Paul Irving - Owner, Baywood Photography
Holiday Special: Escaping on the Bay
Paul Irving - Owner at Baywood Photography
New book for investors: The Secret World of Real Estate and Crowdfunding
Show Highlights
Adam: You told me that you have a fairly fast paced life.
Paul: Yeah, so currently I have an insurance agency, so I'm a life insurance and fixed annuity specialist and I have my own, my own local clientele. But I'm also a consultant to insurance agents and financial planners on fixed annuity. You know, specifically, I've got my one niche that I do.
Adam: So then you and then you also run live music venues. That's actually what I thought was your main gig was the live music venues.
Paul: Well I don't talk about insurance that much because it's just not that fun. So after being in the insurance business for about 15 years, the excitement of life insurance and financial planning was starting to wear off a little bit. And I wanted to do something professionally that spoke to what really makes me tick. And that's music, music and fun and getting people together and all [00:01:00] of that. And so I leveraged the relationships that I that I've created as a bandleader over the years with all the venues and promoters in the area to create this business called Big Big SLO. And it's kind of a unique thing in that I became the hub of local live music on the Central Coast.
Adam: What it is that I find so amazing about that aspect of your life - rowing on the bay. Tell me, first of all, what is this bay are we talking about?
Paul: We're talking about Morro Bay. It's a five mile bay that comes right off the Pacific Ocean. It's a national estuary with two freshwater creeks flowing into it, and it is a bird lover's paradise. You say you love the birds. Over the wintertime, you can count over 230 different species of migratory birds hanging out here for the winter, which is super cool.
Adam: And what's fascinating about the bay is that it empties and fills twice a day. Like it's through one tiny neck out to the Pacific. It's really amazing, isn't it? How does it do that?
Paul: It really is. In fact, you know, with the tides, just the other day on, Saturday, it was a 7.0 foot high tide, going down to a negative 1.4. So within a seven hour period, we had 8.4 feet of water sucking out through that little harbor.
Adam: Isn't that amazing? Now you row on the bay, so tell me why you do that.
Paul: I've always been drawn to the water. Ever since I moved out to California from the East Coast when I was 10, I bought a boogie board and you know, my parents had a really tough time getting me out of the water.
Paul: So, you know, boogie boarding and surfing and all that. But when I moved up to to this area, one thing that I noticed is the water is fricking cold, right? And so I got into boating and sailing specifically and spent a lot of time on the water sailing and eventually owned up my own sailing company and charter operation in Morro Bay - did that for about five years, back in the 90s before I got into the insurance business. But my passion for the water and being out there, I mean, it's just something that I need. I mean, it's kind of like most people need food or oxygen. I kind of need to be on the water every day just so I can feel right by myself to get that sense of peace. To get some zen, I actually feel a physical transformation from like I could be standing on the beach with a boat. And when you get on the boat and actually float. Everything changes, and there's a I find a sense of peace and calm that I don't get anywhere else.
A peaceful morning on the bay
Adam: Ok, so this thing right here is just a classic Morro Bay, foggy morning, you know, a lot of the year we have some early morning marine layer that comes in. You can kind of see the soft light from the right kind of filtering in trying to break up the fog in the morning. And I think this image does a pretty good job of giving you a sense of the peace and quiet of the morning.
Paul: Right, the water is completely glassy. Yeah, we've got a couple of sailing boats moored in the water there, one in the far distance, one in the near distance. It is stunning, isn't it?
Paul: I actually won an award with this in our local newspaper's photography contest. The New Times has an annual photo. This took second place in seascapes.
Adam: Very nice. Yeah. And the point here is that as the sun rises, so it's very known to be foggy in this area. When the sun rises, it does burn that fog off. It's usually quite encouraging to see fog in the morning. Isn't Paul, because you know it's going to be a glorious day.
Paul: I like it.
Kayaking on Cuesta Inlet
Paul: Ok, so this is kind of over by your neighborhood, this is questa inlet. And this is kind of an interesting thing where there is - there's an attorney group out of Morro Bay that actually, oddly enough, owns this entire back bay. They own the water. The mud, I mean, they don't own the water, but they own the mud. So this is all private property, all the way back out here to the sandspit. And they have graciously, since [00:00:30] they can't build on it, have offered up for the community to just keep all your small boats around the side of the inlet.
A great spot to find calm
Paul: So here, here this is - Baywood Park is over here. And Questa Inlet is like right over right over here where we just saw. This is a skinny little channel that goes in here and one mile across is the sandspit, where we have, it's that long strip of land or sand that separates the bay from the ocean. And so this is a very calming spot for me to just come across the bay real quick. To have my coffee break or whatever.
Adam: All right. So this photograph - there's more into this. There's more in this picture, Paul than you describe. In the middle distance we can see the other side of the bay, it's kind of flat land. But then in the far distance, importantly, what we're looking at are - I never know if it's seven or nine, but whatever it is, it's the sisters, the Morro, the volcanic plugs, essentially. Just talk about what those peaks are that we're looking at there and what this area is famous for.
Paul: Yeah. So I guess there are nine. They call them nine sisters, but two of them are submerged under the water. So you don't really see them. But these peaks are, like you're saying, all ancient volcanic plugs that have emerged over here. They're all in a straight line, going straight into to San Luis Obispo from Morro Bay, Morro Bay being the, Morro Rock, being the farthest sister out west and then going all the way out here into San Luis Obispo.
Los Osos Creek
Adam: Oh, this is also beautiful, where is this one taken?
Paul: Ok, so there is a road called South Bay Boulevard that connects Los Osos over here on the right to Morro Bay over here on the left. And what you're looking at is Los Osos Creek flowing out under that bridge.
Adam: And again, what we're looking at here is this glassy water. What's it like rowing on water like that?
Paul: It's delightful.
Adam: And you can get pretty far up here, far up the creek?
Paul: You can go another three quarters of a mile from here.
Adam: And then it just gets too narrow or too shallow to go any further?
Paul: There are trees and brushes.
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Low Tide on the Bay
Adam: Oh, this is also beautiful, where is this one taken?
Paul: Ok, so there is a road called South Bay Boulevard that connects Los Osos over here on the right to Morro Bay over here on the left. And what you're looking at is Los Osos Creek flowing out under that bridge.
Adam: And again, what we're looking at here is this glassy water. What's it like rowing on water like that?
Paul: It's delightful.
Adam: And you can get pretty far up here, far up the creek?
Paul: You can go another three quarters of a mile from here.
Adam: And then it just gets too narrow or too shallow to go any further?
Paul: There are trees and brushes.
Birdwatching on the Bay
Paul: We made it out to the sands pit this day, and it was so foggy. It was almost a miracle we found the sands pit. It's, you know, it's very disorienting when it's pea soup fog and you can't see anything out there. But after we pulled the boat up, you know, I noticed these little guys. I love to watch these guys, and with a flat glass you can see that half of what you're seeing here is birds, and half of them are reflection.
Adam: Oh, my goodness, is that right? Oh, my goodness, that's right.
Getting "Lost" on the Bay
Paul: This is my 14 foot Glouster Dory. It's a fixed seat rowing boat. I've got about 20 different boats in my collection. I'm kind of an enthusiast.
Adam: Now with this this particular boat now and also with the the skulls that you're rowing at the moment, you are actually moving backwards, aren't you, when you float, when you when you go?
Paul: Yeah. A lot of it is like hopes and prayers, I leave the I leave the compass at home, but one thing that is super helpful is listening to the sound of the surf that's crashing on the other side of the sandspit. And you can still hear the fog signal in Morro Bay.
Adam: That's amazing.
Paul: And so just using your ears and listening to where those two things are, gives you at least a rough idea.
Adam: You can navigate by the sounds of the area as subtle as they are on the bay.
Navigating the Bay's Channels
Adam: This is an interesting one now, this is actually in the bay?
Paul: Ok, so you're out in the middle of bay, yeah, it's a choppy day. And it says Baywood Park, because this is the intersection between where the main channel rolls through here and there's a little channel that heads in towards Baywood. So it's a navigation mark letting you know that here's the Baywood exit.
Adam: When you see the bay full of water, it's just one huge body of water of water, but actually, it is crisscrossed by channels, right, that allow the water to once when the tide goes out, the kind of drain the last of the water. And presumably are the first that fill. So we pulled up a website here that says Big Big SLO. That's his website.
Paul: The image I have, here is a live webcam.
Adam: Live webcam, alright! A couple of birds floating across there. There we go.
Paul: Where I boat out of.
Adam: Ok.
Paul: Real time wind. But down here, here's the, here's the actual chart.
Adam: Ok. A chart of the bay. Oh, I see. Ok, I've never seen that before. So this is a chart of the bay. And it looks like it. Actually, I was going to say it looks like a snake, but it almost looks like roots penetrating downwards from some kind of plant, doesn't it? The way that it extends through the bay here?
Paul: Yeah. And so. So all this white that you're seeing is deep water. And even at a low tide or a negative tide, these channels are navigable like that one picture that I showed you of that kayak with a green algae in the mud. I had to come in from Morro Bay down the main channel through here, up this channel, up here, up and around, and it's like somewhere in here.
Adam: Oh, my goodness. And they are navigable so if you find these channels and you know, actually what you're looking for. I know I've rode on the bay near low tide and just run aground because I've picked a channel that presumably isn't really a channel. It's just, you know. A bit of lower or higher mudflat and ended up running aground and having to get out squished my way through to try and pull the boat out of it.
The Story of Morro Rock
Adam: What's the story of Morro Rock? Come on, this is a famous, famous landmark on the Central Coast.
Paul: Yeah, so Morrow Rock is an ancient volcanic peak and as everything else eroded over time, you know, the harder rock stood there. And so what you're looking at is this beach and, you know, very prominent surf spot right in here. But on the backside of this rock is where our harbor entrance is.
Adam: Yeah. And from what I've read, it is a holy location for native - some native tribe. They're the only people that are allowed to actually climb up there. Not sure anybody does anymore. But once in a while, somebody trogs up there has to be rescued.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. So it's illegal to climb the rock. And you're right, the local people there. There are two native tribes around here. There's the Chumash and the Salinians, and they each have access to climb that rock either once or twice a year for religious reasons.
Mountain of Gold
Adam: So where's this now? I don't see any boats and I don't see any water in this picture. It looks like California poppies. Is that right? Is that what we're looking at?
Paul:That's right. So Los Osos, where we live, is the gateway to Montaña de Oro State Park, which is just a magical wonderland that has amazing coastline and these and these trails, and this is at the very end of the park and California poppy is why they named the Park Montaña de Oro, which is mountain of gold, because of the all these gold poppies that would pop up out here.
Adam: I had no idea that's why it was called Montaña de Oro.
Low Tide at Hazard Reef
Adam: Now we're looking at - this looks like a kind of a tide pool, what I would call a tide pool with some beautiful fish. Oh no, sea life. What are we looking at here Paul?
Paul: Yeah, so this is actually out at Montaña de Oro as well, at Hazards, Hazards Reef, and this is kind of low tide. And I thought this was an interesting shot because these little red sea stars had gone almost to the brink of extinction and we hadn't seen any for several years. But this year they started popping back up again, which is hope for a new day.
Stunning Formations in the Rock
Adam: Oh, my goodness. This is stunning, so this is no longer on the bay or it looks like you're in. You can tell us where you are in a moment, but here what we're looking at is.
Paul: Also Montaña de Oro.
Adam: A geological formation. This always blows me away. So if you look at this particular picture, what you can see are layers and layers of rock being pushed up out of the sea and layers, as you would imagine, would lay flat, right, just the force of gravity, but these layers are almost a 45 degree angle. So somehow the seismic powers, or seismic motion in this area, this earthquake prone area, push the land up, you can really get a sense of that. Describe what we've got here and what you were doing, why you took this picture.
Paul: This is low tide out at Spooner's Cove. It's very accessible to get to. And I just thought it was a cool shot.
Adam: It's a cool shot. It always blows me away to see these layers at this angle, like some incredible force has pushed the earth up.
Paul: Yeah, the geology out there in that the whole coast is just amazing.
Adam: It is, isn't it?
Paul: I think in probably in your business, too, I think, you know, a lot of effective marketers and relationship builders appreciate handwritten correspondence. Like if you get if you get a letter from somebody in the mail kind of really shows that you care. And so what I try to do is I've got stacks of cards and letters here at my desk, and I make sure that every day I send out some - at least one piece of written correspondence just to say hi or to say thank you or whatever.
Adam: Give me some thoughts about the wonders of separating yourself from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
Paul: I think everybody needs to find a spot, you know, find their thing that brings them the peace and the joy and where you can unplug. You leave the car and the phone in the car or whatever it is. Go get some fresh air. Take a moment to yourself. And I know for me it's been transformational just to be able to start my business day knowing that I've already gone out and had a work-out. I've played with the seals and the otters and the birds, and I've gone and I've seen the crashing waves and I've rowed the boat and I have done all this stuff that... Just, it gives you the good mental reset that you need to start fresh and it's a good launch spot. Love it.
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