Story time

One year during my annual Carmel Art Festival event I was looking for a spot in one of my usual haunts, an old marina at the end of the peninsula on Moss Landing. The place is always chock full of boats, mostly old tugs, sailboats and shrimpers being worked on in various stages. I come here every year as my fall back, I may not always get rocks right but I feel pretty confident in painting boats. So I get there at 6:30, gray overcast skies and a light marine layer wafting through the sail masts. It's too early for the marina to be open but you can slip between the fence and get to the water easy enough. With coffee in hand I'm standing there trying to figure out which boat to paint and this guy appears from nowhere... kind of a combination boat hand and serial killer. He walks up to me and gives me this look like "Not only have I not showered this year but I'm going to dice you up and use you for chum." I was a tad unnerved, nobody around, it could have been the end for me, but no, he kept walking. Just sort of scowled and scuffled on down the dock to the boat that was evidently his apartment. Since he didn't kill me on the spot I figured I was good for a couple more hours and set up on the sea wall to paint. 2 hours and change later the tide had dropped and here comes Charles Manson again, though he takes the stairs off the dock to the now showing sand since the tide had dropped. He walks out about 15 feet and digs a hole out with his heel and then whistles. From his boat I see movement, something orange pops it's head out. It was a cat. Not your run of the mill cat but a wide beat up puma looking thing that most dogs would avoid. The cat runs down the dock to the sand and finds the newly dug hole and pees in it. It was a very tender moment between a serial killer deckhand and his puma. Just goes to show you can't always tell about people.