We love our floating home lifestyle, but we often find ourselves concerned with subjects the landlocked know nothing about, like freeboard, macerator pumps, and the health of the hulls on which we float. West Pier neighbor Court Mast and I talked at length about hulls as we recently spent time...
Last week we quoted a projection from the Marin Independent Journal that sea levels would rise “more than 6 feet by 2100,” according to the California Ocean Protection Council. Soon after our post appeared, the IJ issued a correction, changing the projection to one foot of sea level rise over...
The Marin IJ has reported that King tides are expected to bring flooding risks in Marin shoreline communities between November and January. According to the paper, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that tide levels could reach more than 6.4 feet and rise further during rainy weather. High tide...
The first large ethnic group to move to Marin in the 19th century were Portuguese from the Azores Islands. One sign of this heritage is the Portuguese Cultural Center at the Northwest end of Caledonia Street. The entrance is labeled “IDESST Center”, or “Imandade do Divino Espirito Santo e Santissima...
The Estuary & Ocean Science Center (EOS), located at SF State’s Romberg Tiburon Campus, is hosting a day of discovery on Sunday, October 13. From 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Attendees will experience science in action at the only marine lab on San Francisco Bay. This is a chance to...
There is a beautiful little beach in the middle of Schoonmaker Marina. On sunny summer days you see children and parents lying on the sand and splashing in the water, maybe even a few serious swimmers [Fig. 1]. But typically, several times a year you will find the beach empty...
A new maker space called The Lab opened last week at 101 Donohoe St. in Marin City, on the campus of Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church. Open to all ages, and free to use for everyone, The Lab is a maker space, creator space, hacker space, coding space, gaming space, idea...
We don’t notice much of the life in the water around our floating homes because the individual organisms are too small. Diatoms fit that description; they range in size between 2 and 200 microns (0.002 to 0.2 mm). Anything 2 microns long, about 4 wavelengths of light, is well below...
Last week Michael Konrad of South 40 Pier provided a primer on eel grass, a key component of the ecology of Richardson’s Bay. This week he examines threats to eel grass and what is being done about them. The damage that anchored boats can inflict on eelgrass is often mentioned...
Biochemist and marine biologist Michael Konrad of South 40 Pier sends along the following natural history of one of our most important neighbors, eelgrass: Life began in the ocean. Then continents generated by tectonic plate movements gradually became hospitable to life, and some living organisms migrated onto this new dry...