Chinook Salmon

After four long years, the commercial salmon season will reopen on May 1, 2012 setting the stage for what fisherman hope will be a spectacular season. The season will stretch through September 30, with several brief breaks in between. The commercial fishing industry were predicting a huge catch following an apparently successful comeback of the prized fish.

Fishery experts said more than 1.65 million adult Chinook salmon in the ocean are ready to return to the Klamath River, one of the world’s most productive waterways. Large numbers are also expected to run up the Sacramento and American rivers, also. Fishery spokespersons say there are at least three times the number of salmon ever recorded in Pacific Ocean waters ready to spawn in the rivers of there origin.

Picture from Smithsonian.com

Well as we are rejoicing over the fact that the salmon season is reopening, it is to late for some salmon fisherman that didn’t survive the long four year closure. Pictured above is Bruce Abernathy and his son David at there salmon-boat cemetery in Fort Bragg, California, a fishing port located at Noyo Harbor between the Mooring Basin and Dolphin Cove, which is full of bleached and peeling hulls of salmon boats waiting to be dismantled. Over the years many California vessels have landed in Bruce Abernathy’s front yard, pitched at steep angles among the weeds, some still rigged with trolling poles. Eventually Abernathy’s son David takes them apart with a tractor and chain saw and sells what he can for parts.

Thirty years ago there were several thousand salmon boats in California. Most recently, as the fish became scarce, only a few hundred worked the coast. Then when salmon populations crashed in 2008, for the first time United States officials cancelled all ocean salmon fishing off California and most of Oregon, and curtailed it off Washington, a $300 million loss. Disaster relief money would be on the way, but to many second and third generation fisherman, a summer without salmon fishing felt like the end of the line.

For the better part of a century the fish supported Fort Bragg, home of the World’s Largest Salmon Barbeque, which tourists come from far and wide to taste one of the most sought after fish in the sea, the Chinook salmon also known as king salmon.

Did you know that salmon is the third most popular seafood in the United States after shrimp and canned tuna, approximately 600 million pounds are consumed annually. Most of the fresh meat is Atlantic salmon which is raised in fish farms. California fishermen bring in about 5 million pounds of Chinook meat in a good year. The Chinook salmon is the largest and perhaps the choicest variety, owing to omega-3 fatty acid content and rich flavor.

The salmon typically stay at sea for about 3 years, ranging thousands of miles in the Pacific ocean and gaining 90% of their body mass. Then they head for home, tracing the smell of minerals and organic materials to find there natal streams. This is truly a brutal journey. The salmon stop eating once they hit fresh water, and their bodies begin to deteriorate. Ready to mate males flush crimson and grow hooked jaws for fighting, while females search for gravel for a nest. Soon after laying and fertilizing eggs, the exhausted adults die. But the life cycle doesn’t stop there. The Chinook’s spawned out carcasses nourish the baby salmon, and the whole life cycle continues.

The Ronen Trio

The Ronen Trio will be playing on April 29 at 3:00 pm at Preston Hall, Main Street Mendocino. All three members of this trio are performing soloist as well as chamber musicians.

Yael Ronen (flutist): Ms. Ronen lives in California, where she has served as the principal flutist with the Camellia Orchestra in Sacramento. She currently is the principal flutist with the North State Symphony and is also the principal flutist and soloist with the Apollo Orchestra.

Ms. Ronen holds a bachelor of music degree from the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University, and a master of music from California State University, Sacramento.

She has recorded for the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Israeli National Radio. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, with appearances at the Picadilly Festival in London and Music Unlimited a La Valette in Belgium. In Israel, she performed with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic, under conductors Zubin Mehta and Leonard Bernstein.

Back in California, she also teaches flute on the faculty at California State University, Chico, as well as maintaining an active career teaching students privately.

Burke Schuchman (cellist): Burke Schuchman is an acclaimed cellist and is a Bay Area resident. Mr Schuchman in 1996 founded the Palomarin Foundation which is dedicated to the promotion of chamber music through classes, workshops, and concerts. Cellist Schuchman has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in England, Europe, Israel, and the United States. Former principal cellist and soloist with the Sulzberger Solisten in Austria and with the Sacramento Symphony, and is the principal cellist of the Mendocino Festival Orchestra. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at CSU Chico, and is the artistic director of the Palomarin Chamber Music Foundation. He coaches in the adult chamber music program at the Crowden School in Berkeley.

Jannie Lo (pianist): Pianist Jannie Lo is a winner of the 2011 Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Concerto Competition. She is the youngest of the trio. Ms. Lo grew up in San Francisco, California when she started playing the piano at the age of three. She went on to study piano in Baltimore and in Freiburg, Germany.

For more information on this event call 707-937-1018.

Pacific or Coast Rhododendron

The 35th Annual John Druecker Memorial Rhododendron Show and plant sale for the first time will be held at the beautiful Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg, California on May 5, 6. The Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens offers manicured formal gardens, a dense coastal pine forest, native flora and habitats, fern covered canyons with flower filled coastal bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This is the perfect backdrop for this exciting event.

This years theme is “Rhodies in Our Gardens”. This is a juried show and one of the largest on the west coast with over 700 entries entered annually. The show will include flower trusses, plants, bonsai, photos and floral arrangements of rhododendrons. The judging will take place immediately after and all winning entries will be rewarded with ribbons and trophies. The judges come from outside the area.

The show opens to the public Saturday, May 5 at 1:30 pm and closes at 5:00 pm., and Sunday, May 6, the show will be from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Local growers and members will be on hand at the plant sale from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday and 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday to assist in answering questions and purchasing plants. There will be ongoing raffles, and silent auction, refreshments, educational displays and more throughout the show. This show is FREE to the public.

Make your plans for this show and join us here at Stevenswood Spa Resort, for lodging, fine dining and pampering yourself to spa treatments.

For dinner phone 707-937-2810 or online at urban spoon.

For lodging phone 707-937-2810 or online at reservations.

For spa reservations phone 707-937-2810 or online at Indigo Eco-Spa.

With some protests and years of meetings, a draft proposal to establish a chain of ocean wilderness areas from Mendocino County north to the Oregon border was unveiled two weeks ago by state officials. The draft environmental impact report is available online, www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/. The report is also available at libraries along the north coast.

There will be three public hearings. One in Fort Bragg Town Hall, March 20 at 6:30 – 8:00 pm., Del Norte County Board of Supervisors chambers, March 21, from 6:30 – 8:00 pm., and the Red Lion Hotel, Eureka, on April 11, with a time yet to be announced. Public comment period ends on April 16.

The Draft would set aside 19 marine protected areas which would encompass about 136 square miles from north of Point Arena to the Oregon state line, which is a distance of about 225 miles. The proposed areas would include four existing areas and 15 new ones. It would restrict or totally ban fishing, which would approximately be 13 percent of state waters along Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

The Mouth of Ten Mile Beach

Environmental leaders, fisherman and others have helped influence the selected areas to maximize protection of sensitive ecosystems, while minimizing impacts on the coastal economy. They include areas off Ten Mile Beach and Cape Mendocino north of Fort Bragg and about a half dozen conservation areas near the mouths of rivers and zones to protect the offshore reefs and rocks.

Fishing interest sought to limit the reserves, feeling the threat to their industry while conservation supporters wanted more ocean wilderness, saying the ecological benefits would boost fish stocks, which of course the fisherman remain skeptical of those claims.

The concerns of tribal members who were opposed to the restrictions, held protest and demonstrations, saying that it was their right to use these ancestral fishing grounds. A significant question for tribes, who want unfettered access to the protected areas, including the reserves where fishing would be banned, to continue traditional harvesting practices. About two dozen tribes and tribal communities are pushing the State Fish and Game Commission to allow for those uses, and exception not granted else where along the coast. The tribes have backed the proposal in concept, if not in final form, while reserving the right to challenge a larger question, the state’s authority over their fishing rights. State and local government officials say they are optimistic about reaching an agreement with the tribes, but is not offering any further details.

We will all need to pay attention to the upcoming comment period that will feature hearings, starting in Fort Bragg, then Crescent City and also in Eureka to help shape the draft.

Altogether, the California coastline now has more than 124 marine protected areas covering about 848 square miles or about 16 percent of coastal waters.



One of the many highlights of the Little River Whale Festival was the Taste of Little River where guests could enjoy fine wines and finger food or appetizers from 8 different venues. In addition to the artison cheese’s and crackers, Chef Robert Hernandez of Stevenswood prepared for the pairing of the wines an assortment of handmade roulletes of crab & dried tomato or cream cheese and asparagus to enjoy with the wines.

Guests enjoying wine tasting                Pouring is Claire Baxter           More guests enjoying the event

We were excited and honored to have Baxter Winery pouring here at Stevenswood from our wine bar. This artison winery produces in small batches wines such as Syrah, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Carignan, and Pinot Noir. They brought three different wines for guests to experience, savor and enjoy.

Famous for there Pinot Noir, they introduced there 2009 Pinot Noir from the Oppenlander Vineyard located near the town of Comptche, where the vineyard sits at the base of the mountains surrounding the small and picturesque Surprise Valley, only ten miles from the Pacific Ocean. The slightly cooler climate helps this vineyard produce a wine with an intense backbone and a vivid color, without overpowering the delicate aromas and smooth mouthfeel which is desirable in a Pinot Noir. This wine is full of dark red fruits such as cranberry and black cherry, while the nose starts with the usual bramble and quickly gives way to black tea and rose petal. The wine is rich in acids and focused fruit.

Baxter Winery also poured a 2009 Pinot Noir with grapes produced from the Langley Vineyard, located in the heart of the Anderson Valley just north of Boonville. The vines from this four acre vineyard provides winemaker Phillip Baxter with a unique and lively expression of Pinot Noir. Using old world methods and a completely natural approach to vinification the wine offers a moderately light reddish-purple color in the glass, with aromas of dark red cherries and berries, underbush and paraffin. Pleasingly intense core of cherries wrapped in fine grain tannins and displaying unusually hi-strung acidity, finishing with a flourish of cherry flavor. Elegant and light on its feet.

Baxter Winery also poured there Carignan wine. One of the best kept secrets in Mendocino County is the many vineyards of old-vine Carignan scattered among the newer plantings. The grapes come from The Caballo Blanco Vineyard which is nestled on the gentle slope leading up from Robinson Creek in a small valley near Ukiah, which these vines are nearly 70 years old. This vineyard shows their commitment to the quality by dry-farming and using organic practices to enhance the terrior and intensity of these old vines. The Caballo Blanco Carignan produces a wine of immense depth and flavor from this nearly forgotten varietal. The nose is powerful and intricate with aromas of rose petal, violets, cherry syrup, and tobacco leaf. Equally as intense, the mouth is layered with black cherry, raspberry, plum and cola. A rich round mouthfeel, balanced with bright fruit and acidity, gives this wine the duality of being enjoyable young as well as the ability to age.

The Ives Quartet

The Ives Quartet has captivated audiences from San Francisco to New York; London to Taiwan and will be playing on the Mendocino coast on April 1, 2012.

In a departure from convention, the Ives Quartet combines players with American and European experience and sensibilities, drawing on the talent and experience of the International, solo, orchestral, chamber, and recording careers of its artist members.

The Ives Quartet has a reputation for passion and precision, winning accolades for playing that shows both super-refinement and visceral, with rock n roll intensity. The Ives Quartet has attracted critical enthusiasm for its practice of reveling in the unfamiliar and has an eclectic repertoire of established masterworks and neglected scores of early twentieth century America, and specially commissioned new pieces. The Ives Quartet members share a strong commitment to the special challenges of the string-quartet composers, with carefully curated concert presentation that immerses the audience.

The Quartet shares a personal commitment to shaping the next generation of classical music performers which the Quartet devotes a big portion of its year round work to string-ensemble coaching and music education.

In there upcoming concert, they will be performing works by Haydn, Quincy Porter, and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet. The concert will be starting at 3:00 pm., at the Fort Bragg Presbyterian Church, 367 South Sanderson, Fort Bragg. The cost is $20. To purchase tickets, go online or for additional information call 707-937-1018.

So please welcome members Bottina Mussueli, violin; Susan Freier, violin; Jodi Levitz, viola; and Stephen Harrison, cello;

For dinner phone 707-937-2810 or online at urban spoon.

For lodging phone 707-937-2810 or online at reservations.

For spa reservations phone 707-937-2810 or online at Indigo Eco-Spa.