Life in the Open 



light, and always cool and delightful. Paims fringe the 

 shore at Santa Barbara and are seen everywhere, but it 

 is never hot in a tropical sense ; there is rarely uncom- 

 fortable weather in port or out to sea. 



The lee of the large islands often produces a dead 

 calm, and for this reason auxiliary yachts are popular, 

 being able to go into the nooks and corners of the coast. 

 All summer there is a delightful, fresh, stiff breeze ; 

 heavier in the Santa Barbara Channel, lighter off Santa 

 Catalina, and lighter still between San Diego and the 

 Coronados. As summer wanes and September comes, 

 the wind all along shore dies down, diminishes in force, 

 but the same delightful conditions hold far into the fall. 

 In twenty years' familiarity with the sea here, I have 

 never run into a day fog similar to that which drifts in- 

 shore off the New England coast. The fog is always 

 high during the day along the Santa Catalina Channel. 

 The heavy bank can be seen offshore to the west, often- 

 times stationary, holding its own by some mystic power 

 against a ten-knot breeze ; but at about five o'clock in 

 the afternoon it will begin to move in, as clouds, from 

 four to eight hundred feet up, coming inshore in long 

 lines, creeping up the river beds, as the Santa Ana and 

 San Gabriel, following along the Santa Ana and Sierra 

 Santa Monica ranges and filling the valleys ; but out at 

 sea it is clear. The high fog of Southern California 

 nights and days is one of its blessings. 



The winter season is equally delightful for yachting. 

 All the islands are then rich in greens, literal wild-flower 



