achieve the primary goal of the university.
If you ask faculty, staff, students and alumni why they chose to come to UCSC, you will find that a primary reason is the beauty of the campus and its close connections with nature—the views, the redwoods, the expansive meadows, and the amazing variety of wildlife. This “Design With Nature” philosophy is the primary reason we have such an excellent educational institution, and the reason that our faculty, staff and students don’t want to leave.
Please help us work to maintain the original goal set by our founders. The comment period on the Draft EIR was recently extended to June 27. Please sign the petition by the East Meadow Action Committee at eastmeadowaction.org/petition.
Peter Scott
Santa Cruz
Not Good News
The local density topic meetings I attended left me dismayed and in strong opposition to what was proposed with the East Side corridor plan. It makes no sense to lift/revise current regulations which are in place to safeguard our neighborhoods and a resident’s right to park their car in front of their own dwelling, as well as revising current building permit regulations, making it easier for density construction. More buildings and more people and cars in Santa Cruz, yet insufficient allotted parking? A recipe for disaster.
Every East Side local should be aware, also, that the stated intention for said corridor plan is five-story structures without enough parking for whoever takes up residence. Where would all of these extra cars be parked? In your front yard, most likely.
I tell you, it makes no sense and is not good news for the local tax-paying residents of our beloved Santa Cruz hometown.
Nada J. Misunas
Santa Cruz
The Danger is Real
Re: Wildfire danger (GT, 4/11): I live adjacent to Willow Canyon, which in turn is adjacent to the Seascape Uplands Preserve. While I applaud the deals made to protect these lands, Willow Canyon has become severely choked with vegetation, much of which is weedy and non-native. When I first moved to this house 18 years ago, my dog and I would hike a loop through the canyon easily. Now it’s impossible without a machete. This is one of those areas in the county that would blow up so fast that at least 50 homes, a school, and a church could all be on fire before a fire truck could get here, despite the nearest station being only a mile away on Bonita Drive near Rio Del Mar Boulevard.
Whoever has been responsible for this property should have been working on reducing the fire hazard rather than ignoring the property altogether. As far as I’m concerned, and in this matter I think I can speak for all of my neighbors, all the owners of said property over the last 20 or more years will be held responsible for the devastation should a fire erupt here.
CJ Handy
Aptos
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@*******es.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
SEASONAL SPLASH
As of June 9, the Harvey West Pool is officially open for the season, with lessons, exercise, lap swimming and good old-fashioned splashing around. Swim teacher Jim Booth and his staff have been teaching in Santa Cruz County for more than 40 years. The swim school can be reached at 722-3500. $6 water exercise classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. Lap swim is $5 per visit, and recreation swim is $4. For details, visit santacruzparksandrec.com.
GOOD WORK
GETTING A READ
In an end-of-the-school-year reading challenge, students at the Pajaro Valley Unified School District read close to three million words in one month with a brand new literacy app. The district announced three winners—preschooler Noah Baliscao, first grader Marcelino Ortiz Carcia and third grader Brandon Corona-Matias. Each winner will receive three movie tickets donated by Green Valley Cinema. Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez announced a new reading challenge this past weekend.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
You never truly win a conservation battle. You just win the right to fight another day.
The morning fog in Moss Landing is still thick when Peggy Stap and her volunteer whale rescue crew load up their GPS-equipped buoys, flying knives and repurposed lacrosse helmets.
It’s just after 9 a.m. on this Tuesday morning when Stap steers her 40-foot boat into the harbor. Her 13-year-old rescue dog, a local social media celebrity known as “Whiskie the Whale Spotter,” shares the captain’s seat. After a quick safety check—calm water, good weather—Stap relays the latest radio chatter to her small team of researchers, photographers and curious visitors.
“Tim’s got a gray whale that doesn’t look healthy,” Stap says. She revs the engine and heads for the open waters of the Monterey Bay.
Following up on vague reports from whale-watching boats, fishermen and park rangers has become a near-daily routine for the 63-year-old Michigan transplant. As founding director of the nonprofit research and rescue group Marine Life Studies, Stap has carved out a niche as the Monterey Bay’s go-to first responder for injured whales.
Lately, that means helping to cut loose more and more of the 60,000-pound animals who get caught in crab lines, fishing nets and other ocean hazards. It’s a task that has grown increasingly daunting since 2006, when Stap and Mary Whitney of Carmel’s Fluke Foundation started an early version of the Whale Entanglement Team (WET) that now struggles to keep pace with calls about animals in distress.
“We’ve had three entanglements just in the past couple of weeks,” says Laura Kasa, former director of Save Our Shores and a consultant to the recently formed Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. She says the new organization is prioritizing fundraising for entanglement to ensure rescue crews have necessary supplies.
“The sad thing is they die such a slow, painful death. They can carry this gear for six months to a year,” Kasa says.
TRACKING SUCCESS A humpback whale entangled by a crab pot off the coast of Northern California was tracked and disentangled by Pieter Folkens (pictured) and other WET team members more than two weeks later in Santa Barbara. PHOTO: R. BERGER, MMHSRP PERMIT 932-1489 / WhaleEntanglementTeam.org
Climate Changes
Statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show a quickly evolving picture for entanglement. From 2000 to 2013, California averaged 10 reports of entangled whales per year. In 2015, there were 25 reports of entangled whales in Northern California alone—21 of those in the Monterey Bay—marking the highest tally since record-keeping began in 1982. In 2016, the number of reports climbed again, to 23 whales in the Monterey Bay alone. Last year saw 26 reported entanglements throughout California, still well above the historical average, according to NOAA data.
Not all of the entangled whales reported in the Monterey Bay actually originate there, though.
“We’re the whale watching capital of the world, so there are more eyes on the water,” Stap said. She’s seen animals drag lines to the Central Coast from fisheries in Fort Bragg or farther.
Explaining the science behind the increase in entanglements is also more complicated than keeping a closer eye on fishing lines, according to the researchers, nonprofits and fishermen watching the water. Whales entangled in pursuit of shifting food stocks illustrate a convergence of evolving ocean biology with big implications not just for wildlife, but also a regional economy built on a reliable supply of valuable seafood.
“If the world continues to get warmer, things are going to shift,” says Francisco Chavez, senior scientist and biological oceanographer with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. “The species that are in Monterey Bay will be in Oregon, and the species that are in Point Conception will be in Monterey Bay.”
That doesn’t mean wildlife in the Bay will disappear, Chavez is quick to point out. What it might mean is major uncertainty about the ecological future of the Monterey Bay, perhaps with unexpected side effects like the surge in whale entanglements.
“We should expect more surprises,” Chavez says. “I don’t know if entanglements will be the next big thing or if it will be something else.”
For Calder Deyerle, a Moss Landing fisherman whose family owns and operates Sea Harvest Fish Market and Restaurant, the biggest challenge is working with researchers and environmental groups to understand the problem in the context of an ever-evolving marine environment.
“What it really comes down to is a whole lot of really smart people don’t really know a whole lot,” Deyerle says.
STAYING AFLOAT The Whale Rescue Research Vessel (background) and inflatable boat WET uses for responses. The organization is trying to raise funds for an inflatable that it can keep on the boat at all times. PHOTO: BOB TALBOT, NOAA MMHSRP PERMIT 1876 / WhaleEntanglementTeam
Feeling the heat
By mid-morning on her recent Tuesday expedition, Stap is losing faith that her crew will be able to locate the injured gray whale reported the night before. A few seemingly healthy humpback whales and white, squid-eating Risso’s dolphins surface, but most sightings are of another kind.
“First one, species was balloon,” Stap tells a volunteer who is recording each identification. “This one, species is plastic.” By the end of the day, the Marine Life Studies boat will collect 47 Mylar balloons, many marking the recent Mother’s Day holiday. Pollution is one of many variables that complicates the mission of Stap’s team and others working to minimize wildlife run-ins.
Chavez, who has studied the Monterey Bay for three decades, says the exact biological changes attributable to human activity remain impossible to pinpoint. Still, he says, the ecosystem “changed in a way we hadn’t seen” after 1997.
Among the most acute shifts are periodic temperature changes—beyond the normal cycle of warmer El Niño water—that impact the “upwelling system” cycling feedstocks through the Monterey Bay. In 2015, both researchers and fishermen say that the altered temperature resulted in fewer krill in deeper water, pushing whales to follow anchovies closer to shore.
“The buzzword these days is ‘marine heatwaves,’” Chavez says, noting similarly anomalous years around 1940 and 1997. “The habitat shrinks. Man meets whale. This recent event was just much more prolonged.”
Day to day, Deyerle says, fishermen were left to contend with a sudden influx of whales during 2015 near long-established coastal fishing and crabbing spots. The resulting accidents were a shock to the system.
“I never even really worried or considered whale entanglements to be an issue,” Deyerle said. “That year really forced it into everybody’s lap.”
The sheer number of whales in and around the Monterey Bay is another major factor in changing interactions with the ocean giants. The population of humpback whales on the West Coast has rebounded from 1,200 before whaling restrictions in the late 1960s to more than 18,000 today.
In the meantime, Deyerle says, fisherman are also juggling limitations on the region’s famous Dungeness crab—both natural fluctuations in population, and regulations on crabbing season and the types of crabs it is permissible to catch in the Bay. As of 2012, federal data shows that commercial fishing was a $30 million business in the Monterey Bay, including almost $9.5 million in revenue from Dungeness crab.
“You spend more money on fuel and bait and time and gear than you’re making,” Deyerle says of the predicament fisheries have faced in recent years.
As the Central Coast economy diversifies with increased investment in tourism, advanced agriculture and attracting high tech companies, Deyerle says he is among the fishermen hedging his bets. He’s now casting longlines for sablefish, no longer relying as heavily on crab.
Looking ahead, Chavez says staying in business could require even more significant adjustments if water temperatures continue to climb.
“The things that we normally see during these warm events are tuna and things of that nature. Things people like to eat. It’s not all gloom and doom,” Chavez says. “The thing is, it’s kind of hard to prepare for the local fishermen. The bigger fleets will do better than the small mom and pops.”
SEA OF UNKNOWNS Of 26 entangled whales reported in California last year, three were disentangled by response teams, five were partially disentangled, and one appeared to free itself, leaving 20 cases with unknown outcomes. PHOTO: DOUG CROFT, MMHSRP PERMIT 18786-02 / WhaleEntanglementTeam.org
Moving Targets
Before she decided to spend her retirement tracking down injured whales along the coast from Davenport to Big Sur, Stap spent two decades studying whales in Hawaii and California. The former retail sales director and landscape architect moved from the Midwest to be in the Monterey Bay area full time in 2010.
After more than a decade on the entanglement beat, Stap knows when to stop and regroup. By late morning on her recent patrol, she calls off the search for the injured gray whale—an example of the difficulty of tracking a gigantic moving target, since people who report entangled whales are often unable to stand by and keep an eye on the animal until Stap arrives.
“We could do this all day and not find it,” Stap says. In one case, she remembers, it took 17 days to find a whale reported entangled in the Monterey Bay—which was eventually discovered in Santa Barbara.
If a search does prove successful, WET’s team of volunteers and one part-time assistant are ready. First, they call NOAA for permission to approach the whale. When that is granted, a team departs on a smaller boat to get closer. The first objective is to attach a telemetry buoy equipped with a satellite tracker to make it easier to monitor the whale’s location.
From there, protocol dictates that a NOAA-certified “level four” responder should do the actual cutting. Since the closest level four to Santa Cruz is 100 miles away in Benicia, that can leave the WET crew to monitor whales for several hours.
Getting a local certified to perform disentanglements on shorter notice is one long-term goal, Stap said. Marine Life Studies also photographs whale flukes and dorsal fins, which are sent to Washington’s Cascadia Research and logged in a database tracking whale migration patterns.
Fundraising for specialized equipment is one recurring challenge. Marine Life is currently raising $10,000 for a new cut boat. Then, there are dozens of smaller tools, like navigation devices and a $500 “whale rescue blade”—rounded at the tip to avoid cutting the animal, but sharp enough to cut thick lines “like butter,” Stap says.
In the coming months, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation hopes to raise $50,000 from area residents and businesses to fund Stap’s group and additional NOAA boats that could be mobilized to help despite shrinking federal conservation funding. Those funds would be matched by the Monterey Bay Peninsula Foundation.
To better understand one of the primary causes of entanglement, Deyerle and Stap are both part of a three-year-old California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group convened by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. The group is currently focused on collecting data and applying ocean biology to whale migration as part of an ongoing Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program (RAMP). Deyerle says he and other fisherman are also exploring alternative line materials and other animal-safe technologies, though such tools can be cost-prohibitive or not yet proven for regular use.
Still, some environmental groups have grown impatient. Last year, after quitting the crab working group, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the state for failing to address the problem. The group blamed the state for enforcing “virtually no restrictions on the fishermen,” according to an October 2017 report in the East Bay Express.
Deyerle says local fisheries are already subject to more regulation than counterparts in other parts of the country. Stap and others also contend that working with the Central Coast’s multimillion-dollar commercial fishing industry is the most pragmatic approach.
“There’s nobody out there that wants to catch a whale,” says Heather Willis, a Pacifica-based volunteer with the nonprofit California Whale Rescue, which helps coordinate entanglement responses. “That sucks, to lose thousands of dollars worth of equipment.”
Day to day, Stap is left to man the front line of a rapidly-changing environment. On this one, even with the sun shining on an unusually serene bay, the gray whale never surfaces.
A few days later, though, a humpback trailing a 70-foot line with white and yellow buoys is spotted in Big Sur. Stap says her group is on standby, with a team ready to respond.
Kasa says what the whale rescue effort needs is more reliable funding for better equipment and more manpower. Of the 26 entangled whales reported in California last year, just three were fully released from gear by response teams. Five whales were partially disentangled and one appeared to free itself, leaving 20 cases with unknown outcomes.
“This is just a Band-Aid,” Kasa says. “We really have to figure out how we can fund the research piece.”
Jimmy Dutra looks to be headed for a run-off against County Supervisor Greg Caput in District 4 on November 6.
According to election results released on Friday, June 12, Dutra sits at 27 percent of the vote, not far behind Caput, who’s at 34 percent. Those results have held steady over the past week and a half. So Felipe Hernandez,...
Event highlights for the week of June 13, 2018.
Green Fix
UCSC Arboretum Nature’s Prints Workshop
Join local artist and certified California Naturalist Sarah Ory in experiencing the beauty of the Arboretum’s botanical offerings through printmaking. Amid the beauty of the 135 acre “living museum,” attendees will create prints inspired by nature, by carving blocks and relief printing with flowers and leaves....
