Whenever we take the Catalina Express to or from Catalina, we never fail to see several California Sea Lions basking on the harbor navigation buoys. Damsel took this picture as we passed into the harbor returning to the San Pedro Catalina Terminal.

Pinnipeds are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection act, and organizations such as the Marine Mammal Care Center at Fort MacArthur (we are supporting members) provide rescue, rehab and restoration to the habitat for injured critters.

It’s not uncommon for sea lions to rest on buoys; they will also often gather at marinas and wharves. These man-made environments provide them safety from their natural predators: orcas and white sharks.

You can click on the image for a larger view.

I know that we’ve been putting up a lot of images from our recent trip to Avalon, but we took over 800 pictures and many of them came out quite good (if I do say so myself). We will probably be posting these over the next few weeks in the afterglow of a wonderful island getaway.

This beautiful tile mural is over the box office in the foyer of the famous Casino in the City of Avalon on Catalina Island. She has been restored form the dark days of the 60s to the 80’s when this gorgeous structure fell into disrepair. Luckily, the whole place is looking good, although some places around the building could use a power wash. Nonetheless, this is one of the several wonderful aquatic murals in the Casino’s foyer. Click on the image below to see a larger version.

We’re adding a new item to our Global Warming Resources page. The National Center for Policy Analysis has compiled a Global Warming Primer in PDF format that illustrates in graphical form some of the concepts of Global Warming that are often misunderstood or not understood at all by many people with opinions about climate change.

At the right is a pie chart illustrating that greenhouse gasses are less than 5 percent of the atmosphere. A subsequent pie chart shows that 95 percent of that small wedge is harmless water vapor!

The primer is an easy read since most of the pages are graphs and pie charts with annotations to clearly explain to the reader what concepts are being presented. The primer is based on a review of available scientific research. The NCPA received no money and no input from any private company or government agency.

The primer is a welcome change from the myriad of complex and often daunting data on the subject. All that engineering and scientific stuff is fine for some of us, but try and explain it to your kids and others without the background and you get blank stares.

Hat tip to Planet Gore - A Global Warming Primer: A Graph is worth 1,000 words.

When you are on an island, everything you consume has to be barged over from the mainland. In the case of groceries and gasoline, the entire delivery truck is loaded onto the barge and brought to the island and barged back empty. This causes the prices for such commodities to go way up.

While you can’t cut down on groceries and such, you can do something about fuel consumption. In order to cope with 5-dollar-per-gallon-plus gas prices, most Catalina Island residents drive small golf-cart sized vehicles since the town is rather small. You also see motor scooters and we saw a Segway while we were there.

One interesting vehicle we saw was this motorized stand-up three-wheeled solution which the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department uses to patrol the streets of Avalon. Click on the picture below for a large close-up.

This is a pleasant view of the shallow water by the beach in Avalon. I love the textures of the sand, rocks, light and bubbles. Click on the image for a larger view.

On our last day on the Island, we got up early and I captured this picturesque sunrise over Avalon Harbor. You can click on the image to see the 800 by 600 pixel image.

While we were in Avalon, I snapped this panoramic view from our hotel room balcony. Click the image below for the full-sized panorama.

Camera: Canon A710s. Software: ZoomBrowser Stitch.

During our entire visit to Catalina Island this week, we enjoyed some of the most perfect weather we’ve ever seen while visiting one of our favorite places. This photo of the famous Casino in Avalon was taken at sunset; the mainland California San Gabriel mountain range can clearly be seen in the distance. That mountain range is about a hundred miles beyond Avalon.

Today is our anniversary. We were married in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island. We would be blogging more about our excursion, but unfortunately, the laptop is malfunctioning and we’re unable to download our photos. That will happen later this week when we are home again.

Meanwhile, we will be going out to seal rocks today to visit our piniped pals. Enjoy this picture Damsel took last year from the boat.

Damsel and I are again very proud to be able to honor Marc Scott Zeplin on the sixth anniversary of 9/11/2001. Last year, as a part of the 2996 Project, we honored Mark Scott Zeplin, who was killed at the World Trade center in New York on September 11, 2001.

“Zep” is what his friends called him. Zep was age 33 when he died. He hailed from Harrison, N.Y. (USA). Marc worked in the World Trade Center offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services company. Reading what Marc’s friends and family have written about him, Marc was well-liked and respected by peers, friends and others who wrote words about him following his death.

Please see our post from last year where we included a tribute to Zep written by his wife and mother.

We wanted to post more about Zep, but this week we are on travel. So, as a result we have to use a borrowed computer and have limited time and resources. But our best wishes go out to Marc’s family and friends on this day.