Journey to the land of the Ewoks [Joshua Burke]

We have finally sailed down to the Sunshine State, or California. I have been finding out that sailing down the West Coast of the United States in the wintertime is rough. We are sailing off the West Coast in the incorrect season, so whenever we have a “weather window”, that “weather window” ends up containing 5 foot wind waves, 12 foot cross swell, and 25- 35 knots of wind… on the nose. Very uncomfortable weather to sail or motor in. Hopefully, when we get down south to San Francisco the weather will become better.

So our first stop in California was Crescent City, a nice little city that is farthest north Californian port. We rested there for a couple nights and recuperated from the last rough overnight crossing. However, I did find out something interesting. Back in 2011 when the Japanese tsunami hit and destroyed tons of stuff along the Japanese coast, some waves from that tsunami incident actually reached the United States and destroyed the marina here. I never knew that the waves of tsunami incident caused damage here in the U.S. Crescent City has since then built a new marina, and it is really nice and only a year old. 

After a semi-rough 10 hour trip from Crescent City, we arrived at Eureka! I have always wanted to go to Eureka because of the name of the city is unique to any other city I have been to. We stayed at a marina on Woodley (sounds very close to Whidbey, where I am from) Island, which is across a strait from Eureka. The main thing to do in Eureka is to take a car and drive out to see the mighty redwoods.

The mighty redwoods. 

Now back in the late 18^th and early 19^thcentury, most of the redwoods were cut down for the excellent wood that they have. Redwoods take a long, long time, like hundreds of years to get to the size that they are, and people were chopping them down too fast. Luckily, some conservation movements spread to preserve the redwoods and now you can enjoy walking through the huge redwood national parks in Northern California. 

Look at me...... and then look at the size of the tree.

I am betting that most of you are wondering why I called this blog “Journey to land of the Ewoks” instead of like “Journey to the land of the mighty redwoods”.  The reason why is because I am a huge Star Wars fan and I know that the scenes on the small, forest moon of Endor (the home of the Ewoks) were shot here in one of the redwood national parks. I was SUPER excited to not only see the tallest, oldest trees in the world, but to also be where a part of Star Wars was filmed. I literally thought I was on Endor the entire time I was walking through the redwood forest. Also, I sang the Endor theme song by John Williams some of the time. That’s how big of a fan I am of Star Wars. 

Ewoks in all their greatness!!!

It's a good thing we weren't captured by Imperial forces unlike these poor rebels. 

Now to talk a bit about the mighty redwoods themselves. Redwoods can grow up to 360 feet and are the tallest living things on Earth. Also, they can exceed 2,000 years in age, and many of the redwoods that I saw on the trail were 800 to 1500 years old. These trees, old and tall, are amazing and John Steinbeck said, “From them comes silence and awe”. I definitely agree with that.

This picture demonstrates how big these redwood trees can grow.

Out of the many Redwood National Parks in the area, we went to the Humboldt Redwood State Park. It contains over 53,000 acres and has some of the world’s most impressive redwood forests, many miles of river frontage, and almost 100 miles of trails. We only had a time to do one trail so we pulled over at the Drury-Chaney Trail. This trail is a classic loop and is 2.4 miles in length. The trail surface was fantastic and it is definitely better then some of the trails I have been on in SE Asia.

The trail was amazing. The main thing to see of course was the ginormous redwoods, but I also saw many different types of ferns, other big trees, and some mushrooms. On the animal side all I saw was two birds. Unfortunately we did not see any Roosevelt elk, Ewoks, or any animals on the ground for that matter. It was so peaceful and the air, the air was so clean. It felt great just to take in big whiffs of the forest air.

Some neat mushrooms. 

The amount of plant life in the forest was amazing!

An older redwood that survived some kind of fire.

Once we finished the trail (we spent hours just walking around looking at the mighty redwood trees) and seeing no Ewoks, we speed back to the boat to take a well-needed sleep.

Thanks for reading!

May the force be with you.

                              

Joshua Burke

Sailing in Oregon [James Burke]

   

We have been sailing around the world on a sixty foot aero rig. An aero rig is a special type of boat with a mast that can spin backwards over one hundred eighty degrees. We are currently sailing in Oregon with two Guinea pigs and a dwarf hamster. All of those pets are cared for by my brother Jacob.

First we went to Scappoose. We went there to see my family. They had gotten a new house that was just one mile from the marina we stayed in. There house was humongous. We stayed in the marina for about three days. The next place we went to was Portland. My mom introduced me to her friend Carolyn. She had two cats Sadie and Sophie.

 We went to the beauty and the beast musical. Carolyn said her nieces were coming over Nanami and Raina. The beauty and the beast musical was great. We met Carolyn's friend Alyce and Alyce's son Adam and Carolyn's friend Tom. Adam tought me an awesome and tricky card trick. We next went to the nutcracker ballet. We spent Christmas in the marina and in Carolyn's apartment where we got the Lego deathstar. There were tons of Christmas boats we even got to walk down the dock and see them all. It was very fun. We also went over to my moms cousins house. Her name was Rachel we saw her husband Cori.

Carolyn had to leave her apartment so my grandma came over and stayed at her apartment. She took care of the cats. We all got to spend some time over with my grandma. When it was my turn we played lots and lots and lots of games. We saw the seventh starwars movie it was awesome. After adventuring around in Portland we sailed to Coos bay. We heard that Carolyn was up in Newport so we rented a car and drove up. We stayed in the hotel she was staying in for one day. The hotel was very interesting because all the rooms in the hotel represented different authors. My dad and my mom stayed in the Mark Twain room while Jacob, Joshua and I stayed in the dr. Seuss room.

We went to the nearby aquarium where there was lots of fun activities. The aquarium had an octopus that they talked about and fed.

Thanks for reading, James

My 15th Birthday!!! [Joshua Burke]

Wow, I am already 15?! It seems like I was doing my post on my 14^th birthday yesterday. We flew back to Seattle from Tokyo about a week before my birthday, so I was able to spend my birthday back home. I have not spent my birthday in America since my 11^th birthday! I had no idea what I was going to do. I had some places I wanted to go to like the Sci-fi museum or go on a hike. But what I did, I didn’t even know I could do here in the States. Like last year, I flew in a private plane! But I didn’t just fly in any old plane; I ended up flying in an actual WW2 plane!

Ready for takeoff!

What makes the Historic flight museum awesome is that it houses a bunch of original aircraft from the 20’s to the 60’s (the bulk of the aircraft are from WW2). What makes the museum unique is that all their aircraft can fly. For planes they have a B-25D Mitchell (Grumpy) that participated in the Doolittle Raid during WW2, a P-51B Mustang (Impatient Virgin?) that fought over Germany during WW2 and downed seven German airplanes, a Pan American Douglas DC-3 that supplied the US Army and Nationalist Chinese during WW2 in Burma, and a Grasshopper that directed artillery barrages from the air in Philippine Campaign and the bloody battle of Okinawa.

The B-25D Mitchell (Grumpy)

I got to fly in a North American Aviation T-6A (Texan) Navy variant. The T-6 was a two-seater plane used in WW2 as an advanced trainer to transition pilots from primary trainers such as Boeing Stearman to front line fighter such as the Wildcat and Mustang. This particular aircraft (N512SE) trained American pilots during WW2, and then was used by the Argentine Navy during the 50’s and 60’s. The plane had a serious accident after it was retired from the Argentine Navy and in private hands. The accident created a restoration opportunity. The T-6 now resides at the Historic Flight Museum at Paine Field, Washington.

Flying in the plane was a ton of fun. Unfortunately, according to FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) rules I could not fly the airplane. LSometimes I miss the freedom you have in Thailand. I chose to fly over Whidbey Island and the pilot said he could do aileron roll over the island. The roll was quite an experience. The pilot first put the T-6 in a slight dive, increasing speed. Then the pilot brought the plane up and rolled left. The airplane was upside down for about a second. Then he brought the plane upright. When the pilot brought the plane up I could feel the G’s (centrifugal force) pushing me into my seat. But when we went upside down the G’s disappeared. The aileron roll was defiantly my favorite part of the flight. We got close to our house but we couldn’t go over it because that is where the navy jets fly and is therefore is restricted airspace.

I didn't puke during the Aileron Roll!!! 

Special Thanks to my Dad and Mom for making this happen! Also thanks to the pilot and the Historic Flight personal for opening the museum special for my birthday!  

I had tons of fun!!

Thanks for reading!!

You can visit their website at www.historicflight.org 

Joshua 

                      

  

Going faster then a bullet [Joshua Burke]

Sea Glass has finally arrived at Tokyo. Well not quite, we are actually at YYC (Yokohama Yacht Club). Yokohama is the city just south of Tokyo and is in the Tokyo area. Yokohama is quite cold, well cold comparing it to SE Asia. The Tokyo area is a giant urban complex, and is spread out over a large area. It reminds me of Bangkok except that the city is well organized, way cleaner, and the public transportation is effective and actually runs on time!

When we first arrived in Japan, we had always wanted to go to Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. The only problem is that Kyoto is right in the middle of Japan, so we can’t take Sea Glass there. So to get to Kyoto, we took a bullet train.  The bullet trains are fast, they can go over 200 miles per hour! What enables these trains to go super fast is that they ride on specially designed rails to reduce friction and the weird shape of the train makes an air pocket, which allows that train to go very quick. The ride was extremely smooth and the ride from Tokyo to Kyoto only took two hours! Much smoother, cheaper and less hassle then an airplane flight.

The front of the bullet train. 

Kyoto was the capital before Edo, or Tokyo became capital. Therefore it had many old shrines, temples, and castles. We were only here for 2 days and a night, and we wanted to stay in a traditional Japanese hotel. We looked and looked but all of them were full. And it is the low season! We had to settle into a modern hotel instead.

Nijo Castle was one extraordinary castle and because of that it was a UNESCO site, like Tubbataha. The castle was built in the Tokugawa period in Japan, when the Shogun was in power and the emperor a figurehead. The castle was a formidable stronghold as well as being the Shogun’s house. The castle is 400 by 500 meters (1200 by 1500 feet) for the perimeter.  To defend the Nijo Castle, there are two moats four meters deep; two huge stonewalls for defense, and two watchtowers in opposite corners. The other two watchtowers burned down in a fire long ago.

One of the watchtowers and the outer wall and moat. 

The castle is divided into an inner part and an outer part. In my opinion, the shogun’s person building was my favorite. What I thought was really cool about the place was that the floors were nightingale floors, so the floors creaked as you walked along. The reason for installing nightingale floors were that you could hear someone easily if they broke into your house. In the rooms were the Shogun met his officials or daimyos, the shogun would always sit on a floor a little higher then the guests floor to show his power over them. All the walls were beautifully decorated, and showed many different kinds of animals and plants. Most of the walls were covered in gold.

The Shogun's building.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos while in the Shogun’s building. 

Outside the shogun’s building, imperial gardens covered most of the remainder of the land. The gardens were beautiful, bonsai and regular trees were everywhere. They were classic Japanese gardens, perfect stones, little waterfalls, and tons of flowers. The remainder of the land was filled with ancient buildings that you could go into, but we didn’t have the time to see any of them.

One of the three royal gardens. 

The whole inner part of the Nijo Castle was made up of the keep. The keep was one heck of a defense building. The enemy would first have to cross the deep and wide secondary moat and then breach the heavy doors or try to scale the tall stonewalls. If the enemy breached the door, they were running into a death trap. The door leads to an exposed road, with arrow slots on every side of the road. And if the enemy breached those defenses they would still have to take the center keep. No wonder this castle has never been attacked.

The view from the top of the keep. 

The Kiyomizu-Dera Temple is an old Buddhist temple built in 778 A.D. The temple was burnt down and then rebuilt in 1633. The temple area includes not only main temple, but also pagodas and shrines too. Inside, there were tons of golden statues of the Buddha.

The Kiyomizu-Dera Temple. 

One of the main pagodas. 

The temple is a very popular temple. It was packed with tourists, and I was surprised to see that most of the tourists were Japanese. A lot of students were also there because Kyoto is like our Washington D.C. for historical importance.

Thanks for Reading!!!

Joshua