kayak adventures

Tasting Timelesness

2012-01-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

I have just tasted another era. Somewhere back in time, another culture. Favas and comotes (sweet potatoes) from the huerta. Savor the sun, the rich earth, the mountain spring water filtered through ancient rock.

I am eating the garden gifts of Ramon’s family from a Baja mountain oasis. Everyday staples for them. A cultural and even spiritual experience for me. Eating from my home garden is one of the things I most miss when I am here in Baja. In this simple meal I have been transported!

Ramon is one of our university interns at Sea Kayak Baja Mexico in Loreto on the Baja peninsula. His family has lived for generations in the La Purisima-Comandu area. Currently they make their home in San Isidro, which is part of the same aquifer and is about as small and quiet and self-sustaining as a mountain oasis can be.

San Isidro is a step back in time. Food is cultivated by hand in small fields punctuated by irrigation ditches and palm groves. Animal fodder is cut with a simple curved blade and tossed into their pens. Fields for squash are fertilized with animal manure. Other fields grow green cover crops to replenish the soil. Favas are a staple, nourishing both soil and people.

When I saw fields of favas, which everyone has, I thought these people must have a lot of time on their hands to peel all those overpackaged beans. Then Ramon’s mom fed us a bowl of young favas, cooked with the pods. Delicious! How silly I was for so long to peel them and chuck good pods in the compost.

San Isidro lives permaculture. San Isidro lived permaculture before it was a word. San Isidro lives community as well, just to survive. They rely on a dam and an aqueduct for their water. They rely on cooperation for where that water flows when, and to keep it flowing. They rely on each other for labor, for sharing machinery, for trading food such as homemade cheese.

There are no restaurants in town. There is one store.

How does a kayak guide from Washington state get a personal tour of San Isidro? It’s funny where kayaking can take a person.

The Mexican government is dividing up the community lands into private property, including the San Isidro area. Ramon’s parents want to leave him a good opportunity to make a living. He came to Loreto to study Alternative Tourism. Since that is his interest, the family hopes to choose a good location for a basecamp for visitors or students so that he can offer tours of his hometown and the surrounding area, which is rich in many ways. My business partner Ivette and I have been invited to advise them and to brainstorm together.

The whole 4 hours up from Loreto is a geologists heaven. Ivette is a marine geologist, and gives us some mini-lessons along the way. Even up here in the mountains, there are marine sediments complete with fossils. Volcanic fields and peaks surround the valley, crowned by the striking El Pilon.

History merges here, of the natives and the missionaries, whose supporting military force intermarried with the natives and birthed the ranching culture that continues, slowly fading, in the Baja outback today. Natives, missionaries, and ranchers all made use of San Isidro’s resources, and the present culture descends directly from them. There are some simple petroglyphs on the way to San Isidro.

The freshwater lagoons supply water for birds as well. Ramon and I take Ivette’s young girls out to explore in sit-on-top kayaks. The peak of El Pilon watches us there as well.

Beyond the history, the geology, and the activities, it is the community itself that is the real treasure. A huerta is a place of sustenance that includes tended fields like a garden or farm, and fruit trees like an orchard. Often animals are part of the cycle as well. The huerta culture holds great knowledge in its hands: The tanning of hides and making of leather items. The processing of cheese, the making of tortillas. The alchemy of taking cane plants and making cones of dark sugar that resemble El Pilon, the peak that watches everything. The climbing of palm trees to harvest fronds that become roofs. The mashing and weaving of carrizo, a bamboo-like plant, into panels that are used as walls. The animal husbandry that breeds such healthy goats as the ones we are camped next to. They have beautiful coats, perfectly symmetrical horns, sound feet, well-shaped udders, and 2-3 frolicking babies apiece.

In the course of a few days, I felt like we went from advisors to family. Ivette’s girls call Ramon’s parents their Mountain Grandparents. Who can say where it will lead. Whom it may inspire. How the experience may influence the course of the little oasis itself. But I do know that eating the produce of their labors and the land and the sun and the mountain water, I feel reconnected. To all of it. To something deeply grounding and profoundly human.

Another Day at the Beach

2011-12-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

(from December 8)
It was a merry breakfast in camp this morning. Buckets danced and twirled about the ground. Plastic lids launched off the table to join them. The tent huffed and puffed and jiggled at its tethers. Bushes sang. All in all, a good day to take the kayak out for a sail.

I’ve found a good rhythm of being on the beach for a couple nights, then going to town and sleeping on the office floor for a couple. It gives the opportunity to focus on work for a spell, make good progress, and then to get away for an unhurried time and contemplate real things like stars and wind and how a body moves a kayak through the waves.

With a Sea of Cortez crossing still in the back of my mind, I’ve increased one paddle workout per week by about 10nm each time, from my usual 11 to 22 to 32. These I try to do nonstop. Experimenting with pacing, nutrition, hydration, clothing, seating, relief breaks. I haven’t particularly avoided windy days, which this season provides plenty of.

The last trip was 32.8nm, starting just before sunrise in about 12kts of wind, and returning 9 hours later in over 20kts. The forecast was for north wind, so I crossed over to Carmen Island, nearly 8 miles, and started upwind against about 15kts at that point, and building. Sometime later I saw the 50’ sailboat Endless Summer heading for port. My progress dipped below 2kts. I lost the whale that had kept me distracted for a while watching its exhalations waft off to the south. The constant sound of wind started to get annoying. I calculated how long it should take me to get back and wondered how much more the wind would build. I finally decided to turn around. But first, hoisted the sail. Beating upwind has its payoffs.

The GPS batteries died after I’d reached a burst of 9.4kts. Sometime after that the skeg started to vibrate on the better surf runs. And then it vibrated at a higher pitch. I ran with the wind and waves about 17nm in 3 hours of paddling while sailing. And what a run! It’s a treat to look sideways at the wave and watch the wind loft droplets of sea into the air, almost in slow motion because you are moving with it.

I continued down the channel between Carmen and Danzante Islands, partly to get in the mileage I was looking for, and partly because the northward current and some of Danzante’s headlands make the waves stand up better for riding. Paid that back by crawling upwind on the relatively protected west side of the island before taking a beam sea homeward. The final crossing I did with the sail, and it had my wholehearted attention every moment as chunks of wave would tumble down faces significantly taller than I was.

Just before a cooling sun dipped behind the western mountains, I reached my home beach thinking of warmth and food. My beach neighbor Liz walked by to invite me to a soup potluck, and even brought by a nice worm bowl full for starters. Oh, heaven! This beach community of about 15 campers tucked into the desert shrubbery is something to be thankful for. Thanks, Beach Neighbors!

Breakfast on the Beach

2011-12-22T17:08:00.001-08:00

One morning a feeding frenzy of sea birds passes not 20’ offshore from my sleeping bag. The commotion heads north along the beach. Cormorants take flight leaving contrails of sunlit splashes. They skid to a landing and immediately submerge, herding the fish northward and inshore.

A snowy egret follows the fray, stilt-legged jogger with yellow feet. Brown pelicans, who normally dive from a height, don’t bother lifting a wing when they jab their bills into the shallows. A black wave surges onto the beach and a cormorant appears at the feet of a great blue heron, which tilts its head at the sight of the fish flapping in the cormorant’s beak. Throaty cormorant grunts are audible over the splashing.

The frenzy calms. Pelicans depart for a splash seen further out. Two snowy egrets take to chasing each other with incongruously peevish displays of their angel wings. They raise white head feathers in a punk crown, jump about, make short banking flights, but both keep returning to the edge of the water where the cormorants mill about.

Second course. The feeding regains momentum, moving back south towards me. Pelicans return. Cormorants glide out of waves onto the sand and waddle ungracefully back. Egrets and herons stab at the waters edge. One wading pelican jabs and comes up with a cormorant’s head, which it grudgingly releases.

Everything Matters - Loreto Kayak Symposium

2011-12-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

Loreto Kayak Symposium 2011

In December ended the long series that started in October as the Loreto Kayak Symposium on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.

The classes happening here are simple, yet of tremendous importance. Loreto is on the cusp of government sponsored mega-development on the scale of Cancun and Los Cabos. These kayaking events provide tools, inspiration, and voice for sustainability in development, from both ecological and economic standpoints.

Symposium events
Symposium festivities were enhanced by competition prizes donated by Kokatat , Werner, NRS, Seals , and Cascade Designs. Appreciative winners of the solo kids’ race, the kids & parents race, an obstacle course, and a long distance race, took home top quality gear to inspire their continued paddling and camping experiences. Thanks to our sponsors!

At a weekend beach festival in October, university students offered short presentations on the beach. Parts of the kayak, safety equipment, etc. Abraham Levy , a Mexican who paddled the entire coastline of Mexico, gave a rousing presentation at the university. British Canoe Union courses carried on for the next week and a half, and brought participants from Venezuela, Canada, and Australia as well as Mexico.

For logistical and economic reasons, a 21-day Expedition Challenge from Mulege to Loreto, was sandwiched into the event. Paddlers hailed from Sweden, Australia, Georgia, California, and Washington state.

In the past two years of Loreto Kayak Symposium, years of prior classes crystallized into some real progress. In October 2010, three Mexicans became certified as BCU coaches— Ivette Granados , Santiago Berrueta , and Yuriria Hernandez (and 1 Canadian Leah Blok who works in Baja). Since then, one more Mexican, Oscar Manguy has become a Coach 1, Santiago has trained for Coach 2, and both Oscar and his wife Yuriria Hernandez have trained for their 4-star Sea Leadership awards. Santiago already has this leadership award, making him the first and so far only Mexican to hold this challenging certification.

The series ended in early December with a simple class of great significance: mentoring the first generation of British-certified Mexican coaches as they train the university interns who will likely become the future guides and owners.

Loreto’s Romance with Tourism
Tourism can be nearly as destructive as an extraction-based economy. Or it can give an economic value to plants, creatures and intact ecosystems and inspire their care. The conversation of sustainability is alive and well in Loreto, with such players as the National Marine Park of Loreto , the Eco-Alliance of Loreto , Rare Conservation, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, Center for Civic Collaboration, Antares Ecological Group, Community and Biodiversity. They have a tough challenge in the face of the government-sponsored luxury-minded development plans Fonatur.

Yet there is hope and momentum. UNESCO declared the Sea of Cortez and all its islands a World Heritage Site in 2005 . This international recognition parallels a local cultural awakening to the unique marine treasure that the people of Baja California live on.

Extraction and Outfitting
Historically, Baja natives hunted and gathered for their survival. Pearl oysters were “discovered” by explorers and gathered to extinction. Shark fisheries began for export and severely depleted the shark population of the Sea. Small planes brought sport fishermen. Roads opened up opportunities for more commercial fisheries. For generations, the sea has been the bottomless bank account of Baja California. Anyone with a little initiative could dip in and extract a living.

In the 1960s Tim Means started bringing tourists south of the border and founded Baja Expeditions . Later, Trudi Angel founded Paddling South in Loreto. In less extractive ways outfitters were dipping into the Sea of Cortez for their livelihoods as well. In the 1990s the National Marine Park of Loreto was finding its feet, and several outfitting companies were operating in the Loreto area. Mexican immigration was also pushing for outfitters to hire more locals, trying to tap into adventure travel for local economic sustainability.

On the premise that fishermen know the sea and that young people are trainable and will work for less money, my employer recruited teenage fishermen’s sons. This was my fourth year guiding in Baja, and my boss asked if I would train our newly hired Mexican staff. They spoke just a few words of English.

Kayak Training
Teaching kayaking in a foreign language is a great way to learn that language. Conjugate lessons into full sentences. Instant feedback. Eager students are keen to help with the communication. Teaching kayaking in a foreign language is also great for developing coaching skills. It keeps the talk to action ratio low on the talking end.

In 2007, when Ivette Granados and I started Sea Kayak Baja Mexico , one of the major contributions she brought to the team was her connection with the universities of Baja California Sur (the southern state of Baja). She understood that ours was not to be just another tour company, but an educational center.

I believe that for knowledge or skill to be meaningful in the long run, the power of it must be given to local hands. Train the teachers. Support the leaders. Encourage the future mentors. Someday when my time in Baja is done, I would love to see a network of kayak coaches and university professors able to develop their own guides to a skill level appropriate to the areas in which they’re leading, and certify them with internationally respected credentials. In my own small way, I see that as contributing to the strength of Loreto as a sustainably-managed eco-destination.

Nowadays many Mexican guides are hired as fresh university grads in related fields of science such as Marine Biology or Alternative Tourism. They speak good English. They know how to apply themselves. They understand the uniqueness of the Sea of Cortez.

The importance of training and credentials is understood by these graduates. It is not lost either on their employers as they advertise their staff and services, or demonstrate to their insurance company how they’re managing risk through training and prevention.

The Municipality of Loreto in 2010 also saw the value of professional training in kayaking. Seeking to build the town as a world-class guide training destination to match its renowned paddling location, they offered to sponsor the costly British flights and coach fees, and bridge the gap between the cost of running the courses and the $18/person the students could afford. Due to an impressive level of corruption in that administration, the local government went so bankrupt that they couldn’t fund the special ed school bus or the city’s utility bill for several months. Kayaking fell off the budget long before a single peso went towards it.

Changing Perceptions
Loreto is in the process of re-creating its cultural perception of the sea. This is happening from many fronts at once: school children, university students, administration. In the mid-1990s some farsighted residents noted the increasing population and tourism were stretching the resources of the sea. Having seen the collapse of other fisheries on Mainland Mexico, these organizers began petitioning the Mexican federal government for a tool to manage their natural resources sustainable for the long haul. In 1996, nine years before the UNESCO declaration, the National Marine Park of the Bay of Loreto was created as a result of local residents’ efforts. The marine park encompasses 2,065 square kilometers of sea including 5 islands and numerous sea stacks.

Trawling and bottom dragging were prohibited. Limits were instated on fishing and shellfish harvesting. Island tourism regulated. For better or worse, the free-for-all was curbed.

Fernando Arcas, one of the original petitioners, continues to research wildlife behavior and population in the park. He heads GEA (Grupo Ecologista Antares) (info) and (tours). Fernando is joined by secretary Maria Elena and educator Luis. They publish pamphlets and occasionally insert them into the local paper. Sea Turtles—how to let them nest undisturbed. Sharks—why they’re important to the health of the sea. Blue whales—gentle giants who are our neighbors.

They take elementary school kids to the waterfront. Get them excited about the treasure that lies just beyond the sandy beach of their hometown. To these presentations Ivette brings a big sit-on-top kayak and some PFDs. She talks about boating safety and fun. Kids practice putting on the life jackets and helping each other tighten them well. They see how many can sit in one kayak together on the sand, and talk about the animals they might see.

In the summer, Ivette gathers 2-3 enthusiastic university interns and runs a kayak day camp for kids at Hotel Desert Inn, a beach-front resort with a pool. The kids swim, play games with sit-on-top kayaks and learn kayak basics in a spirited format that has 4-year olds and 12-year olds all working together. This is common in the local culture and feeds well into the awareness of others that is so important in kayaking.

In a culture where the sea has largely been the resource bank for extraction, showing youngsters its intrinsic value and a method for low impact access is a significant step for the future. It may even afford a few of them a good living showing it to visitors someday.

Life Skills for the Future
University interns do 100 hours of community service to pay back their education. Beyond helping at summer camp and the symposium, our interns also learn to run the store and put out rentals. Accounting, retail, customer service, English. The dream of many of these students is to either be a guide, which pays well locally, or to run their own company. Rural Baja is mostly free of franchises and chains, so family owned businesses are common.

Interns in the university’s Alternative Tourism track must create a project as part of their studies. Something to bring value to their community.

Ramon is one of our interns. His family owns an orchard/ranch in the village of San Isidro, west of Loreto. San Isidro is a mountain oasis with freshwater lagoons formed by springs. The family raise sugar cane as their primary cash crop, forming it into the familiar brown sugar cones sold in fruiterias and mercados in town, and they engage in typical subsistence ranching. Hurricane Jimena wiped out most of their plantation, and they have been looking for a way to recover.

Working with his parents and his uncle, Ramon is planning an oasis eco-tour project: paddle the half-mile long lagoons and enjoy palms, turtles, birds, and interesting geology. Marine fossils are layered in the mountain rocks. The iconic El Pilon peak is an eroded red-brown cone lending its name to the cone-shaped brown sugar “piloncillo” that was the family’s cash product. In the eco-tour plan, Ramon envisions giving visitors hands-on experience pressing sugar, or milking goats, or working with leather as his family treats them to genuine ranch hospitality.

Daniel’s family owns a purified water store in Loreto. His eco-tour route explores the mangroves in a protected estuary near Loreto. Mangroves are the ocean’s nurseries, home to juvenile fish, oysters, and a host of birds from snowy egrets to osprey to brown pelicans.

To put it in prospectve, John Steinbeck, in The Log from the Sea of Cortez in 1941 wrote, “And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance… none of it is important, or all of it is.”

Many thanks to the sponsors who have supported the Loreto Kayak Symposium. Far beyond providing equipment, you have supplied momentum, belief, incentive, and encouragement. It is greatly appreciated!

The Evolution of References

2011-11-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

The dark night was the first book of poetry and the constellations were the poems.
- Chet Raymo An Intimate Look at the Night Sky

I left the lights of Loreto behind, obscured by passing swells and eventually by the roundness of the sea upon the globe.

Evening worked the last of its magic with fading colors in the sky. Venus, my first friend of the night, shone in the western sky over the mountains. Jupiter hid behind a cloud bank to the east before peeking out. The beauty. The freedom of paddling back to camp down the 10 mile wide corridor between Carmen Island and the Loreto coast.

Ahead, the dark headland of Punta Coyote aligned below a distant triple peak. I paddled to hold that course. The gap between Punta Coyote and Danzante Island, which I had always thought of as a crossing, now looked like a narrow target.

Even after stars appeared, the ambient light continued to fade until the darkness was complete. No moon shone. Fear. The half-light in the waves felt ominous. My kayak, small. My faith in it and my motor—my body—shaky. Punta Coyote dissolved into the mountains beyond. The triple peak became a faint swell on the horizon, difficult to distinguish from the much bigger more distant mountain to the left and the double peak to the right.

As in life, our aids to navigation, or our perspective of them, evolve. Though my Punta Coyote reference was gone, Danzante Island’s dark hump gave guidance. Lights of occasional cars descending the mountains shone clear in the gap, and went black behind Coyote, to reappear in glimpses much further north. Puerto Escondido’s lights glowed another reference.

In the evolution of references, in the adaptation of eyes, mind, body, there was comfort.

The zodiacal light or “sun pillar” glowed faintly behind the western stars. Venus set. Vega, Altair, Deneb burned their fires high. The swan, the eagle, the leaping dolphin. Poetry of the ancients kept me company from above.

Something flapped or flopped out of my path with haste and agitation of bioluminescence. The constellations below. Waves around crested with their own light. Bioluminescence tumbled in my bow wake and surrounded my paddle blade. Even illuminated my stern wake as I descended a wave. A hanging stern draw carved a brilliant parallel wake if I ran straight, or converged if I turned the kayak.

My body interacted with the waves by feel. The rattle of the bow toggle against hull at the beginning of a surf usually indicated a short steep ride that often wanted to end with a broaching turn. Some waves had the perfect push and I could paddle downhill on them for long rides. My sail helped to catch the waves, then flapped limply as the speed of the wave outraced the push of the wind.

After 12nm, Punta Coyote outgrew the mountains beyond to loom large and close. Sounds of waves at its base. Three hours. Another 30 minutes to camp and the constellations of home. Patty & Mike’s TV. Christmas lights in the bushes. A glow from within Jay and Diane’s little camper, reflecting faintly off Henry & Joan’s old trailer. Low bushes, shallow reef, silhouette of Michael’s truck against the sky, and finally my gap in the shrubbery. The evolution of references leading me home.

Monserrate in 24 hours

2011-11-21T06:07:00.000-08:00

November 4, 8:50pm. Danzante Island, campsite DZ05. I arrived with the west wind, the unruly one. Back in camp it blew the wrong way into the stove, picked the shade tarp up and played with it, then shoved it down on my head.

I left camp in the dark at 6:30pm and set the sail for the wind to play with too. West is offshore, with its hazards like the further out you get the worse it is, and it’s hard to get back to safety unless there’s something to catch you on the other side. My intent was to paddle to Monserrate Island, 15nm out, then wait for the forecasted turning of the wind and ride it back. You know how reliable forecasts are.

Half a mile offshore, some gusts got my attention by tipping the kayak hard to the left. Waves were only about a foot, well within my comfort, but it was also dark, and everything feels a bit more exhilarating in the dark.

My intent was a night training run with some wind and waves. If I’m going through with the Crazy Plan, I should be comfortable riding seas throughout an entire night, or I should know that I’m not comfortable with it and forget the idea. Funny how a little idea like crossing the Sea of Cortez can get me out here where I hadn’t really considered it before.

Before I left, I talked with my beach neighbor Jay who had just returned from the day’s fishing in his motor boat. He said it was roughest offshore from Ligui canyon. That makes sense, how the wind funnels through there. Also for him, the rest of his trip would have been sheltered by the coastal mountains as he hugged the shoreline. Fetch. I had to add the effect of distance the wind would be blowing over the water. Fifteen NM by the time I got to Monserrate. How big would the waves be there? How strong the wind?

I motor-sailed my kayak towards the south tip of Danzante Island, which partly obscured my view of Monserrate, if I could see Monserrate in the moonlight, which I wasn’t quite sure. A light on a Danzante Island beach called El Arroyo was probably from the outfitting company I used to work for. They would be cleaning up their last dinner, which would have been a chili relleno casserole in the dutch oven, with a cabbage salad on the side, perhaps dusted with sand from the wind blowing directly onto their beach. Something about too much predictability I’m allergic to. Which is why I’m here skimming through the swells and somebody else is tending that light on the beach.

Spray flies off the bow, catches the wind and showers me. Again and again. I’m in a short sleeved paddle jacket and quite comfortable with the warm shower and the cool wind. Strokes are light and fast as the sail pulls the kayak along the growing swells. Water gurgles against the hull.

I will head south of Danzante Island, into the wind funnel from Ligui canyon. I want to feel the strength of the wind. To feel the waves collide with the perpetually opposing current that lives there. From there I will decide if I go to Monserrate Island. I will stop at one of the sea stacks in the Candeleros group and stretch before continuing. This is the plan.

Swells are exciting and surf rides frequent as I arrive at the stack. After stowing the sail, I thread between rocks into a protected pool from which I intend to step out onto a rock shelf. Water sloshes up and down. Wind funnels through my hideout, strong and sustained. Sounds of water crashing all about. Dark shapes hint at their craggy nature in the light of my headlamp. Sparkling ripples rush by over a shallow shelf and shatter into spray against little rocks. I struggle to maneuver closer, then in a moment change my mind, pivot, glide out of the pool, and head for the shelter of Danzante Island.

Decision made, I feel relief. I haven’t done a Very Stupid Thing tonight. Yes, sometimes I have to push the limits, but tonight isn’t one of those times. That means I can play in the mini tide race between here and Danzante Island. For about a mile I paddle without the sail, trying to assess how I’d feel about the conditions in the daylight. Broadside to two foot whitecaps, about 15kts plus gusts. I’d be content. The current adds interest. I watch island silhouettes for signs of my drift, but the current and wind seem to be about even in their effect, and I’m headed straight.

Nearer to the island is a rock that resembles a submarine. I can’t see it, but I feel the waves steepen, and figure I must be nearing the underwater shelf next to it that makes the best standing waves. I turn and catch some good rides. Bury the bow up to the front hatch. Moonlit shards of water tumble off my deck. Night surfing! Whoo-hoo!

The west wind bends and accelerates around the south tip of Danzante Island, and from here runs with the current up the east side of the island. Quickly the waves flatten out. I hoist the sail, taking 2 tries to get the mast up. The gusts are impressive, as I hang onto a stern rudder and fly along. The sail suddenly jibes in an ungraceful flop from one side to the other. Then it flaps limply. My kick-ass tailwind has just met the air coming over Danzante’s low spot. I wrap up the sail and paddle into my favorite beach on this island. I am drenched completely. Soggy pony tail, salt encrusted eyes.

Instead of being out tonight pushing the limits, I’m comfortably rolled into a tarp with a blanket-padded rock for a pillow, on a beach that feels like home, in the company of a very familiar stuffed moose. Sounds of water lapping on the rocky shore. The sounds increase. Gusts press my tarp hard against me. The kayak next to me shudders in the wind. I’m very glad to be here, and not out there. I hear rockfalls from the cliffs through the night, probably teased into jumping by the wind.

November 5, 9:50am. Don’t look now, but I’m naked on a sandy beach in the sun enjoying a leisurely brunch on Monserrate Island. Leisurely because all I have to do now is wait for the wind to die or shift to another direction so I can go back without too much effort.

I left Danzante Island at dawn. The wind had calmed considerably from the night’s fitful throwing of rocks, rocking of boats, and massaging of human tarp-burritos. Still the spray occasionally launched itself from the tops of whitecaps. The sun rose over Santa Catalina Island, another 20 miles out from where I bobbed along. It rose perfectly in position to climb the sky behind the sail. Paddling east in the morning can be brutal on the eyes, but this was perfect.

The sail pulled me along nicely. Up to two knots during my snack breaks. Five and six while paddling. When the sun ran out of sail to climb and shone on my face, I turned to ride the waves at a better surfing angle and arrived shortly at the long blonde beach of Monserrate. Three hours and fifteen minutes to Monserrate, 11.5 nm.

When I’m out paddling, at first I catch myself looking about at the mountains and the islands. Their lighting, their shapes. I count the time to the next landing. I am a terrestrial creature looking for home. Soon I look at the water. Its texture. Its colors. The swells and wind ripples are often at odds with each other somehow. Multiple directions of swell cross each other. Whether the whitecap tumbles listlessly or claws hungrily at the water as it scrambles forward. I am a sea creature at home for a time.

I project ahead to a longer crossing, the Crazy Plan. Some 30 hours in the kayak, with a 7-hour warm-up. I project further to the Pacific crossing dream. Weeks, months. Bigger boat. More room to stretch out. Better stocked galley, I hope, as I eat another Bimbo granola bar, strawberry flavor.

It may never happen, this Crazy Plan to cross the Sea of Cortes. I will make that decision when I get there. Or the weather or other timings may make the decision for me. That’s ok. If I don’t go forward now believing in it, acting on that belief, communicating to the universe that that is what I want, I will have closed my own door. I won’t do that--I won’t give in to a fear of failure before I’ve tried.

Five hours, multiple journal pages, power naps, and a long walk later, two things happen. The wind shifts, and a sailboat arrives. I visit with the family on Eyone for a bit, and take the NE wind back home. Fifteen NM in four hours exactly. The last four I was back on the track of my morning loop, going the other direction. I thought I’d see how fast I could do it now, for fun and because the sun had just set and I wanted to get home. Fifty three minutes. With a Greenland stick, in a Romany. No sail. I must have had some current assisting, but still it’s amazing what the body can do. Most amazingly, it felt good! This Crazy Plan might work after all.

The Crazy Plan

2011-11-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

Really it was the kayak’s idea. Romany said to me as we were paddling early one morning towards a distant star that hadn’t risen, you’ll miss me if you go work on that big metal boat with that man of yours.

Romany was right.

So I said, how can we get there, the two of us?

Well, duh! Said the kayak. I float, you paddle. That’s how it works.

Google Earth. 82NM to Guaymas from the nearest point in Baja, which is Santa Rosalia. Tortugas Island a convenient 22nm into the trip. That’s still a 60nm crossing. My morning loops are about 11nm, and I was feeling proud of them. That’s like 6 times around that loop. Without a break. Day and night. After a 22nm warmup. Looks like it’s time to start expanding that morning loop.

It is the nature of dreams to pull us onward. Even if I never launch on that crossing, the dream will inspire me to get in better shape.

Henrick likes the idea and says even if he’s launched Misty before I paddle over for him, he can follow me in Misty as a safety boat. I really appreciate the support, but where is my incentive to go forward through the exhaustion of the night or the fear of growing waves if my escape, my love, and a comfortable bed, are just behind me?

I’m not sure about the crazy plan. It’s just an idea. I’ll turn it over a few more times to consider the facets in different lighting. Carry it around in my pocket for a while. See what I think later without the suggestive whisperings of an eager kayak in my ear.

Meanwhile, I expanded my morning paddle to include Carmen Island this morning. Still, thinking of the crazy plan puts my 14nm jaunt into perspective. When I expanded my morning loop last year, it felt like I was reaching deep into the wilderness, pushing the limits. Venturing further, going boldly, with Star Trek theme music reverberating off the waves and rumbling the mountains. Compared to a 82nm crossing, it’s insignificant.

Still, upon landing back at my beach, I feel that euphoric glow. My body is saying, This is what I’m made for! Thanks for getting me out of the office.

Notes From the Beach

2011-11-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

10/29/11
Snapshots not taken
The photobook of my life has some spectacular images today: Danzante’s symmetrical silhouette with orange glow on both sides of the central ridge like the corners of a smile. The green pose of a many-armed pitaya dulce cactus sprawls before the mountian’s morning blush. Looking down on the silver sea on my morning hike, I see a lone sailboat cutting through the middle of that molten puddle.

From my yoga mat under the mesquite, the blue sky and the filigreed leaves of a single branch catch sunlight in luminous green patterns. Simple. Profound. Beautiful.

Is it the quality of the scenes, or the time to see them?

10/30/11
I drop off the paddlers for their trip at a beach south of Mulege and drive back to Loreto. There is a curve about a half an hour north of town. Round that curve, and the curtain of rock moves aside to reveal a view across a cactus-studded valley to the Sierra la Giganta mountains. Layer upon blue layer of haphazard ranges. Facets of some peaks seem to defy gravity. My heart leaps at this view on every annual migration and even now, though I’m returning from just a few hours’ absence.

As I get closer, I can pick out the wall of mountain at the base of which I make my winter home. It is a tremendous mass. A serrated block of fantastic proportions. Elsewhere there are peaks and points and sky. Here there is no sky between the peaks. It is unique in a range of uniqueness. Nightly I curl up to sleep at its feet beside the sea. A home no architect could hope to equal.

Ol’ Blue lumbers along the slow rocky road from the highway to the beach. A forest of cactus and mesquite and lomboy envelops the truck. The plants are incredibly dry now, many leafless, after a couple of years without rain. Even the cholla hang their twisted arms in postures of despair. But there is resilience in them still.

A peace takes me. Crescent moon overhead. Last light on the sea. The presence of that great wall of rock behind me. Nearly a mile high. Close enough to snuggle. Huge enough to never know it fully. My heart hangs on a string between those opposites, the intimacy and the vastness, and I am in love with those mountains. Deeper every year, like I imagine the face of a livelong lover will feel. More treasured with time and every weathered wrinkle.

I want to play music. Deep in my belly I want song to come out, to become part of the place. To join the crickets and the water lapping. I’ve looked everywhere for my flute. Turned the office inside out. My last hope is that I missed it last time I looked in the tent. But no. Not in the bin of clothes. Nor in the telescope box. Nor in some hidden fold of nylon. Not in with the pots, or the food. Please be somewhere I can find you!

I am a bird who has lost its notes and my insides hurt. I try to whistle and to sing, but those are not instruments that quite express what wants to come out. Whether I am also tired or hungry or whatever other factors I don’t know. The stars are a symphony and I am voiceless. I am lonely for my flute and let the sad tears come.

In a way it’s satisfying to have the space and safety to feel a simple feeling, even it is sadness. Between the mountains and the sea and the stars, I feel held. Even if I can’t warble my thanks through a tube of metal.

10/31/11
Another great morning at Rattlesnake Beach. Danzante Island for breakfast again, launching before sunrise. Stars in the sea. Sun pillar gives way to pre-dawn glow. Island pinnacles wear their subtle morning faces. Distant mountain peaks blush pink. My wake stretches behind me.

The Romany kayak and I hatch a plan to paddle across to see Henrick in Guaymas when my work here is done. Dolphins leap near an eastern point as the sun breaks the horizon over Santa Catalina Island. My shadow paddles beside me on the brick-red flanks of Danzante.

I solve the world’s problems on the last leg of the loop. Everything is simple. The path is clear. Unfortunately the path gets muddy through the cleaning of gear, showering, and making breakfast. But that’s how it goes. I’ll have to paddle out again tomorrow to figure it out for good.

11/1/11
Flute! I found it! In the bottom of a box of blankets at the storage unit. I carried it like a trophy to the beach. After a season away, what joy to play to the crescent moon and the stars tonight. After two songs, Sandy the dog comes running down the beach, a black bundle of wiggles in the night. She arrived for the season with her owners just a few days ago. She crawls forward through the sand, still wiggling, to my feet where she looks up for a scratch in the thick mane of her neck. She whines and groans, then rolls over for a belly scratch and lifts up her grey muzzle to give me a lick on the face. Ah, joy. May it forever be contagious.

Migration

2011-11-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

LoCo Roundup 2011 was a great success! (http://www.locoroundup.com) We put on 17 BCU courses, a Greenland paddle carving course, and several general courses ranging from an hour to 3 days each. The event actually made money for the first time in 5 years, something believed to be impossible for a strictly instructional symposium to do. Many, many thanks to all who were part of it! Still, it WAS the last LoCo. It’s time for new adventures!

October 1, Henrick and I loaded my new ’93 Ford F150 to the gills, kissed the farm goodbye, and made tracks towards the Mexican border.

The next morning we paused for a brief stop in Portland so I could Row for the Cure in a tandem kayak with Laura Jackson. Oh, it felt good to reach out and power that hull through the water with another likeminded gal! And to do it for a good cause. As a 5-year breast cancer survivor, I am thankful for the tremendous efforts of others in raising money and awareness towards a cure. For me, cancer was a small chapter whose pages turned long ago. That’s how it feels now, with much gratitude, and life rolls joyously onward. Even more joyously now with the perspective that chapter brings.

I am on my 15th annual migration to Baja to coach, guide, and just be, on a little strip of beach between the mountains and the sea. Sea Kayak Baja Mexico, LLC my humble venture, is the child of passion and ignorance, delivered without the midwife of business sense. That it ever got off the ground is a testament to luck, a few hardy clients, and my Mexican business partner Ivette Granados.

The fate of beach where I live outside of Loreto is in limbo—saved from luxury development more than once by fallen economies. My residence there is never guaranteed.

But I have no monopoly on uncertainty. Unplanned adventure seems to apply to all aspects of life. Relationship, family, career, financial investment, creativity, vacations, and particularly journeys. It is a truth that applies so well to journeys, in fact, that they are metaphors for all the rest.

A friend who was experienced in Baja travels once advised not to bring anything to Mexico that I wouldn’t mind parting with. Before my first Baja trip 15 years ago I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing. It prepared me well for crossing with the expectation of losing everything, from possessions, to identity, to belief systems, in an almost religious purging. Still I went. Still, 15 years later, I return, more invested than ever.

Sometimes the frustration of holding back outweighs the fear of going forward, and you just go for it. What do you have to lose but everything? And once you lose everything, you’re just left with you and your spirit. Which is all you ever started with. And so you can again. Not that I won’t fight tooth and nail to hold on, and complain a bit. In the end you can’t take it with you anyway. Life is then the sum of our experiences, not our possessions. And we are spirit, not a list of accomplishments.

Which leads us to the next phase. I have been trying to find the balance between running a kayaking venture in WA state, one in Mexico, an annual event, and a farm. Balancing too much is a great circus trick, but not how I want to keep living. Some things had to be trimmed back. Then I met Henrick, and added a relationship and a shared life of adventure travel. I often do things a bit backwards.

For the last 2 years, I’ve been working with business partners to develop our companies in a direction to run with less of me around. I’ve spent some time working with Henrick preparing his sailboat Misty for voyage.

In 2012, I hope to make a leap in priorities from scheduling myself primarily around my kayaking projects to building an “us” and creating some exciting history together.

I’ve never held down a real job, indoors with regular pay, for an entire year. Never in my life. Guiding and teaching has held my attention for 15 years, and been immensely rewarding. There are still aspects I treasure: Coaching people and watching them develop. The synergy of working with other coaches and business partners. Certain exhilarating and meditative paddle trips. The connection with the outdoors, the stars, the plants, the wind.

Now I have met someone with whom I feel a deep kinship, and it seems our lives could blend nicely. On we go, now seeking the balance between relationship, personal rewards of creative work projects, and financial responsibilities. First stop for me is the Second Annual Loreto Kayak Symposium, and for Henrick, the Joy of Boatwork.

Seven Life Lessons from the Boatyard

2011-04-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

Moving towards deliberate consciousness.

Kayaking. From basic principles of physics, to finer points of paddling technique, to how we interact, kayaking is just a tool for life to teach us what’s true. This has been my life philosophy for many years. Now it’s starting to expand to bigger boats.

Today I painted the wine-red hull and put another coat of epoxy paint in the forward part of the bilge. Everything wants to tear apart a boat: salt water, sun, heat, movement. Paint is one of those things that holds it together, like social etiquette.

On a sailboat, even in the boatyard, it pays to make every move a conscious one. Hit your head in a confined space enough and you’ll learn. Try to avoid the freshly painted bits while living among them. Don’t drop the tools overboard. In life, we don’t get to do it over again, either. Here are some life lessons from the last month in the boatyard:

• Projects go easier by moving slowly enough to think.
• Prepare well.
• Change the perspective when necessary, rather than struggling from the position you’re in just because you’re there.
• Give a project or a person the time they need, even if it’s longer than expected.
• Adjust expectations frequently. They are just illusions anyway.
• Endeavor to see a project through to its finish before beginning another, but also be willing to set it aside if something more important comes up. It’s delightfully liberating to take on no more than one thing in a given moment.
• Painting your partner’s sailboat is just another way of saying “I love you.”

Happiness

2011-04-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Happiness is like the scent of acacia tree blossoms I pass on the morning run. It wafts in on a breeze, inspires a smile, and moves on. Can’t hold onto it, just enjoy when it passes my way.

Because it is the road out of town, I run along it in the morning. Because it is a road out of town, people throw trash along it. Because there is a wide spot to pull over at the top of the hill, there is a big collection of trash. Yard debris, carcasses, shattered TVs, part of a toilet, all manner of plastic bits, tires, household refuse with rotting food morsels. Because the local dogs are hungry, they gather here. This is their home. They sleep here. A matted, furry head pops up as I run past, and begins barking. Four other mangy dogs jump to their feet and limp away, barking. Almost all are lame in one way or another.

The road crests a hill and makes a curve, blinding drivers with the rising and setting sun. I run wary when I run in the morning, listening well, looking behind whenever cars or busses come head-on, and being ready to leap into the dried grass in a heartbeat. Watching there for toothy things that hiss.

Perception is a funny thing. The dogs live beside the road, and ignore the passing cars, which pose their biggest immediate threat to life. I come plodding along, not a threat, just something different, and they bark and run. Three of the poor bony creatures died on the road this week, casualties of the passing vehicles.

Isn’t it interesting how we, too, accept the familiar even though it may be hazardous, and resist the new and different just because it is.

There will always be choices of what to focus on. Happiness is the scent of acacia tree blossoms on the morning run.

Marina Seca

2011-04-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

A boatyard is a unique community. Think of a boat as a home. Some are fixer-uppers, some are in good shape requiring only regular maintenance, and some are plush vacation homes, cared for by hirelings. Some are lifetime labors of love. Some are lived in while a renovation is done. Some are occasionally visited. The difference between houses and boats, is that a house is usually attached to a piece of ground, and that the people inspired to inhabit those homes are spread into their corners of the countryside. Boats, on the other hand, often congregate where the services are available when maintenance or renovation is required or a return from the vacation is due.

Marina Seca is a dirt lot in Sonora, Mexico next to the sea. A concrete wall and a chain link fence surround it. Intermittent electricity and water, even more intermittent internet, and a boat lift, are the amenities. Sunshine is more reliable than water or electricity, and almost every day is a painting day. The town of Guaymas is nearby with materials, San Carlos isn’t far with some marine goods, and the US is a day’s drive away for specialty items. Marina Seca attracts the do-it-yourselfers of the boat world.

Some breeze through in a day or two, haul up their boats, wash off the salt, scrape the barnacles, cover the windows, lock it up, and are gone to their other lives. For some it’s minor repairs and paint. Some cruisers stay for months and repair holes in a hull or change a mast or redesign a structure. Others have eddied out of the flow altogether and settled into their live-aboard projects, climbing ladders into their dry boats. Wood boats with rot, steel boats with rust, cement boats dissolving to bits. None will ever see even pennies per hour for the work they do. But daily they answer the call of some internal time clock.

It’s a forest of boats, with their accompanying stanchion-branches supporting them. Climbing the ladder to board adds to the feeling of living in a treehouse in a strange landscape.

At Marina Seca (dry marina) the boats may be dry, but their people certainly aren’t. In the afternoon shade of a hull stripped bare of paint, happy hour begins. The hardworking forest elves drink themselves giddy before retreating up their steps each to their own deck with a view over the wall, then down into the bellies of the boats to sleep.

After some weeks, this scene feels familiar. Just another community. Round-bellied tree houses feel like the norm. The glacial progress of projects becomes visible. Everyone has a story. They lack only to be written down, but somehow it’s appropriate that the stories, like the wind that bore them, blow away with the ending of each day.

These are the good old days. Living simple with a purpose. Talking of love, lifetimes, and dreams. Sailing Vessel Misty is our capsule to see the world, even if only in our imaginations for the moment. Meanwhile she gives our days structure as we ready her for long voyages, wherever they may be.

flying the nest

2011-03-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

I eat my chicken broccoli burrito and walk the beach as stars appear. Is contentment a constellation? Wavelets come in and I send them back to Guaymas with my love. There, on the other side of the Sea of Cortes, Henrick is working on his sailboat Misty. There I will be going soon.

If the sea dragons and the calendar gremlins and the black hole of boatwork don’t manage to stop us, we’ll be heading across the Pacific this spring. Blue water sailing. I’ve never done it except for two Sea of Cortes crossings last year, if that counts. The Tasmania offshore water was quite blue when I was experimenting with a kayak sail last year around Maria Island, but that really doesn’t count.

When I feel nervous about heading across the Pacific, I console myself with the thought that many have actually survived the experience. Not that this thought will ease the concerned minds of my loving family. Henrick is a competent single-handed sailor, and I’m teachable. Besides we’ll have 2 kayaks on board. This eases my mind! I’ll be able to go out for a “walk” if we’re sailing at less than 4 knots, and I’ll be able to tow Misty if we’re in the doldrums. This is my secret fantasy.

Of course trust is essential to setting out on such a journey. I trust Henrick as a captain. I also trust him as a mate, in the non-nautical sense.

Solid mountains to my right, silhouettes of islands to my left. Surrounded in this expansive nest of peace and belonging. Here I have learned my trade and so many life lessons in the last decade and a half.

From the nest of learning I am ready to fly. I wonder if we ever stop reaching these milestones, these launching points into the next level. Into the new, but not new. Everything in life has been preparing me for this moment.

This beach, this exact spot, 10 years ago. Dan Kennedy, my guiding mentor, said, “there is another level to everything.” I was a 5-year guide just finding my wings.

From this beach, this exact spot, more recently, I stepped into Henrick’s dinghy “Mutiny” with my backpack on my shoulder and my future on the crucible of change. He rowed me out to Misty to sail away from my familiar islands. Again from this beach, I found my wings, and they were sails. And they were love.

Henrick is keeping a blog of his upcoming journey. It’s http://onvoyage.net/wordpress/ .
The first entry read:
This is about travel and alternative living.
Particularly about the voyage with my boat Misty but also to depict people all around who are living their dream of freedom.

Freedom. A simple as just going. Rich enough to keep unwrapping levels of it for a lifetime.

Of course I plan to be back; I have a company to run. My beach “home” at the foot of the mountains and the toes of the sea still fills a part of me. But my heart! My heart lifts its wings again for a new perspective.

Soundtrack of Life

2011-02-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

On my way into Rattlesnake Beach late yesterday afternoon, I saw an owl perched on the top of a sturdy mesquite bush. At first I wondered it if was a plastic bag caught up there in the wind, then it turned. Its ear tufts blew a bit sideways and it wore a rather disheveled look on its face. Its head swiveled as it followed my slow progress along the bumpy dirt road.

I’ve been feeling a bit like that owl lately—a bit windblown and swivel-headed as events and milestones and old blue Ford pickups keep passing me by.

After a month and a half in Australia, I checked in with business partners in Washington, and stopped at the hospital for a routine post-cancer check-up while I was there. The 3-day Turbo Business Meeting was as productive as it was random and fortuitous. Mark, co-owner and manager for Columbia River Kayaking, and I often discuss things while driving errands, and one takes notes. This year’s meeting went a step further. On the way home from the airport, I bought a used truck, the kind I’ve been seeking for about a year. It was owned by a kayak club friend, and Mark alerted me to its existence just 7 hours before during my layover in the LA airport.

The doctor’s visit was historical. I sometimes don’t keep track of dates very well (just ask my family about birthdays!), so it was a surprise when I went to leave the post-MRI and mammogram consultation, and my doctor said that had been my 5-year checkup. Statistically, the chance of recurring breast cancer is so minimal if you’re still clear after 5 years, that follow-up care ceases, except for the routine mammogram that we should all get. I was clear!

My doctor said I am now just like any other normal 42-year-old woman, and turned me loose on the world. I felt a strange mix of thankfulness, awe, freedom, and denial, as I walked out the hospital doors for the last time. Denial that 5 years could have gone so fast! I’ve heard that the years start to do that at a certain point, so I must be getting to that accelerating age. I have some people to thank for the smoothness of those 5 years: in particular, my surgeon Dr Katterhagen who takes the time to listen to my concerns and explain how things are, Carmen the nurse who greets me with the biggest smile, and Kelly the most amazing arranger of schedules and insurance coverage. You gals have gone the extra mile and beyond! Thank you!!!

I don’t know what any “normal” 42-year old would do the next day, but I flew to my other home, a patch of sand under the Giganta mountains and the full moon just south of Loreto, Mexico. I moved back in, which consisted of setting up the dusty old Coleman stove and making 3 pieces of French toast for dinner by the light of my headlamp. Then I went for a paddle to nowhere in particular. Just for some perspective on the shadowy mountains and the bonfires of neighbors down the beach. I almost ran over a sea lion sleeping with his flipper in the air. Every few seconds he lifted his whiskered nose for a breath, then let it sink. He didn’t change at all as I glided by. Moments later a shadowy diamond shape passed under me, flapping gently. A ray. Close to shore, the moon shadow of my kayak followed along the bottom, and laughter of my neighbors carried out into the warm night. Amidst the swirling passage of events, it’s moments like this when time stops and one can hear the music of life’s soundtrack in the background.

Kookaburra Laughs

2011-01-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

Just settin’ myself down to a nice cuppa on a blustery Tassie afternoon. Cozy time to contemplate life and appreciate the shelter of friends.

Travel takes one outside of oneself, and offers moments of clarity. Sometimes a good book can do it, too. For me now, perhaps a little of both.

Three Cups of Tea, the tale of Greg Mortenson, climber turned school-builder in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is the most inspirational thing I think I’ve ever read. I’ve been devouring it on the flights, at times moved to tears I try to hide my tears from fellow passengers.

Lyn and Geoff, my hosts, greet me at the airport. Lyn bubbles about an orphanage in Cambodia she visited this year, and her conviction to help not only with her volunteer efforts while she was there, but also by organizing a fund-raising athletic event near Hobart. Her face is alight and her eyes sparkle with excitement.

“Spirit dwells in you, as you.” A line from in-flight movie Eat, Pray, Love. Live true to your heart and as fully as you can, and spirit will use your unique blend of talent and personality to do good things.

What is a Good Thing? Does it have to benefit 1,000 people? Save nature? Further human understanding? It may. Or perhaps it encourages one person. Lyn’s mother sits this week in hospital with her dying partner as he slips into unconsciousness, and beyond. Maybe in the Good Thing one is called to do, one’s own soul finds balance. One more instrument in the grand orchestra plays in harmony for a few bars.

I take Jed the old dog for a walk today. He lost his lifelong buddy recently and has since stayed very close to the humans in his life. He comes to me at the computer often for a reassuring scratch. The air is fresh in the damp bush through which the trail meanders. Kookaburra laughs from his perch in a gum tree.

Kayaking may be the pretext under which I’m here, but I’m convinced that the real reasons are much bigger, and unfathomable to me at the moment. It is my dedication to a passion—a recreational sport—that has brought me to this place. What an unlikely vehicle. I am inexpressibly humbled. I believe that if one follows one’s deep passion with dedication and honesty, it will be a spiritually rewarding journey. The kayak is just a tool. Such a frivolous one, yet somehow it feels elemental to me.

Is the Good Thing the project itself (kayaking lifestyle) or is the greater good the process of learning, submitting, being aware? Anything is possible. No matter what happens it’s ok.

Monsoon rains continue to wash away northern Australia, leaving heartbreaking stories in their wake. Grocery stores post flyers and take relief donations at the checkout counter. The national defense has been mobilized to help. Sometimes it’s hard to see any good in tragedy. Sometimes “No matter what happens it’s ok” sounds ridiculous and haughty.

On the small scale of our lives, strong Tasmanian easterlies (30-40kts) have flattened out the swell and threaten to blow kayakers to kingdom come. Our kayaking plans adjust daily, and yesterday we all stayed home. That means time for Axel and me to begin building a website for Lyn’s Cambodian Children’s Trust Challenge. Somehow, despite our plans, things fall into the places where they belong.

Wind Play

2010-12-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

Spray lifts gracefully from the wavetops, catches the sun, and obliterates Danzante Island from view. In front of me I can see another gust coming with white spray bright in front of the shadowed hills of Puerto Escondido. When the gust hits I gasp to inhale; it is going by too fast to breathe it. I force myself to relax and get some air. I’ll need that air because I’m paddling fairly hard, and might want some reserve if I capsize again.

Me? I’m just out here playing. Forecasters had predicted 30kts, and I wanted to test my Flat Earth kayak sail, my experiments at rigging, and my own skill. I stay between Rattlesnake beach and the yachts in the harbor because it’s rougher than I expected. It’s good to have a challenge every once in a while.

If I paddle while sailing, I can tack to about 45 degrees into the wind and make exciting headway. A gust pushes the mast over beyond 45 degrees, tipping the kayak with it. I’m bracing on the downwind side, but momentum slows as the mast flattens, and with it goes the support of my brace. The gust lasts longer than I do, and I finally relent and lie down in the water. Upwind will be on my left, so I prepare to roll up there, pausing to release the sheet so I can roll up without the resistance of the sail. I’ve practiced this before.

The roll is no problem. The mast falls as I come up, probably because the rigging stretches a little with the pressure of the water during the roll. I gather the mast and sail onto the deck and pop one quick strap on it. I reorient into the wind and pull the mast back up. After a few more tacks I turn to ride the wind. Wheeeeee! This much fun should be illegal! I spy some friends on the beach, looking windblown but fascinated. Before I pass them, I try dropping the mast (and sail because they are connected). I’m on a speedy downwind run, and the mast refuses to come down. Is it the zip tie on the line caught in the jam cleat, or the pressure of the wind? I turn a little sideways, the gust passes, and I get the mast down. Note to self to review the system again on this issue.

Klaus is effervescent. “This is amazing! It’s a whole new sport!” He’s a kayaker and an ultralight experimental aircraft pilot and general adventurer. I am excited too, on the verge of jumping up and down, but I’m still in my kayak.

I decide to try to get into the port before the cruiser’s net on the radio. I have about 30 minutes. Gusts are still whiting out the channel that funnels the wind like a fire hose. No sail this time, I work my way upwind along the shore. Legs, core, rhythm.

Jumping fingers of water, white spray, and I brace into it. Instantly my kayak turns broadside. I’m sturdy in the brace, but headed 90 degrees the wrong way and blowing 180 degrees the wrong direction.

Momentum, trim forward, edge. Start the turn. I regain the direction. This happens several times. Bit by bit, I experiment with paddling through the gusts, edging into the wind and trimming forward when I start to get turned. Between the gusts I can relax my hands, but during the gusts, the paddle wants to do funny things. I keep a vertical stroke into the wind because it is still more efficient and easier for my body to power the stroke. And I try hard to breathe normally.

Eventually I get to the lee of Iron Maiden and pant for a moment. She has stabilizers out and isn’t swinging around much. Using her wind shadow, I gain momentum, then shoot my Explorer past her to cross the gusty channel. It’s not as bad as I expect. I even try putting the sail up halfway across. Maybe it’s worse than I thought, or the rigging has stretched too much, because eventually the mast blows over and splashes into the water. I brace the paddle under my PFD and hold it with one hand while gathering the sail and mast and stowing them. The sail itself is taking a beating at my inexperience and enthusiasm, but it's sturdy. I’ll do a minor rigging adjustment when I get to my friend Richard’s boat.

He’s anchored at the back of the harbor. All classes of boats are swinging wildly at their moorings and I give them a wide berth. Also because gusts come up and blow me sideways a good distance on short notice. I often run classes in here in calmer weather to practice maneuvering around the yachts. This is more like running drunk through a forest where the trees are dancing about unpredictably.

On the radio, one yachter reports wind of 25kts, and Richard and I both shake our heads. He was here for the 50kt blow last year and says that this wind isn’t that bad, but its damn well over 25 on the gusts! He doesn’t have an anemometer on board, but several others do. Someone else reports gusts of 40kts coming through. This is the one we want to believe.

I power up on half a Snickers bar, adjust the rigging, and head for the beach. Halfway across the channel I finally have the guts to try the sail again. Wow! This is living!

I hang on a stern rudder on the upwind side, and play with the angle of the blade to control the direction. I’m moving right along, and then a gust hits. The kayak jumps to catch up and now we’re flying! The wind doesn’t feel very strong at all when you’re flying with it! I don’t have the skeg down as I some times have done in lighter winds because I want to have the most response possible when I steer with my blade and the edges of the kayak. It’s really more like surfing where using a skeg would not be desirable.

To catch a wave is no work at all. I just look at it, think “yes!” and there I am. The boat has a good line along a wave and a solid feel in the sail, and I can’t help myself--I raise my paddle over my head and whoop with joy!

I’m not straight downwind since that would risk the sail jibing on me, or flipping sides violently, which is hard on the equipment and the balance of the paddler. But I want to try jibing on purpose to angle away from the beach before it gets too close. I pull in the sheet so the sail is in the shortest line possible, and carefully redirect my bow to the left. Bam! The wind shoves the sail to the other side and I let the sheet out a bit, perhaps not enough. I don’t think I even got one good run in that direction before a big gust catches me, and I see the mast starting to give. I take a hand off the paddle to pull up the mast better, still bracing with one hand and my elbow on the paddle. The gust pushes harder and I give in.

Same drill, but when I come up, the mast has fallen frontwards, in the hazard zone where I can’t reach it from the cockpit. It’s not supposed to be able to do that. I turn upwind, which is easy with a little momentum because I had a giant anchor hanging off my bow. The sail drifts back to me as I move forward and I can see where one metal shroud has broken where I tied a knot in it to tighten it. That break would allow the mast to fall forward. That break would also make sailing kind of impossible. So I surf back to my beach, still quite glowing.

What I do know is that I have a lot to learn and practice about kayak sailing, and also that it is so unbelievably much fun!

Bus ride back to Loreto

2010-11-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

The movie is in English, the radio in Spanish, and the bus driver, whose gas pedal is connected to his mouth, is chatting away at 50mph through the Baja California night. I’ve given up listening to my Swedish language CD, and look out the window.

Peace and a crescent moon in the sunset. We are the moments of our lives, and this journey is sweet. I am headed back to Loreto from San Diego after coming north to run a brief kayaking class.

First the driver talks with the relief driver, who rides in a jumpseat that folds down in the stairway. At a stop, the relief driver crawls underneath by the luggage to sleep before his shift. The chatty driver begins talking with the woman in the other front seat, and invites her to the jumpseat. This is a great bonus for me for 3 reasons. One, I do not feel like talking, and she is happy to. Two, she is keeping the driver awake and connected to the gas pedal, and three, I have even more space to stretch out.

We stop for dinner at a bus stop café. Eighteen overworked pots share one stovetop and two women lift lids, stir, shuffle pots around, and wait for the wall of hungry faces to voice their desires.

“?Que hay?” someone asks.
A rosary of options is mumbled back. Bistek, machaca, deshebrada…

Somebody calls out an order, and one woman pokes at a pot with more purpose.

“Bistek” I say, figuring I’d end up with some form of cow on a plate.
The other cook looks at me, and stirs another pot. “?Plato o burrito?”

“Burrito,” I reply.
“?Cuantos?”
I look around to spy a tortilla so I’d have a clue what size she is selling, but don’t see any. “Dos,” I guess. If they are little, at least with two I won’t starve, and if they are big, maybe one will make a good breakfast.

I take my plate of two humble burritos and sit down at a little plastic table. After a moment another woman asks if she can join me, and I agree.

Good food, I say in Spanish.
Hunger makes anything good, she replies with a smile.
An older woman joins us. We exchange our stories in tiny verbal snapshots.

Sometimes when strangers get together, the truest of things get said. I’m not sure how, but here we sit, sharing a bus stop table, the elderly 2-time cancer survivor, the accident survivor, and me. Expressing our thanks for the tragedy-blessings that made us more aware of what a gift life is.

We climb back on the bus for the long haul, me 20 hours from Tijuana to Loreto, the viajita 22 hours home to Insurgentes, and the younger woman 26 hours to La Paz for work. I sit in the front seat of the bus, just behind the driver, and am the beneficiary of many smiles as people step or hobble their ways on board.

The fourth movie ends and still the chatty driver keeps the pace. I am wearing every stitch of clothing I brought and am still freezing. The driver’s chatting assistant has a blanket that I think he loaned her. After finally accepting that covering myself with my computer bag isn’t going to make me any warmer, I lean down to ask the assistant if she could inquire if there were any more blankets. Shortly the driver pulls off the road, opens the luggage compartment, and brings me a blanket. We resume the road. Extremely thankful, I drift off to sleep.

At a military checkpoint somewhere in the dark, two calico soldiers board and look about this capsule of traveling strangers. Seeing nothing noteworthy, they let us go on. Drivers switch, and the background of conversation ceases. The assistant curls to sleep on her seat. Mellow ranchero ballads follow the new driver down the road.

Sunrise brings a procession of cacti in gentle lighting that makes the austere look romantic. Distant mountains rotate in a waltz of perspective. The long slow drive through the desert drip-feeds my soul.

Sunrise is a Sandwich

2010-11-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

Sunrise is a sandwich.
Blue. Orange. Blue.
Hot orange on a hard blue line

Horizon is an illusion.
Corners of islands float in the fiery sky, not touching the sea.
Horizon is a place you can never touch.
Its flatness undulates with waves.

Black constants on a changing palette--
islands on the horizon.
Sure of themselves.

Sunrise is how I love you this morning.
The passion of opposite colors pressing together
and running for a long time
past solid black milestones.

Beyond the illusion
that holds sea and sky together,
they reflect each other.
Sky cools upwards to blue.
Sea softens near shore to a peachy glow.

Fragments of the beach take flight and wing their ways across
sea and sky
orange and blue
illusion and conviction.
And sunrise is just a transition.

Driving south

2010-11-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

From October, 2010
In El Rosario, white confetti blows everywhere. Onion skins from the harvest. In the borders of the great arroyo, through which the road also runs, white onions lie drying. Rows and rows of handsome white globes in the sun. Men walk down the rows, pulling them and setting them out. In a corner of one field, pink mesh bags slouch full of their pearly load.

Another field has 6” seedlings, which look beanish. A man hunches under the sun in a brown sweatshirt and a red hood, tending the seedlings with a short hoe. Perfect rows surround him with green stripes, a dozen between him and the far fence. Five dozen between him and the road. From him to the horizon, the green stripes extend endlessly as I drive, reducing this red-hooded gnome to futility in my mirror, which he defies by simply continuing.

Again tonight I listen to sounds of the sea. In Santa Rosalillita the ruin of an abandoned, unfinished Singlar marina slowly covers its shame in sand dunes. A perfect 12” wave peels across the entrance of the breakwater. This was to be the crux of the Escalara Nautica project, a scheme that would entice yachts to haul out here and drive across the peninsula and thereby shorten their time from the southern US to the Sea of Cortez. Rumor has it that the project was purchased by an Asian firm which will continue the development. Meanwhile, the osprey family enjoys their new blue and yellow nesting platform atop the unused yacht hauler. It’s the only thing left here with color. I think the scene would make a great end-of-the-world movie set. Be sure to capture the dead palms bending in the salt wind in front of the grey coastal fog.

Perspective increases with miles traveled from home. Scenes and memories pass easily through my mind as the landscape scrolls along. Books, friends. King of the Moon, a tender and profound account of rural life where there is a poverty of economy but a richness of human spirit. A friend’s ongoing health challenges. A couple of other friends passing on in recent months. How temporary is this situation called life! Somehow as the miles grow, priorities shift. Migration is a meditation on what is real and what is important.

To live consciously enough to follow inner callings. To live slowly enough to hear them. Open enough to share them. Why do I keep thinking this is just around the corner? What is now, is. Upon arriving somewhere, I get busy, and the dust of the immediate starts clouding the perspective. Not this time, I tell myself.

When I arrive to the beach I’ve called my winter home for 14 years, there is nothing about it that would indicate that I live here. It’s just a patch of sand and shrubbery.

I find a broken blue crate left by the fishermen, and sit on it beneath a quarter moon. And breathe. How simple and beautiful a moment can be. Life, I celebrate you! A cool mountain wind hugs me from behind. Ripples tickle the shore and make the only sound in a vast, calm silence.

I drop the truck’s tailgate and cook there. Then throw my sleeping bag on the beach and sleep. There will be other days for working. I resolve to keep the perspective I’ve found, do what I can each day, and leave the rest in peace.

A lizard rousts me from dreamland by running up my face. Its lightening fast, but I can still feel each gripping foot across my cheek. I rub the feeling of lizard feet away. The water is so calm that Orion throws three stripes on the surface. One for Rigel, the foot of the celestial hunter as he hooks it over Danzante Island and shimmies up into the sky. One for the belt, since the three stars are vertically aligned, and one for Betelgeuse, the shoulder.

I’m home.

Redefining the goal

2010-10-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

(from Aug 30 2010)

Ten slivers of rainbow push their pointy noses around the metal sea wall of Astoria’s East Mooring Basin. Their vista opens to include a broad waterscape hemmed by distant blue hills and dotted with black-hulled freighters. The Astoria Megler bridge, like a yoga pose, arches its green-spined back high over the shipping channel and stretches its arms long and low across the water to Washington, four miles distant.

A 14-mile journey lies ahead, some anxiety within. Destination, the Pacific, like Lewis & Clark. The empty kayak trailer waits at the mouth of the mighty Columbia River.

Of our ten, four are BCU 4-star sea leader candidates being tested on their leadership, navigation and personal skills on an exposed journey. Four more are moderate to well skilled sea paddlers being led on the journey, and two are assessors charged with exposing the group to that turbulent and exciting current of challenge where learning happens and where the candidates can demonstrate their skills or reveal their weaknesses.

Winds are force 2 from the NW as the colorful arrows begin to glide across the channel in close formation. The water’s surface is lightly textured. A 2.4 knot ebb whisks them past green buoy 39 towards the bridge.

From the low vista of the kayakers’ eyes, the mid-river sand bars are not apparent at first except as a perforation of gulls along the horizon. Gulls a fraction taller than they would be if they were floating. Desdemona sands make a fine lunch break beside the bridge and the cross current of traffic, something I’ve long wanted to do. Drivers honk and wave.

Distance paddled: 3nm. Time: 1 hour. Speed made good: 3 knots. Three more hours till slack. Headwinds begin to touch force 3, cresting occasional wavelets.

It is apparent to two candidates that our remaining 11-mile journey is not likely to happen. Another says that we should push to make 4 knots.

Sometimes the drama comes from our own stubbornness. Sometimes one must experience to understand. It is the job of the assessor to let this experience happen without losing the larger safety net.

Bridge drivers look down now to see the smears of color getting washed by 2-3’ waves. They bounce in the spray but make little headway along the bridge or towards the destination. Does the candidate in the lead recognize this yet? Is he thinking of other options? The wind builds, the ebb slowly dies. The treadmill goes on, steepening wind waves to 4’.

Who is the paddler making many sweep strokes on the downwind side, working hard to maintain direction, and losing speed? How long can she keep this up? Who are the resources; the strong one trying to pull ahead? Who is strong and aware, able to pull ahead but staying back for group support? Do the candidates read this? How do they use their resources to meet the challenges?

When do we redefine the goal?

Kayaking is not just a scenic escape. It is a teacher of life lessons. I suppose this is why, for some, immersing in the natural world is a fundamental element of spirit.

A change of candidates in the lead, an inline tow, a small change of course. Finally, the exercising of some fine hitchhiking skills. The journey is behind us, and within, on our written or unwritten log books of life.

Where beauty resides

2010-09-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

I think the Dog Beach ebb current on Friday afternoon helped to pull of the stunt I’m trying to repeat now without success. I’m in the surf off Mission Beach, in a small gap between surfers. Mission Beach waves are much stronger than Dog Beach waves. I’m getting body blasted and side-surfed back to the beach instead of the graceful, dynamic, and perhaps lucky maneuver of two days ago. Mike stands behind a long camera lens on the beach hoping for some photogenic carnage.

Image: a green wall of water rises behind the kayak, about to break, completely obscuring the sky. At full velocity I try to punch through it and get surfed backwards and broached. Again. I wash up on the seaweed at Mike’s feet and suggest we try back at Dog Beach, which had looked too small earlier. I’m willing to take a little less manhandling by the surf.

On the drive over we pass clusters of red-clad walkers. Walking for MS.

“People are walking for everything these days,” says Mike. “The Walk for the Cure for breast cancer came through my neighborhood all dressed in pink. Some costumes. Guys with stuffed shirts that read Save the Boobs. It’s a 3-day event, huge! Survivors, people with family and friends affected, people who just care. There were literally thousands of walkers.”

We get on the topic of hope and post-surgery decisions. “A friend of mine had reconstruction and tattoos of Hawaiian flowers on hers,” I say. “Some reporter interviewed her for a recent article.” Tattoos are an appropriate topic when driving through Ocean Beach, where at the grocery co-op the other day I believe I was the only one of any age without body art.

Mike has worked in newspapers and photography. He mentioned a photo essay a colleague did on survivors with tastefully done shots of scars and reconstruction. A celebration of life and deeper beauty. I related a comment my dad made when I announced 4 years ago that I did not want reconstruction after my mastectomy. My dad is one of the people I respect most on this planet for his faith and his constant search for deeper meaning. With uncharacteristic anxiety, he asked how I would still be beautiful for some guy. I was too surprised to really answer. No doubt he was just expressing his concern for my well-being. I stuck with my choice and am glad for it. Mobility and overall health were my priorities. I just wanted to be able to paddle, coach, and live as fully as possible. Besides, if some guy with whom I’m building a relationship is concerned about a big scar and the lack of one boob, I don’t want to be with that guy. As it turns out, my man isn’t phased at all. Deeper things hold us together, despite being on opposite sides of the planet most of the time.

My photographer for the morning, meanwhile, helps me carry my pale green kayak through swirls of happy dogs. I find another gap between the surfers off Dog Beach, and play in the gentler waves. The morning tide is flooding still, and the waves don’t have the right shape for my stunt, so I ride a couple frontwards just for fun. Finally I park myself in front of a bigger set and give it all I have left.

The green wall rises up before me. I paddle backwards, turning to check one more time for anyone behind me. Up comes the bow. I lean forward then forcefully come back to center and yes! The stern sticks, the bow swings around in the foam. I brace on the left and swing my hips, turning the brace into a forward stroke as I come out on top of the foam pile, far enough forward that a little push and a forward lean sends my boat down over it. Whoo-hooo the drop! I watch the bow puncture the green water just in front of the wave and go deep. Not part of the plan, but it’ll make some photogenic carnage, I think, as I tuck my head for the flip. I roll up grinning, and go back energized to try again.

On the next set wave, it feels right. All clear behind, green swell rising before. Timing, momentum in reverse, weight shift to stick the stern. Which way will she turn? I listen with my body… then brace on the left as my playful Romany spins on her tail. A little propulsion, and I ride down the foam pile to surf perfectly towards the beach. Big grin! Joy from deep inside. Satisfaction beyond reason for simply having pulled off a surf stunt, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face. We carry the kayak back to the car and Mike is grinning too.

The shots he got, my flip, his excitement. “Yeah, action, carnage, go!” As an afterthought, “I hope she’s ok.”
He continues, referring to our earlier conversation, “I have a response for your dad.”
“Yeah?”
“One Ginni Callahan smile is worth 2 boobs any day!”
I like it.

That’s a universal truth, really. Joy from deep inside is where real beauty resides. No matter what the turbulence around us, if we look deep enough, there is always something to be joyful for, even if it is mere breath, or a memory.

Loreto Kayak Symposium--making Baja history!

2010-09-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

Loreto, Mexico. More than halfway down the Baja peninsula, Loreto is the access point for the National Marine Park of the Bay of Loreto, a popular kayaking destination. The Park itself is part of a World Heritage Site encompassing all of the islands in the Sea of Cortez. Sea kayak tours have been an increasing part of the local economy since the early 1980s yet kayaking for enjoyment or considering sustainability in their use of the environment has not traditionally been part of the local culture. That is changing.

There are many stories to tell here, and the Loreto Kayak Symposium, organized by Ginni Callahan and Ivette Granados of Sea Kayak Baja Mexico, is just a small chapter. The vision for the event is to be "a force for sustainable tourism based on sound ecology and appreciation for the natural landscape."

To that end, the event aims to make kayaking accessible and fun for everyone including kids, families, young adults, professionals, adults, and university students. Part of this is an extension of the kids' kayaking programs Granados began last summer, and it ties in with the "Alternative Tourism" track offered by the local university and the universities of La Paz and Los Cabos.

The Loreto Kayak Symposium will also make professional kayak training available for guides and instructors. This is an extension of what Callahan has been doing locally for 10 years.

Finally, the event hopes to raise national and international interest in the National Marine Park of Loreto (and other protected areas of Mexico) and to draw visitors.

Event sponsors include the National Marine Park of the Bay of Loreto, the Loreto Campus of the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur, the Municipality of Loreto, Hotel Tripui, Kokatat, and Werner Paddles.

Activites include the Kayak Festival Weekend October 23-24. A big kayaking party on the beach, the festival provides a fun environment to find out what kayaking is about, and an invitation to learn more.

Provided free to all on the Loreto waterfront are: beach classes, demonstrations, info tables, and evening presentations, in Spanish and English. Available for a modest cost: classes, competitions, retail items, and short family tours.

Topics include:
• Kayaking equipment-how to wear a wear a life jachet, how to choose a paddle.
• VHF radio & how to use it, given in a presentation by the Port Captain.
• Reading a nautical chart.
• Floating in a Life Jacket
• Capsize and Safety
• Rolling and Preventing Capsize
• Balance Tricks & Games
• Steering
• Expedition planning

Sunday Races are Sponsored by Kokatat, Werner Paddles, and Sea Kayak Baja Mexico. Great prizes include: PFD (life jacket) from Kokatat, Fiberglass paddle from Werner Paddles, Kids paddle from Werner Paddles, "This is the Sea" action kayaking DVD, Gift Certificate for 1 free day of classes the following week, and more. Race entry fees for 16yrs & up are $100 pesos, for 15 yrs & under $50 pesos.

Competitions are important for providing local impetus for paddling. Paddling for recreation is not traditionally part of the culture, but competitions of any sort are well understood. Last year, a kayak race was held as part of the National Park Days in Loreto. Such competitions serve to raise awareness of the park, and the recreational opportunities that the waterfront provides. In other Baja cities, competitive paddlesports have raised an interest in paddling among young people, and Loreto hopes to do the same. Good prizes really drive the competitive participation!

Kayak Courses happen the week after the Festival Weekend, October 25-31. Full day and multi-day courses are offered, from beginner classes to Leader and Coach certifications. British coach Phil Hadley, Dutch coach Axel Schoevers, and American coaches Jen Kleck and Matt Nelson, in addition to Ginni Callahan, will run the courses. There are still spaces available in almost all the courses. Discounted lodging is provided by Hotel Tripui, and local transportation by the university. Special permission from the Park has been granted to use private, non-registered kayaks for classes during the event.

A special National Marine Park Tour in the National Marine Park is offered during the symposium by the original Loreto outfitter,Paddling South. October 22-31. This trip includes a special presentation by the National Marine Park about the incredible biodiversity of the area.

Loreto, Mexico. The original Mission to the Californias, and the first capital of the state of Baja California Sur. Now, site of the first Sea Kayaking Symposium in Baja. Still making history!

Loreto Kayak Symposium symposium link

For more info about sustainability in the Loreto area, visit:
Grupo Ecologista Antares
National Marine Park of Loreto Facebook Page

from my garden to your computer screen

2010-09-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Writing while eating dinner. It’s one way of sharing a meal.

So here goes. Mashed red potatoes from my garden. Nice and peppery. Served on an orange plate with white polka-dots from my friend Diana. Slaw with all kinds of vegetable matter—cabbage, 4 different colors of carrot (red, orange, yellow, and white), green onions, celery and parlsey. All from that good ol’ garden, except for the light balsamic vinaigrette dressing. And to top it off, 2 lamb chops the tenderest you can imagine, raised just down the road at Greyfields Farm, and cooked up with garlic and rosemary from guess where? I love my garden! I pulled it all out this week so I could cover it with tarps and leave for Mexico. Otherwise there won’t be a garden when I come back in June, just Very Tall Weeds.

Meanwhile the Raspberries are in overdrive (almost a gallon this evening!). They are determined to see that I get my garden time each day despite having ripped out everything rippable and trying to focus on packing to leave. Just try to rip out determined raspberries! They are related to blackberries, after all. They have the same last name. I bet if I didn’t dig back their imperialist roots and cover the shredded ground with metal roofing or heavy tarps with cinder blocks on them, within 2 years they would have my whole 50’x100’ garden in their prickly grasp. But their plump heavy berries are a joy, and delicious. I think they are trying to tell me that they will miss me.

To do a few things and do them well. To take good care of the things I do have, whether it’s a tool or a garden or a motor vehicle (they may not look like much, but both the car and the truck have over 200,000 miles on them and still run well most of the time). This is one of the tenets of my deepest beliefs. To take care of and appreciate what one does have. What happens when the projects pile up, all worthy, but just not enough time or energy in one human to give them all the quality time they deserve? Well, I suppose one downsizes or one goes insane. Talking to raspberries, does that qualify as insane yet?

Family Time

2010-04-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Skiing in powder is insanely fun! The locals said today was the best day of the season. Lucky me to catch it on my second day skiing in 15 years! It snowed about a foot overnight and continued to snow without much wind through the day. Sometimes we could see blue sky between the clouds. I skied with Mom & Dad on intermediate slopes while my sis went for the gnarly stuff. We met up after a couple hours and I went with sis on some blue-black runs through the trees. Yeah! It was absolutely beautiful, with the snow on the tree branches. We rode the long lift to the top of the ridge, above the trees, but couldn’t see much because it was snowing kind of hard at the time. The world was white. Still, what a feeling up on the top of the country, near the continental divide, with a couple of planks on my feet to ride down the mountain.

My sis is a marvel to watch on her tele skis. Ballet on powder! When she gets going, her legs disappear into the snow. After one steep run where I did a lot of conservative back and forth and she just danced down the hill, I told her that she may be more graceful, but I got in more mileage. : ) I like hangin’ out with my sis.

Sis also has a 6 month old baby. Zoe is 6 months old and can do the magic reappearing cheerio trick. Here are some of her top tips. Grasp “O” and raise it to mouth. Pretend to miss the mouth so you can slobber sticky saliva all over your hand. Try again, but this time, open your hand and slide the O onto your sticky palm. Look at the O on your open palm in surprise, flip your hand over and back again and it’s still there! Wave one hand across the other a few times just to distract your audience. Mash the O and your open palm against your face a few more times because it brings such good laughs. Be sure to slobber on both sides of both hands in the process. Cross and wave your hands some more so that the O switches from the front of one hand to the back of another. Switch a few more times, then knock the O off completely and raise up your empty hands! The disappearing O! Your audience thinks this is the end, but in secret collaboration with your granddad, you have prearranged the real finale. HIS hand opens up to reveal the magic O! Grab it and shove it masterfully into your mouth.

It was great to hang out with family for a week and play in the snow together. Thanks Mom, Dad, Donna, Sandi and Zoe!

Aussie shark stories

2010-04-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

At Sally’s party, some of my new paddling mates were talking about shark attacks on kayakers. That is casual conversation among Aussie paddlers.

Rob told stories of a kayaker meeting a rower on the sea and the rower asking if the kayaker had been seeing all the sharks along the coast. The kayaker had not, but then kayakers look forward and the sharks normally follow the slowest member of a group, waiting for their chance to pick off the weak ones. The rower was of course looking back all the time, so he saw them. I think I’d rather be looking forward!

Aussies kayakers are mostly unbothered by sharks. Its crocks they fear. When sharks taste a kayak, or for that matter, a human, they usually bite and let go. Crocks actually have humans on the menu. Crocks hunt intelligently and will stalk kayakers and campers.

One kayaker unknowingly camped in the company of a large crock who emerged from the mangroves shortly before dark. She’d heard that a fire will stave off a hungry crock, and quickly gathered all the driftwood she could find on the tiny island. She lit a fire, and the crock backed away. As the fire died, it advanced again.

She set her watch for an hour, and stoked the fire every hour through the night. Each time it died down, the crock was a little closer. She launched early the next morning.

Approaching a cove the next afternoon, another crock bigger than her kayak trailed her. It began nipping at the stern. She made a beeline for the shore, jumped out, and ran up a hill. The crock chomped onto the stern of the kayak and thrashed it about for 15 minutes or so before deciding it was inedible while on land. It retreated to the water where it set to pacing from one side of the cove to the other. All afternoon.

The kayaker got her sat phone from the kayak and called in a motor boat pickup to end her trip. When the motorboat came the next morning, the crock was still pacing.

Crocks have historically eaten aboriginals, and vice versa. The most respected were crock hunters. Now, without the aboriginals controlling the population to the same extent, there are more and bigger saltwater crocks than in remembered history.

The only people allowed to kill crocks are aboriginals. One man was camped with friends on an island, and a crock pulled the friend from his tent in the night and began chomping on him. The man’s 60-year old mother leapt to his aid, jumped astride the crock and started clubbing it. The crock turned on the mom, so the aboriginal man shot it. They called in emergency services. On the sandy beach a crew set up a makeshift aid station, using the dead crock as a table to keep the medical tools out of the sand.

Thankfully for me, crocks reside on the northern, more tropical part of Australia, and not around Sydney where I was paddling. Neither did I see a shark. But then, I tried not to look back too much.

More road adventures

2010-02-20T16:24:00.000-08:00

Feb 9, 2010 7:00am, sunrise in La Paz, Mexico. Ginni leaves Paradise, the hotel. She heads north to Punta Coyote to pick up kayakers. She drives an old pickup truck and trailer with a cooler full of lunch and beer. She leaves the highway on a marginally paved road towards San Juan de la Costa, then turns off on a dirt road towards San Evaristo. Trip odometer reads 245.5 miles at 7:39am.

At mile 245.8, she crosses the first running water hazard. It’s an arroyo that filled with recent rains and wiped out the road. It was bulldozed back into place, and several culverts were added, all fervently gushing towards the ocean. Refusing defeat, the water still reaches one arm over the road and scratches away.

Mile 246.8, a roadrunner crosses the road, looking cartoonish.

Mile 247.8 7:50am, 2.3 miles into the dirt road, Ginni notices in the mirror that something is askew. The rear upright on the trailer, isn’t. It’s about 25 degrees to the right. Ginni starts laughing, and comes up with yet another use for NRS webbing straps: tying together the trailer.

Mile 249.1 8:00am. The rear upright, again, fails to be. It is nowhere in sight until Ginni gets out of the truck to discover she has turned the trailer into a road grader by dragging the upright horizontally down the washboard dirt road. Ginni stops laughing. She is 3.6 miles into a 53 mile round trip on the corrugated thoroughfare. This new trailer configuration poses some technical difficulties for carrying kayaks back to Loreto, but there is time to figure that out. She straps the stantion flat to the frame of the trailer with more NRS straps, and drives on. She considers naming the trailer Humpty Dumpty, since it has just left a welder’s shop for the 3rd time in a year.

Mile 265 9:00am. First visual connection with Punta Coyote. Gigantic splashing out towards Isla Espiritu Santo of a breaching humpback whale. It repeats several times.

Mile 272 9:45am. Ginni arrives at Punta Coyote where there is a group of happy Dutch kayakers, but no welders. No matter. A little rearranging, more straps, and the trailer serves for 2 kayaks. The other 5 fit on the truck.

The kayakers pack up, help load the kayaks, have lunch, and the taxi arrives at noon. Ginni and the kayakers part ways knowing that the taxi can get the kayakers to the hotel much faster than the trailer is going to be moving back down this road. The kayakers thoughtfully leave some beer in the cooler as consolation in case the mechanical situation should worsen.

Mile 272 12:15pm. Ginni leaves Punta Coyote right behind the van. After the first curve, she never sees it again, nor even its dust.

Mile 283 1:10pm. Break for strap adjustments and a cold beer for the road. Why not? 10mph with nothing out here to hit except bumps, which are unavoidable, and still 2 hours before the highway. Ginni begins writing scenic descriptions and describing colors in the mileage log. “stripes of peach, jade, mahogany, brick. Sphinxes, melting pyramids, tan running into green.”

Cacti pass slowly. Distant colorful mountains hardly pass at all.

Eventually she writes,” I like being here driving mellow through the desert. No hurries. I can write whole sentences before looking to see if anyone is coming or if I’m still on the road or should bother to steer.” If one could read the handwriting through all the bumps, that’s what it might say. But it might also say “in that last herd of burros was a gray one with a cute face and long furry ears.”

Mile 296 2:14pm. There is easy road access to a sandy beach with shade huts just north of the mining pier of San Juan de la Costa. A future takeout for the kayakers? “If it’s an alternative to driving this road,” writes our heroine, “I can begin to see the scenic beauty in a mining operation.”

Mile 298.5 2:25pm Pavement! 3:00pm Highway 1! Now, just 5 more hours to Loreto.

Life: it’s not always the adventure you planned on, but it’s always an adventure!

The grace of learning

2010-02-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

Like kayaking, martial art has a lot of great life lessons hidden in it.

The forward stroke and some basic martial art moves look simple. You can make one happen on your first try. To do them well, in a way that won’t hurt you in the long run, in a way that aligns bones and forces and realizes your full potential of power, takes time to master, and in the end there is no end; you can refine and improve as long as you’re willing.

I took a brief introduction to a movement-meditation art and found the exercises quite relaxing. But I also got a lot more out of the experience than just the exercises: some professional perspective as a coach, and some personal insight.

Learning takes humility.

Learning takes patience.

Learning can be uncomfortable.

To teach well you must learn from your student. It’s an interaction—observe, listen, process. Demonstration and talking are a small part of teaching.

To a learner, it is difficult to assimilate many corrections at once. Some can, but it’s generally better to give 1 or 2, and then encouragement and practice.

Stop your student immediately if something they’re doing is going in the wrong direction. Better to change the exercise than allow damaging practice.

Tradition in teaching, and even bureaucracy has its reasons, but there is also a place for exceptions, and experimenting.

Power comes from alignment. It’s more about awareness than muscle.

Life is an experience of the spirit. The body is just a vehicle for the trip and a tool for learning awareness.

Mag Bay exploration

2010-01-21T19:52:00.001-08:00

From a hilltop on southern Magdalena Island I could see a tide rip going out the mouth of the bay. A “V” of white breaking waves in a 4-mile expanse of textured blue. That was all the inspiration I needed to scramble down the hill and hop in my kayak.

The break was inconsistent and kind of small, but the water was so clear I could watch fish passing through the waves below me, and see the markings on the deep rock that made the first wave. I had some fun surfing, then went to explore the colorful coast and flirt with offshore rocks.

The swell forecast was 6-8’ from the NW. When the waves pressed themselves up against a vertical, barnacle-covered wall, the water level rose and fell about 15’, making impressive cascades. I found a sliver of beach at the base of a cliff, deep in a channel of rocks, waited out the sets, and landed, just because I could. Then launched again and explored until I got to a small sea lion colony.

It was satisfying to be on the sea, exploring a new place, in my own world of saltwater and rock and spray and primal noise, and rhythm and light, but there was a piece of the puzzle missing inside. Not that the space needed to be filled. However, if it were to be filled, there was just one match. At that moment, he was probably welding on a sailboat in Guaymas. So I paddled on and let the space of the puzzle piece be filled with light, like the gap below the underwater arch where the sunlight pierced green water and waves pushed through to fill the grotto and lift me up.

By the time I returned to camp, I had a plan. Steve, owner of Mag Bay Tours, was directing the setting up of a new seasonal whale watching camp on the southern tip of Magdalena Island. I was there to scout the area for a potential training camp for adventurous kayakers and see if we couldn’t put our efforts together to make some magical trips and mutual economic benefit. The plan I had in mind at the moment was more immediate, however.

I wanted to cross the mouth between the 2 islands, an expanse of 4 miles according to Steve. Then sleep on the other side and return in the morning. All in the name of research and exploration of course.

I set out at 4pm with a couple bologna sandwiches, some fruit, 3 liters of water, a sleeping mat, a sleeping bag, and some safety items. I didn’t have a chart of the area, but didn’t really care.

Fifteen minutes into the crossing, a vertical plume of spray caught my eye, and I watched the first whale of the season cross into the bay. I’m sure she was the first. There were others reported to the north, but Steve said there weren’t any down here yet. Besides, it felt like the first. I gave her a welcoming cheer. She put up her tail and disappeared. There was not a single whale watching boat in sight.

The crossing must have been less than 4 miles. Even knowing the wind, tide, and current were in my favor, I made it across too fast. Paddling was fun, so I kept going past my intended landing. And going, and going. Sunset came, painted the water pink, and left. I still wasn’t ready to be a land creature. Some crazy whim said, why don’t you circumnavigate the island?

It is only because I did not have a chart or map that I even entertained this folly. The island is some 50 miles around or better; I just couldn’t see the extent of it. Also there was no moon and some cloud cover, so night paddling in an unfamiliar place with unknown landings and swell was probably not the smartest move. This I knew in my logical brain, but my whimsical brain took control.

I reached the most distant visible point of the island just as dark really took over, having made mental notes of the last workable beaches as I passed them, now starting to navigate by Braille in the featureless blackness. Around the point, a scattering of distant lights surprised me by coming into view. I had no idea there was a village on the island. Another benefit of navigating without a chart—the joy of discovering a new population! Somehow that was enough of a discovery to make me finally content to take the last beach and evolve into a land creature.

The beach wasn’t anything from a postcard. Rough gravel, sharp cobbles, and “hatchet scallop” shells. It had a berm that I believed would be above the especially high spring tide of the night, so I pivoted the kayak up there. Bow, stern, bow, stern, leaving funny marks like commas in the gravel, spaced 16’ apart and marking the uphill progress of a rigid sea monster. Beyond the berm, the beach dropped to a soggy lowland. Luckily, on the berm directly above where I landed was the softest gravel of the entire beach, exactly the size of a body. It wanted only to be leveled. When I did this, the dampness of the gravel underneath gave me some concern about high tide. No matter. I would meet that challenge if it came. I sat and wrote by the light of my headlamp while the gravel dried in the breeze, then put down my bed and crawled in.

The instant I put my head down, the water sounded closer. It always does this, just to tease you. High tide should be sometime between 11 and midnight, so I set my watch alarm for an hour. At least a little sleep before I would have to move. At 9:30 I set it again for an hour. I have been woken up by high tide and a big swell floating my sleeping mat. It’s a weird feeling. I secured everything into or onto the kayak except what I was sleeping in, and had an escape plan. I had dreams of a crazy woman, a guy with a cat face, and big waves all meeting me on this beach in the night. Every hour I checked until half past midnight. Then finally quit resetting the alarm and rested easy.

Five-thirty I was awake. Eventually the horizon started to lighten and stars began drifting off to sleep. I packed up, very reluctantly put on wet paddling clothes, and launched when it was light enough to tell land from sea. My euphoric fantasies of paddling around the island were replaced by better morning judgment, so I paddled back the way I’d come. But it looked new because it was the other direction. Also because there was some light now.

Waterfront cliffs, interesting erosion, and some spectacular wind-sculpted torote trees. The Fanta bottles tied to lobster pots as buoys indicated that I was against the incoming tide, as expected, so I hugged the coast for every micro-eddy I could find. Frigate birds, brown pelicans, and cormorants populated my morning. An osprey shrieked from a clifftop, and a bald eagle watched me approach and fumble for my camera before taking flight too soon. I have never seen a bald eagle in Baja before, but am baffled by what else it could have been. Bigger than an osprey, with the distinct white head and tail. It certainly wasn’t a crested cara cara, which has a different build and beak.

Just beyond the eagle’s perch, I came ashore in the sun to dry out and write some thoughts about trips and life. The eagle never returned, but the sun felt delicious on my back.

On the crossing back to whale camp, I stopped to let a migrating gray whale pass in front of my kayak. What gigantic elegance in simply breathing and moving forward. What meditation there must be in the repetition of this for a few thousand miles. The whale passed with the inertia of a long journey. One panga of tourists was already behind it, and three others nearby. I threaded between the motor boats and headed for shore.

Early Morning Workout

2009-12-13T12:10:00.001-08:00

All are lit by their chosen fire.

Tiny plankton swirl and glow around my paddle. A neighbor down the beach burns a big fire into the morning. His reddened form leans toward the flame as his spirit pulls forth some truth.

Crescent smile among the stars leaves a spotted trail of moondrops on the water that my kayak pierces on its important journey into the next moment. My heart warms to the distant burn that lights that smile and marks my way.

Race

2009-12-13T12:09:00.001-08:00

From Nov 29, 2009

Golden lomboy leaves garnish the high tide line this morning. Some are flat faded hearts, some folded butterflies awaiting their next erratic flight. A mischievous west wind blew them offshore yesterday and in the night they floated back home like paper salmon, spent on the shore. Their nutrients wait to nourish something else.

It was that same mischievous west wind I was cursing multi-lingually yesterday as it carried the dust of Loreto out to sea over the whitecaps I was fighting. The waves I didn’t care about. Nor the salt spray, nor the sunscreen in my eyes, nor the distance from shore, nor the snot streaking across my cheek. The raw spot on my hip rubbing on the kayak seat I cared a little about but not enough to give up the next paddle stroke. I didn’t care about the 7 miles behind me. I cared about the one in front, and particularly about closing the distance between my kayak and Pancho’s kayak before that mile ran out.

It was my first kayak race. It was organized by Pancho as part of Mexico’s National Conservation Week, to highlight the potential of sustainable tourism. Pancho is a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered Baja native with an appropriate dose of Mexican machismo and pride in his blood. We have a little bit of professional history between us, which tends to express itself as competitiveness. All of this I knew as I watched him working those shoulders in front of me. He would die before he would let me pass him. I also knew that if I ever tapped into the competitiveness in my genes, I might become dangerous too. It was ok if I couldn’t pass him this time; I could make him suffer from here just by trying.

The race started on calm seas, with a field of 5 single paddlers and 2 doubles. Pancho and 1 double took the lead. I drafted Pancho for fun, then pulled alongside and started a conversation. The double was a boat-length ahead and the rest of the crew several lengths back. The conversation and the pace were easy. I concentrated on impeccable technique. After a couple miles, a breeze picked up, making it easier to drift apart so the kayaks could respond to the waves without colliding. Then surfing became possible, and steering more challenging since the wind was on the stern quarter. Pancho took the downwind side and I took the upwind line.

To snack, I would catch a wave, grab a boiled egg out of my PFD pocket, and take a bite. I shoved the rest back in the pocket and resumed paddling before the surf ride ran out. This makes for a messy PFD, but that’s a small price. Energy snacks are hard to come by in Baja, so a pre-peeled egg seemed like a good, waterproof, no-garbage option. I tried the same technique for a sip of chocolate milk, but putting the lid back on garnered a brief fumble.

All of a sudden Pancho was turning around. I tried to call to him several times, but either he didn’t hear or didn’t answer. We were still a good mile from El Bajo, the turn around point. I didn’t see the turn-around boat, but figured the park panga that was running beside the group would pull ahead and position itself before we arrived. The backup plan was to turn at the last house. I didn’t realize it was this soon. So I hit the brakes and turned around too, but lost several boat lengths and didn’t get that last good swig of chocolate milk I was counting on before the turn into the wind. No matter. Good technique, and good spirits. Keep the pressure on. A quick glance at my GPS showed that we’d averaged 4.9kts before the turn-around.

Sometimes I thought I was gaining, and would really work the rotation and foot pressure, then look up and not be any closer. Pancho kept looking back and digging in. He never took a swig of water during the whole race. We do sell camelbacks for PFDs here in Loreto, but there’s that professional competition thing, and such a purchase would be supporting the enemy. I love my camelback and consulted it often during the race.

He crossed the finish line before I did, and I was happy for him. In the end I think it was appropriate that he win. When I pulled up to the beach, he was floating beside his kayak, moaning. He managed to raise an arm for a high-five as I glided up. Overall average: 4.4kts.

We waited a good 20 minutes for the next competitors to come in. Meanwhile, Everardo the park director showed some photos he’d taken at the finish. The moment I crossed the line, the small crowd cheered, and I raised my paddle overhead in acknowledgement. A smile came up from deep inside; the joy of being on the water and completing a good challenge. Everardo’s photo captures this sentiment. In his photo, Pancho has the face of agony.

It was a worthwhile experience, and I am satisfied. I’m also hooked. There’s a longer race at the end of January. I think I’ll carry a second camelback of chocolate milk and hope that Pancho hasn’t trained harder than I have.

Dismantling a Centipede

2009-12-01T14:20:00.001-08:00

I returned from a 10-day Carmen Island Circumnavigation to find a 6-inch centipede sunbathing on the dirt of my campsite. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be quite dead. Each plump amber segment had its own pair of blonde legs. A set of ferocious mahogany mandibles folded under the head. A file of miniscule cider-colored ants hustled to and from its body. I let nature take her course and just watched over the next couple of days, stepping around the scene whenever I went to the water tank.

Slowly the ants began deflating the centipede. Segments at the tail end lost their plump roundness, then turned transparently hollow, then broke off one by one and drifted away in the breeze. After three days, the ants still marched on the front half, climbing through the exoskeleton like a jungle-gym. Even the legs became hollow tubes.

I know it’s cliché, but it still amazes me what a focused and united effort of itty bitty critters can accomplish: dismantling a centipede several hundred times their size. Are they consuming it as they go? Do they have a pantry in their basement under my camp especially for centipede jerky?

Their industry and effectiveness reminds me of the best moments of our recent kayak trip. Working together in teams of 4 to move a loaded kayak to the water, two pairs each sharing a strap. Or the synchronized way we packed, sometimes on a moment’s notice to take advantage of a weather window. Somehow we managed to be ready all 10 of us at the same time. Somebody was paying attention to the bigger picture, picking up the little pieces, offering a hand to somebody who was struggling, filling water bottles for all if they were ahead. Good attitudes, good chemistry, aware people. What magic!

I wonder if the ants ever have a discombobulated day, or a few mutinous individuals? Do they have a sense of humor and joke together as they work? Give antennae high-fives as they pass, moving too fast for the human eye to really follow?

After a week, the centipede segments have dispersed, probably lodging under bushes with the dry leaves. The ants still commute their meandering highways through camp, and I’m about to organize another group of kayakers. The wind carries on.

Workouts in Nature’s Gym

2009-11-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

There’s a rocky stair-stepper at the north end of the beach. It’s textured with desert flowers this week and so fragrant that my sneakers are camp air fresheners after a climb. An enthusiasm of grasshoppers explodes ahead of each step. Trailside spiders dine on a vast menu of colorful critters trapped out of air.

At sunrise, between the fresh light on the western mountains and the blossoming glow over the eastern islands, the view from the top is not bad.

There’s a lap pool at my front door. Laps as long as you want. If you don’t mind a few turns, you could lap the world from here. Instead of lane lines painted on the bottom, there are fish to follow, so laps don’t run too straight.

For the paddlesports enthusiast, there are some opportunities too. Here I go on one now. Around Danzante Island before Brunch. Eleven nautical miles, with sunrise on the big screen for my workout entertainment.

Opening scene, starlight with a touch of moon. Glowing specks swirl in the water around each paddle stroke. Reflected moonlight? Fallen stars? Or agitated microscopic sea creatures. The drama of dawn steals the show. Even before the sun walks onto the scene, it reaches up to pinch the bottoms of a few passing clouds, and they blush a gaudy pink. To the west, the sheer craggy wall of mountains reddens in voyeuristic excitement. Gulls laugh from their rocky roosts, and small rays do jumping jacks, popping out of the water to wave their wings before they fall back down.

When the sun sits red on the horizon, the shadow of a paddler follows me along the dappled cliffs of Danzante island. A workout partner for just a moment.

Into Baja!

2009-10-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

Oct 15. Rancho Santa Inez, Cataviña, Baja!

We started this morning under a crescent moon and Venus in the dawning sky. Crossed the border at Tecate mostly uneventfully (only lost one small piece off my trailer and lost John once, but he circled back).

I worried a lot today, about the truck, our progress, our safety on the road… then stopped to remind myself that worrying doesn’t help anything. Enjoy the ride. Take what comes. It will be OK.

The music, the passing hills and plants-- cirio, agave, cholla, cardon cacti, all old friends. The act of driving all day. The delicious solitude of driving alone in my truck with thoughts, memories, feelings all my own.

The warm glow of late evening painted itself on the curious round boulders of the Cataviña landscape as we drove south this evening. Tan boulders high as a cardon’s belly button. Rosy mountains to the east. The shadow of my truck with its kayak top hat and trailer drove through boulders and cacti like a ghost.

I set out my sleeping bag under a spectacular ceiling of stars. Not just individual stars, but the swath of Milky Way, clear as a trail in the wilderness. A trail with distinct puddles of galactic light to skip through.

A couple days ago we did the importation dance. This is necessary to use kayaks for business in Mexico. We crossed the equipment into Mexico through an import broker, met the gear there and got the all-important green documents with which we can bring the kayaks in & out of the country. We hauled them back to the US to load our personal gear, and would resume migration the next morning. As we waited in line to cross back to the US, three cameras in each lane studied drivers from various angles. John explained how biometric technology recognizes points of people’s faces—tip of nose, cheek bones, other unchangeables. Here in Baja, the points are light. The points of a friend’s face. Cassiopia. Cygnus. Delphinus. Recognition, and the warmth it kindles.

I migrate for work. I can make a better winter living as a Baja guide than I can in WA. I migrate for sun. Solar heating. I migrate for Baja. Its landscape, starscape, seas; its people; the energy of the place. I migrate back for trees, the garden, the community of farmers paddlers and friends, and summer work.

All manner of insects are attracted to my headlamp. An iridescent moth lands on my pen and rides for a few words. An orange termite-creature squeaks every time it crash-lands on the paper, my hand, the sand, my face. It whines pathetically when I hold it still to see it better.

For the first time in over a week, I am not sleeping between kayaks at Aqua Adventures, however pleasant that was. I am sleeping between a trailer full of kayaks and a mesquite tree under the stars, to a chorus of crickets, the flatulence of distant truck brakes, and the sound of some large ungulate chewing and digesting indiscreetly in the nearby shrubbery.

Lights come on in the house of the ranching family who runs the campground. John rustles in the tent on the other side of the truck. It’s time to move again. I hold the naked morning to me for one last snuggle, then get up to pack my sleeping bag.

Oct 16.
Landscape from San Ignacio down has been incredibly green! I crested a rise in the road to catch a glimpse of a hand walking across the pavement. No, it was too hairy. A tarantula, silhouetted for a moment against the sky, legs outstretched in an inspired gallop. How had it just missed the 18-wheeler coming the other direction? I straddled it with my tires and sent it a wish to miss John’s tires behind me.

Tarantulas migrate. Follow some irrepressible calling to move in a direction despite perils. Do they ever weigh the relative merits of just staying home this year? Or is it then no longer home if you belong in another place at that time? Does some inner voice just say Move and they do? Does a tarantula pontificate on the risks of travel? Can the chunky little arachnid hear the soundtrack of freedom as it struts through an ever-changing landscape? Does its heart sing as it passes a familiar landmark? Should we consider it lucky, brave, or ignorant as it sets out on its journey? Do I follow a voice any different from that spider, or a gray whale, or an elegant tern?

Migration is a temporary unleashing of the creative mind and heart from the daily duties of running a kayak company, a farm, and a symposium. Those are creative, too, but in a more structured way. My only mandate now is to go south. Be open to the journey. Open the senses. Open the heart. Breathe. Some people take vacations. I migrate.

South of Loreto. Home beach. Sound of wavelets, crickets. Starlight reflecting on water. Bulk of mountains, dark on dark. Comforting and familiar are the bumps and dips on the rough dirt road to get here, augmented by the recent hurricane. New and obnoxious - the glow from Ensenada Blanca development. Comforting and familiar - faithful plants waiting exactly where they were last spring. Reassuring - the lack of any improvement right here on this beach.

How lucky and precious and rare to find this on the shore of anywhere, let alone in the perfect kayak training ground. In So Cal I couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere near the sea to go swimming. Here in “my” spot I can’t find a trace of humanity other than a few rocks I moved to surround some young lomboy plants last winter and the makeshift paddle varnishing rack I found nailed to the mesquite tree, utilized and left.

It’s good to be home again.

You’re not going to believe this.

2009-10-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Starbucks, El Cajon, CA. Waiting for John to return from towing his trailer back to Aqua Adventures and come take me and my trailer back to Ford to wait for Ol’ Blue to get fixed. Again.

I was up at 4am this morning to load the last boxes, send the last emails, and be on the road by 5. Interstate 5 south, east on Hwy 94 towards Tecate, a mellower border crossing than Tijuana. Then Ol’ Blue started sputtering again. Nah, it was a bump in the road. Keep driving. No, it really is the engine. See if it keeps doing it. … Some miles later, the answer is yes. Turn around head back towards the Ford dealership. Thirty miles from San Diego, and it dies at a stoplight in a busy intersection. Refuses to start. A friendly motorist in a pickup truck older than mine drags the truck and trailer out of the intersection while hurrying commuters fly around the scene on both sides, turning left from right-hand lanes and almost bisecting the tow.

An hour later, a AAA tow truck shows up to haul the beast back to the Ford dealership who won’t commit to looking at it without the $98 “look at it” fee, even though the very same thing that they supposedly fixed is happening again.

But, there is a spacious parking lot to shuffle boats and vehicles. A Burger King has a handy rest room. The payphone doesn’t work, but thankfully John’s cell does. There are palm trees, including a fake that is actually a cell phone tower. Best of all, there is a Starbucks with internet access and good snacks.

So, maybe John will get to surf his little kayak in San Diego today, and I will get in another swim. Two days ago I swam from beach to cove and back in La Jolla, which is a 2 mile round trip. It felt great!

I had a funny feeling that today wasn’t a Baja day. Hard to explain these feelings, but they end up being right a little too often. Maybe instead of just listening to these feelings, I could envision things happening how I’d like to see them go, and influence the direction of events. Ok, then. The truck’s problem will be a faulty hall effect sensor, which is the part they installed last week. They will replace it at no charge, and Ol Blue will be healed. We will swim and surf this evening in celebration, and cross the border tomorrow morning past good-natured inspection officers who either wave us through or are satisfied by looking briefly at the paperwork and kayaks. The road will unfold gently before us in scenic and uneventful undulation.

Demo Paddle of a SEDA Ikkuma

2009-10-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Snort! A big wet head popped out of the water just a couple meters from my kayak with a fish flopping in its jaws. The male sea lion and I scared each other about equally. He recovered and chewed his fish to bits among a chorus of gulls.

I watched him over my shoulder, then paddled on south toward Point Loma and the entrance to San Diego Bay. I’d left from Mission Bay a couple of hours before and explored the cliffs along the way. One cave had an open ceiling and a shaft of California sunlight angling in. Another was a tunnel I could paddle through. Along the coast, swells arched up over shallow reefs, but not with enough enthusiasm to break. Most of the time.

Off Point Loma, with San Diego in view, swells broke inconsistently on a reef in a spot called Ralph’s. I didn’t get past here because the little waves were too much fun. A paddle-boarder came through while I played. Skimmed by standing on his board, caught a few small waves inside of me, holding his long paddle horizontal while he surfed. Then he glided away looking tall and elegant.

I sat outside of the break waiting for the perfect bigger set like I’d seen come through when I was too close to shore to ride it. Just one big one, then I’ll head back, I said to myself. Then a boatload of rude young men motored by just outside of me. First someone shouted what a stupid kayaker I was because there was no swell out here. I ignored them. Then they proceeded to practice their best obscene vocabulary words at high decibels, and I admired the gentle sway of kelp in the water. I knew there was no swell in sight, but fantasized about luring them closer to shore by engaging them in conversation. I would be facing the sea, of course, and they would be facing their vocabulary target. I would let the wind and swell gently take me in closer to the point while they laughed and jeered. I would smile, tease, and lead them on a little with my stupidity. Just as the first big swell towered over the broadside of their boat, I would jet my kayak over it and away from the carnage that would ensue. But would I really just paddle away and leave the poor sodden, misguided youth sputtering in the breakers? Well, at least the water’s warm.

Finally they ran out of words and moved away. And the swell came. I rode a nice unbroken shoulder about as high as my head for 50 yards or so. Satisfied and grinning, I began the paddle north. In exactly 2 hours, I was back at the Aqua Adventures dock in my borrowed Seda Ikkuma. Nice boat, really. Only lacks torpedoes.

Lucky 13, or “It’s not always the adventure we planned on.”

2009-10-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

On October 6, 2009, Ol’ Blue my trusty pickup truck, turns 200,000 miles on a CA highway en route to Mexico. Within 300 miles, it breaks down in a rest area 45 miles north of San Diego.

Although this is trip #13 to Baja, this situation is not as unlucky as it sounds. Quite fortunate, really. The rest area where we broke down was ocean front with palm trees. Some people pay lots of money to hang out in such a place! Plus it had functioning payphones.

I called my mechanic back home to trouble-shoot and get advice. I called AAA. I called my friend Jen’s kayak shop, Aqua Adventures, who I was planning on visiting anyway. AAA covered the towing fee for Ol’ Blue to a Ford dealership a few miles from the kayak shop. Jen's partner Jake came through rush hour traffic to get me and the trailer.

John is the husband of a kayaking client of mine. He volunteered to help me drive 6 new sit-on-tops to Mexico. This may have been more adventure than he signed up for, but he took it in stride. During our wait time, we unloaded the boats from his trailer, stuck names and numbers on them, and photographed them. We were just reloading when Jake arrived.

The importation of kayaks and gear to Mexico is taking longer than the truck took to repair, so the truck didn’t cost us any time, just $530. Some people pay a lot more than that for an adventure!

Meanwhile, Jen took us to dinner at an amazing sushi buffet, loaned me a truck to get around, and set me up with internet access and office space. She helped John and me get on the water to explore. So we’ve been generously cared for! All of this underscores to me that flexibility and friendship is at least as valuable as planning. Of course luck, or divine providence, doesn’t hurt either.

Prestegard’s Fix It Shop

2009-05-24T08:30:00.001-07:00

One of the things I like best about being part of a small community is the characters who make it. Last fall I bought a refurbished riding mower from Prestegard’s Fix-It Shop in Cathlamet, WA. I never thought I’d be the owner of a riding mower, but 21 acres of reed canary grass that will grow to 7’ in a summer is way too much grass for a tempermental push mower, and I couldn’t afford a real tractor. The price was good. We pushed it together up the ramps into the back of my truck. Mr Prestegard wheezed and said, “If it gives you any trouble, just give me a holler, I’ll fix it for you.”

It gave Will trouble all winter, as he was caring for the farm in my absence. He finally gave up on mowing. I couldn’t get it to work when I got home, either, so I took good Mr Prestegard at his word and called him yesterday, now that it stopped raining for a while. He said he’d come by today. At 4pm I called to check, and got the best apology/excuse I’ve heard in a long time.

“Oh, I didn’t forget about you; I just forgot.”

There is logic in there somewhere.

“Let me see, I can come out now.” He repeated the directions very carefully. It’s a small town, with not a single traffic light in the whole county, and he had all of 3 turns to make from his shop on the hill to my farm on the island. He was thorough, and enumerated just about every house he would pass on the way.

Good Mr Prestegard is about as deaf as he is forgetful. “Do you live in a mobile home?” He asked.

“No, I live in a barn.”

“You what?”

“I. Live. In. The. Barn.”

“Oh, in the barn.”

He pulled into the drive in an old tan pickup whose engine registered about 3 on the Richter scale, and a matching trailer in case he needed to take the mower to the shop.

He was good. Within 10 minutes of tinkering in my driveway, he figured out the problem and jury-rigged it to run with minimal quirks. We chatted about this and that as he worked. Former owners of my farm are often a favorite topic among the old-timers. Once he got the mower to cooperate, he had an epiphany. Perhaps it was the hands-on connection with the machine that sparked it. He stood up, removed his baseball cap and ran his hand over his bare scalp.

“This is a mower you bought from me.”

“Yup, last fall.” I had mentioned that about 4 times already, each time I called and again when he arrived. More than anything, his comment gave me pause to appreciate the rural small-town-ness of Mr Prestegard’s lawn mower house calls for perfect strangers who babble nonsense over the phone.

He wouldn’t accept payment, but agreed that he liked garlic and kale, so I walked him slow and wheezing to the garden, and pulled him some fresh green garlic and a bag of greens.

“Wow, this is big,” he said of the garden. “She just has a little one up there.” I think he was referring to his wife.

“What happened to your barn?” He asked.

“Time.”

“The siding is gone.”

“The prior owners tried to renovate it, and left it like that.” I really wish I had the funds to renovate it properly, but I simply don’t, so I watch it sag a little more each year.

“That milk room where you live?”

Old-timers recognize a milk-room when they see one, and it made me smile. The dairy processed milk here in years past.

“Looks like it stays cool in the summer.” He added.

“It does.”

Some of our conversation seemed coherent, but I also appreciated the randomness of how he responded more to things he saw around us or to things in his head than to anything I might say. The point was just to be standing in the garden and connecting with another human being.

Mr Prestegard rumbled out the driveway, and I set to mowing the knee-high grass. Ah, a working machine is a joy to use. Even if it is a riding lawnmower.

Freedom

2009-04-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today is the second day of my annual northward migration. So far, so good. Lots to think about, like this common misperception:

The Freedom of the Open Road. Really, the road is quite limiting. It’s just a line from one place to another, through an expansive landscape. When I turn onto the road, I have 2 options: left or right. Or not to go which is then the third option.

Too much freedom is chaos, and that can feel overwhelming, or lonely. Freedom, with its parameters, is usually that I’m looking for. After all, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Freedom ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free. So the song goes.

If I am free on the sea with my kayak, I still need to maintain it and my gear in good order, maintain also my basic nutrition, awareness of the weather and my navigation. I need to have prepared my skills. Without these, I will soon become a floating disaster. Chaos.

Freedom within parameters—the responsibility of preparation and maintenance. This is what I really seek.

The more I have, the less free I am. The more house, property, business, boats, the more responsibility. The more stuff to worry about. There is a balance between having nothing—utter freedom—and having the parameters or tools or toys to pursue that which brings us joy. A boat to go paddling or water skiing or sailing. Work for money. Money for travel. Land to dream with, or farm, or rent, or just mow repeatedly.

How about relationships? Are freedom and commitment compatible? Can a relationship be a parameter within which a satisfying freedom can be found?

Love Eclipse

2009-04-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Venus is the slimmest Mona Lisa smirk in the morning sky. My rickety old telescope has its legs sunk into the sand on a beach in Baja. It also shows me the red face of Mars in close pursuit in the sky, but far off in its true orbit. And Jupiter with its whirling moons, the timings of which first told us skywatchers that light was mortal and had a speed.

The moon has been marching through this lineup this week, getting thinner and thinner like a pilgrim on a diet. Now it smirks the same as Venus, which is a small coincidence since the two are near to sunrise and lie between us and the sun. An hour ago the two were so close together I could barely see Venus, just a comma next to an entire glowing novel.

Now, she’s gone. Venus, the goddess of love, has been eclipsed by the moon. The orange glow of day creeps up stage to steal the drama of darkness.

Today is my last day here at the beach, and I feel the eclipse with a sad heart. Tomorrow I begin the journey back to sleeping inside.

But wait! Look again. As I write this on the tailgate of my pickup truck, listening to the birds of morning and little wavelets on the shore, Venus reappears from the shaded side of the moon! Love returns. Unrestrained celebration in a brilliant point of light! Oh, joy!

Do I still have to pack today?

Overconfidence

2009-04-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

The scorpionfish is an overconfident creature. It has camouflage so convincing that I have been snorkeling nose to nose with one and thought it was part of the rock, until it moved an eyeball. It will venture into water so shallow that you can step out of a kayak onto one. The venom in its dorsal spines is legendary. I once saw someone whose arm was still swollen up to the elbow two days after a puncture on the thumb. I heard about another strong and mature adult male stepping on one and screaming virulent curses upon the fish’s entire lineage, then whimpering for days.

After a morning run today, I waded barefoot into the Sea of Cortez for a rinse, and in water less than knee deep lay a scorpionfish, confident as ever. Thankfully, I saw it. This situation posed an interesting opportunity, with just enough risk to be tempting. The flesh of a scorpionfish is tasty, if you can capture it, kill it, and fillet it without getting pricked by a dorsal spine. That, and I was hungry.

I submerged a 5-gallon bucket in front of the fish, scooped the bucket under its wide head and pushed it in with a stick. All it did was raise its spines. It was way too easy. Too late it realized its captivity and thrashed about in the bucket. The price of overconfidence.

Its head was as hard as a rock. With a pancake flipper I held its spines to the side while trying to stab something vital through the gills with a 6” kitchen knife. Quick stab and pull back while it thrashes. A few times. I felt my adrenaline starting to build, so I walked away. Not a good time to be hasty with those spines flying about. I bathed in the sea and returned to see if the fish was any closer to dead. A couple gulls inquired about the progress. How do they know what’s in the bucket?

The fish thrashed less when I prodded it, and allowed itself to be turned on its side. With the spatula holding it, and my knife hand wrapped in a T-shirt, I began to fillet it in the bucket. I did side B with the fish on the sand. The colors in its skin and tail were beautiful. Greens, browns, oranges all blended in a minute camo.

The second fillet always comes out worse. I left it on a plate while moving 2 steps away to rinse the first one in the sea. This was overconfidence on my part, and I paid in an instant. In swooped a waiting gull and made off with the other fillet! In two midair gulps it was gone. “F*&#$@ER!” I hollered after it. “You stole half my fish! How it got that whole fillet down in one piece, I don’t know.

I had been looking forward to tossing the carcass to the birds. Instead I briefly considered burying it in revenge, but that wore off quickly. A pelican tried to get the wide head and prickly attachments into its bill but couldn’t manage, so the gulls pecked at it and at each other for a while.

Meanwhile, the remaining fillet made two tasty breakfast tacos, and an interesting contemplation on the price of overconfidence.

Easter trip

2009-04-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

April 17 2009

The last trip of the season is over. Eight days around Carmen Island with my friends and clients Sam and Lee. The sea gods smiled on us, for all the windy days were all tailwinds, following us as we rounded the island.

It was a relaxing trip, knocking off the 8-12 nautical miles usually before lunch, and taking time for siesta and exploration in the afternoon. Time too for contemplation and conversation. Time for music and stars and paddling at sunrise.

On day 5 we left Salinas Bay and rode the following seas to the island’s freshwater spring. After a good bath and lunch, we caught some more rides south to the white cliffs that hide a little beach called Arroyo Blanco.

As we rounded the final cliff that Easter Sunday, 5 great egrets took flight from atop the entrance to the cove. Five white angels with long spindly legs and the sun shining through their wings. Up they circled, looking down at us. The purity of their translucent wings, the whiteness of the cliffs, the grace of their flight, balanced between the profound blue of sea and sky, was the perfect Easter song.

Later we walked the arroyo up to a pour-off 40-50’ high, sculpted like modern art in the fossil-laden gray and white rock. Fingers, alcoves, and ledges of the craggy formation have long tempted me to decorate them with candles some still and starry night, and play music until the moon finds me. If I ever have an excuse for some ceremony that can be held on an island in the Sea of Cortez, up an arroyo that requires a little climbing, this is the place. It holds magic.

Today, I carry my flute and play a simple, heartfelt rendition of Amazing Grace beside the fig tree as my reflection on Easter.

Fresh Crab and Warm Tortillas

2009-04-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

I usually plan and prepare the meals for my kayak trips and there’s good reason for this. This week was an exception. I had a custom lesson for a group of 7 plus their 2 leaders—lessons on two levels at once. I welcomed the freedom from the kitchen that they offered so I could focus more on coaching.

Their frugality, resourcefulness, and creativity were admirable and set in my life a new standard for minimalism. They cooked for 10 on a 6” frypan, using a whittled stick as a stirring utensil. A 10-pack of tortillas and an oval tin of sardines was lunch for all. But we all ate equally and nobody complained.

In their defense, they were from Estonia and never had to provision from a Mexican grocery store before. At least they bought lots of tortillas.

Fishing proved fruitless. On day 3, they admitted they hadn’t brought enough food, and went in search of other options. A team came back with 5 small crabs, my friends the Sally Lightfoot, about which I had mixed feelings because I was hungry too. We boiled them and ate them hot out of the water, legs, body meat, and some even crunched on the thin shells.

A sight we made—10 figures huddled over a small pile of brightly colored shells crunching, chewing, twisting, and bashing the joints between rocks. Among the camp detritus of mismatched bowls, half-empty water jugs, and whittled tools, we could have been a primitive tribe sitting on our haunches on the rocks, intent on the minute bits of white meat lodged in a crevice of shell.

The next night was a repeat, but we ate later, after dark. With no fires allowed in the park, our primitive tribe huddled together with our backs to the night and our hands lit by the beams from each other’s foreheads.

The tortillas had begun to mold, so we decided to heat and eat them. We had nothing else to put on them, and everyone was eating their crab directly from the shell, so the random bottle of BBQ sauce that no-one knew what to do with became the spread for our moldy tortillas. It was one of those memorable nights for which the concept of perspective was designed.

We weren’t desperation dining on moldy staples and the only critters we could catch; we luxuriated under the starry Baja sky with friends sharing fresh crab and warm tortillas and memories of a good day’s paddling, complete with dolphins, leaping manta rays, and a humpback whale.

Just in Time

2009-03-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

It was one of those trips that fills the soul. Sometimes an ephemeral magic happens that connects people in a certain place at a certain time in a special way.

A 7-day circumnavigation of Isla Espiritu Santo near La Paz, run by BOA and led by Rafael and myself. Seven clients, including one teen, came together from Ontario Canada, and 4 more, including 2 teens, randomly came from the same town. One gal came from my home state of Washington.

Kayaking in a commercial trip along a desert island is a unique blend of opposites. Wildlife and plants. The populous, wiggly marine life juxtaposes sparse, stoic plants. The geology tells of coming together and ripping apart; of layers building on layers, pink smooth sandstone, red volcanic flows, round brown rocks impossibly holding formation up a cliff. It tells of pushing, tilting, and slowly eroding, making its way into the sea. White sand beaches nuzzle into deep red coves. White sand coming from coral and shells—pieces of the sea washing onto the land.

People. A kayak trip usually self-selects hands-on, outdoorsy, active people. Independent, yet willing to participate in a group and hire leaders.

Anthropology. The ancients left paint on the cliffs, shell piles on the hills, hollows ground into flat rocks, and rock enclosures in the bays. They lived on what they found here. Whole lives. We carry an obscene amount of food and luxury for just 7 days, and get resupplied halfway through. But through some alchemy of grace, we can walk their trails and feel their presence.

It is the balance of opposites that holds tension on the thread on which we spin.

Guides. Rafa likes to sleep late, set no times, and siesta after lunch. He doesn’t mind launching at 4pm and making dinner in the dark. Anytime we get somewhere, we are “just in time”. When will we go? When we are ready. When will we be ready? After we eat and clean up and pack the boats. When will lunch be? When we’re done making it. There is sound logic in this.

I’m a sunrise connoisseur. A pack-in-the-action kind of person. I’d rather chop veggies than sit and watch somebody else do it. I really get excited if somebody wants to learn something like kayaking, stars, plants. I’ll go all day without sitting once.

It is the straining of opposites that frays the thread until it breaks and the spinning beads go bouncing between the floorboards. This did not happen. A light finger on that thread knows when to release its tug and preserve the singing tension. Just in time. Through it all, that ephemeral magic played, and filled my soul.

Wild, Wild Life

2009-03-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

There were sea monsters last night in my dreams. But they weren’t dreams. The moon was more than halfway through its night’s journey and flirting with clouds. The sea, almost still. I lay in my truck on the beach with the back open, awakened by something from the depths. I listened.

PWWWWFT! An explosion of breath, followed by a great gasp. Whale! A big whale, within a mile of shore. Then a smaller breath. Was it the blue whale mom and calf pair? There are now two of those roaming the National Marine Park, according to a number of researchers who are out there daily. We saw one pair cruise by our lunch beach last week, the kayak-long crescent of the baby’s back arcing over the water, and the gigantic mottled grey flank of its mother.

Again a pair of breaths, and a big splash. A splash? It sounded like something very big falling in the water, more than something flat slapping it. A breach? Was there a humpback pair in the area? I hadn’t heard of one. They’re more prone to breaching, and blues are not officially supposed to fling their enormous mass skyward. The biggest animals on the planet should be more sedate.

However, one boat of researchers watched a blue mom and baby blue do just that a couple of weeks ago. The whales had been lounging near the panga motorboat for some time, then suddenly took off speed swimming along the surface, throwing up big wakes, toward another distant blue whale. When the 3 met a few miles away, enormous splashing ensued. Through binoculars, the researchers could see whale bodies launching partway out of the sea and falling back, throwing out great walls of water. It was too late in the day and too far away to clearly document the activity, so the whales got away with their unofficial breaching. Ah, there is much we don’t know about these magnificent sea monsters.

Tonight as well. They are silent, gliding through their underwater world. The next set of breaths is further off, and I can’t hear the inhaling gasp. Again there is a huge splash near the end of the cycle of breathing. They go silent again, making short work of this 4-mile bay. The next breaths are further yet. I am about to let them go from my nighttime thoughts and resume sleep, when I hear a much more impressive splash. Like somebody dropped a house in the water. It’s the longest splash I’ve ever heard in my life. And what followed was even better. A loud and distinct VVVVRRRRR, like something got jammed in the vacuum cleaner. As if the other whale were cheering. It’s the first whale vocalization I’ve ever heard, and it made me tingle.

A guide friend told me once of camping on a beach in western Canada and hearing blues vocalize as they passed close by. The ground vibrated. The next morning, everybody in her group reported feeling and hearing it. Tonight these whales must be about 3 miles off, and the sound is impressive.

I’m talking ‘bout good vibrations, yeah they’re coming from those cetaceans!

Speaking of vibrations, on my way to the out “house” this morning, I crossed 5 snake trails. It’s not uncommon to see one, but 5 is a lot, even for a place called Rattlesnake Beach. After a few weeks of unseasonably warm weather, the snakes are on the move early this year.

In 12 years of guiding, I’ve seen 2 or 3 rattlesnakes on the islands during the kayak season, but last week’s trip doubled that number. Four of us were walking up the plant hike to the overlook on Danzate Island’s southern end. Client Ruedi was in the lead when he screamed and jumped 4 feet into the air. I heard the rattling before he came back down. He had stumbled into not 1 but 2 intertwined snakes. As we watched, they appeared to be competing rather than mating. I’ve since learned that if 2 males encounter a female at the same time, they will engage in a “combat dance” where the male who manages to stand up the tallest for the longest or pin the other to the ground, will win the affections of the watching female. It is rare to actually get to watch this.

We never saw the female in the thick brush, but we didn’t look, either. For a half a hour, the males posed and tumbled down the trail in a ritual both graceful and primal. Sometimes slow and weaving, sometimes reaching too high and falling over, sometimes lightning fast spinning maneuvers. The snakes were 4-5’ long, and one had 12 rattles. They stood at times about 2’ high.

We left them still posing, though not as tall as initially, and one appeared to have taken the upper, uh, tongue? Still the other wouldn’t give up. Client hunger drove us back to the beach and we left the snakes to their rituals.

Rising Jupiter

2009-03-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

By the light of a rising Jupiter the day begins. The sound of waves tripping over themselves comes like a chorus of disorganized voices, one here, one over there, each singing their part without a common rhythm.

I want to paddle but I also don’t. It’s not the lumpiness that’s bound to be out there that holds me back so much as the lumpiness inside. I have LoCo Roundup on my mind, and am frustrated that my energy seems wasted in trying to organize a functional database by trial and error. The days available to work on it are winding down, and I want something to show for all the time invested. In relationships, I am also floating on a rogue current without orientation or direction. Trips will resume soon, and that will give me purpose and direction, but I also feel anxious because I will have time for nothing else like laundry or personal balance. Whatever that is!

The horizon behind Danzante’s sleeping form is glowing. The sun has made its night’s journey. Last night after sunset, its trail still glowed into the stars. A column of side-lit space particles. Beside its trail, the moon and Venus followed obliquely. Two crescents visible together in the locator on my telescope. While I watched, they passed each other. The bottom of the smiling moon at first just a smidge below the planet, and at touchdown, noticeably above.

I carried my beat-up old telescope to a friend’s camper, but they weren’t in. So I watched the sky for a while, watched the pair of evening crescents descend, the craters on the moon dancing as it settled deeper into the atmosphere. Turned and focused on Saturn, now a beautiful zero—a fat circle with an angled line across. The furthest member of our solar family visible to the naked eye.

Now Mercury rises, chasing Jupiter. Three days ago, Mercury led the charge; this morning Jupiter has a good lead. Mars should be coming soon, to make a full serving of visible planets in one night. I get the telescope from under the mesquite tree and look through the locator. No, that trick of the eye is a planet. I was wrong. They’ve switched places and Mars now chases Jupiter while Mercury falls back into the orange brightness of morning.

How can tiny points of light be so exciting? I don’t know. But I do find comfort in the elegant sky drama. Dawn reveals the noisy waves as miniscule, and it makes me smile to see how silly my anxiety has been. Another day is being unwrapped as the gift it is, and I will go enjoy it.

Rock and spirit

2009-02-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

The weighty, slow transience of rocks. The airy permanence of spirit.

A gull preens on the waves in front of camp. Bobs, dips, shakes. Wades shoreward to stand in knee deep breakers on yellow pencil legs. Its triangle feet fold with each step as it walks to a standing place, face into the wind.

A hole in the busy-ness. Not a lack of things on the never-ending list, but something I’ve dug for myself today. How shallow it seems for all the “have to do” I’ve piled around it. Of course they are all choices.

This morning whitecaps tumble by 100yds offshore, but don’t come in. Not a leaf trembles in the mangle dulce bushes. Castle mountains rise almost vertical in the west, reaching for a setting, waning moon. Cold night air pours down their striped and fluted walls, meets the incoming wind, and holds it off the beach. They hold each other in a tender sunrise balance broken finally by the warmth of the sun. Breezes sputter to the shore and start to play with my camp things. I sit and watch it happen.

Another morning I launch alone just before 6am. The crescent moon rises fuzzy behind eastern clouds. Arcturus, Spika, and Antares disappear behind a veil. Bioluminescence glows in my bow wake and around each paddle stroke. Sometimes the blade of my Greenland stick comes out of the water entirely glowing. I hear a big splash behind me and a snort; a sea lion follows for a few minutes.

Clouds have a hint of light behind them as I pass the southern end of Danzante Island about 7am. A small ray leaps out of the water as if to check on the progress of sunrise. Pelicans cover Submarine Rock and somebody fishes out of a skiff nearby as I head out for Carmen Island. There is no wind and only the most subtle swell. Below clouds, Isla Santa Cruz is clear on the distant horizon. A far boat trails black smoke as it passes between Monserrate and Santa Catalina Islands.

Somehow the names are a comfort. I know where I am because I know what the map says that island is. I have a place in the universe because I know what other people call that star. Blue footed boobies and brown boobies in groups of 2 or 3, circle overhead before moving along. Trying to figure out a name for me, this funny yellow island with the windmill in the middle. But they probably don’t need names to feel at home.

I take a 15 minute break on Punta Baja, scolded by two pairs of yellow legged gulls, then push off for the northern tip of Danzante Island. A kayak group awakes to breakfast on park beach CN27, put I pass far offshore. A light breeze ripples the water. The sun never really rose; it slipped unnoticed over the horizon and is walking about wearing clouds today. Despite a slight NW breeze, an opposing current pushes me gently into it, and I drift north.
Around the northern tip of Danzante, rafts of little grebes float together. Another small ray leaps. This kind is called a mobula. Thousands of them flock together just below the surface around the whole NW end of the island and into Honeymoon Cove. I drift and watch them flap slowly. An undulating carpet. Wingtips break the surface here and there.

Like little peeks into a dimension where it all becomes clear. Like I sit in the shade of a mesquite, squinting at my computer screen, wondering which is the purpose of what, or if it’s all just about being present wherever now happens to be. How to stay in that mindset and run a kayak company, or any other endeavor that requires forethought?

It’s all a matter of perspective, really. Again I slide towards the eastern horizon which is still as dark as the whole circle of sky. The Mountain Man is hard to discern this morning. He’s a cartoonish character with his round head tilted back, a bulbous nose, and a wide open mouth. He aligns with Bird Poop Rock when I’m halfway to the southern tip of Danzante Island. Today Bird Poop Rock is more of a looming feeling than a visual clue. A low bright star east of Crux slides along the southern horizon as I paddle. Nearer and nearer to the Mountain Man comes the star.

“I’ll feed you a star,” I proclaim.

“AHHHHH,” he replies

I paddle faster until the star aligns with his open mouth. It all feels so close in the darkness. The Mountain Man is family. The star could be the song just sung, lingering as a perfect point of light. It could be a golden-red apple ready to fall into the maw.

“Eat it!” I say. Nothing. The star slides onward. “Get it! Gulp it!”

Mountain Man yawns passively at the sky as the star slides up his nose.

Isla Santa Catalina

2009-02-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

Once in a while a journey comes along that shows us what we’re made of. My solo paddle to Isla Santa Catalina February 2009 was one of those trips. The most remote island in the Bay of Loreto National Marine Park, its specter on the horizon has long haunted me, but I’ve lacked the time and fortitude to make the double crossing out to it, with Monserrate Island as a midway point in what would otherwise be a 24-mile crossing.

Opportunity arose this week: time and a reasonable weather window. I also just caught a good cold from my business partner, but that would have to wait for later on my schedule, because I had decided to go to Catalina.

I did errands by day, packed in the evening, and launched from my camp on Rattlesnake Beach at about 9pm. Night paddling is one of my favorite things. The tranquility, the focus, the simple profundity that those points of light up there are distant suns, and all the potential that opens. The way the water moves and you feel it through the boat, and other senses that awaken with the limiting of sight. The citrus scent of torote on the cool breeze that comes off a hillside.

By 11pm I’d moved out of home turf to Puertecitos, a coastal beach I’d visited a handful of times. I could camp here or push on to Monserrate Island. Fighting a sore throat and unsure if I’d make it there before the moon set, I opted to camp on the coast.

I landed and lugged the heavy boat up the beach by picking up one end and pivoting it uphill, then switching ends until I’d walked the boat above the high tide line. After stomping the small cobbles beside it until they were relatively flat, I fell asleep until 4:30. There’s something about an adventure that wakes me up in the morning ready to go. With some spoonfuls of mango yogurt, an orange, and a pre-boiled egg in the gas tank, the yellow kayak and I pushed off into the darkness. The moon had set and bioluminescence sparkled spectacularly with each paddle stroke. A whale breathed somewhere behind me. Scorpius looped its great tail into the glowing heart of the milky way. Oh, beautiful world, I’m on my way to the islands! Paddling under cover of dark feels like you’re getting away with something. The sun is sleeping, and when it wakes up and finds you, look how far you’ve come!

By the time the yachters’ net crackled on the radio at 8, I’d been circled by a huge manta ray and was within spitting distance of Monserrate. I kept paddling to the east side to make the next crossing as short as possible. On a half-shaded beach I kept the veggies in the boat cool while drying my wet clothes and self in the sun. Naked and barefoot on the firm wet sands of Monserrate, eating mango yogurt with the sun on my back. Not a bad way to live.

Two hours later, I pushed off for the Promised Land. Paddle an hour, stretch, snack, resume. Calm seas and gentle swell, light breeze. To the north, a panga and a blue whale. Tall column of grey against a pale horizon, count to 4, then a detonation—the delayed exhale of the biggest animal on the planet. Just me, a distant boat, a whale, and a whole lot of water. It’s amazing how much water is out here.

Monserrate wouldn’t go away. I paddled for an hour and it was still there, just behind me. The dissonance between insecurity of leaving it, and frustration at how slowly it faded. I guess it’s like anything—to find a distant shore you must leave one behind, with all the excitement and hesitation that conjures.

Watching distant islands crawl across the horizon. Making up songs, singing loud. The euphoria of being more than halfway! Then the eternal last hour. Catalina was right there, I just couldn’t reach it.

Touchdown 2:40pm, 20 mins ahead of projected time, and a couple miles south of anticipated landing. The current was pushing me that way, and a north wind picked up, so I went with them. I picked a beach, landed, and immediately fell in love with the clean granite cobbles at the shore. This speckled salt and pepper stone is different from the other islands. Cooing doves welcomed me to the place.

Wet clothes drying on the beach, I marched up the closest hillside with sandals, camera, and a bamboo pole I found on the beach so I could fend off the endemic rattle-less rattlesnakes that hide under every shrub on Catalina. I never did find even one. Giant barrel cacti are another endemic, more visible to your everyday nakedkayaker tromping enthusiastically about on a new island. I tried to pose with one. I set the timer, left the camera on a rock, and thought I’d run behind the cactus, stick my arms out to the sides and peek over the top. The first attempt showed a just a cactus with a crescent moon off to one side.

A black plastic crate conveniently washed up on the beach to become my cooking table. I arranged it in front of the perfect sitting rock and presto—a kitchen! Top chefs for miles about clamored for just such a spread.

Triangulation and a chart based on 1800s datum placed me in the middle of the west side of the island, and I felt sure I was further south. Circumnavigation the next day would prove my hunch right; this beach was within 2 miles of the south end of the 10-mile island. Paddling the next day would put me literally into uncharted territory, as the island has just dashed lines indicating no solid data for the east side; just a coastline there somewhere. The research vessel that did the charting and soundings had made one pass between Monserrate and Catalina Islands, about in the middle of the 12MN gap. Two hundred forty-nine fathoms deep where I crossed is darn deep, and kept my mind occupied for some time during the crossing trying to figure out in my head how many feet that would be. Sometimes being slow at math is a bonus. I also looked for the numbers in the water as a milestone, but saw nothing but peaceful green water with little tiny krill swimming in the vastness.

Little mouse in the night, are you one of the Catalina endemics? Trotting lightly across my shoulder, munching in the organic trash bag on the kayak deck? I see your brown backside as you scamper away. You’re bigger than the mice I’ve seen on Danzante and Carmen Islands.

Doves heralded sunrise, and were welcome. Sinus pain and difficulty breathing plagued my night and I finally resorted to the detested childhood remedy—gargling with hot salt water. It’s always an indication of how bad I’m feeling if I’ll actually do it. Indeed, I got out of the warm sleeping bag, reassembled the stove, unpacked the pot and mug, and brought them all back to my nest to prepare the remedy. Now, where to find some salt water?

No radio reception on the water from Catalina, so I didn’t catch the daily yachters’ net. I began a clockwise circumnavigation at 8am, tucking into each cove to inspect beaches, poke into sea caves, and savor the shade of cliffs. Three whales breathed in the distance near another panga as I climbed the NW corner. Lines of pelicans cruised by, usually in odd numbers. Do they count? “Hey, we need another bird for this formation before we’re cleared for takeoff!” Twice, the formation included 11 pelicans and a brown booby. Flight inspector?

Around the north tip, the sea was calm enough to shoot through the rocks, between preening pelicans who didn’t even look up at my passage. Three male sea lions snoozed in the water, hoisting their flippers in the air as dive flags. Three more males lounged on a rock. All the frigates I saw are females. I caught up to a leisurely pod of dolphins as we were both rounding the odd fan of gray cobble on the NE side. They continued on as I stopped for a lunch break of pre-rolled bean burritos.

I picked a tiny beach with just enough shade to sit up in, and this time it’s me I’m keeping cool. Let the veggies roast. The bobos found me immediately. Where did they come from? There’s nothing here but rock. The little bugs don’t bite, but they walk with remarkably heavy feet over every inch of skin, showing preference for facial features. Choices are to accept them, or to go nuts. Or to leave the beach, which I wasn’t ready to do yet. I ate the burritos with one hand and waved them off with the other. Finally, I leaned back into my rock alcove, resigned to accepting the buggars. With a protective arm across my eyes, I let them have their way. The bobos had carnivals, they procreated, they ran marathons, they had sing-alongs. They hosted revival meetings and danced in circles. I wonder if it tickles the earth this much when we walk around?

Dolphins again, coming back towards me once I’m on the water. Animated this time, leaping, tail slapping. One cruises close enough to see it in the water. Along the SE edge of Catalina, the sea caves were marvelous. One had a blow-hole that would consistently go off 4 times in quick succession, then pause. I paddled around the south end where I’d expected to camp, but didn’t feel like it. Low tide left big slimy cobbles along the shore, and the beaches just didn’t feel right. A few minutes around the corner and back up the west side, the perfect beach slid into sight—sand even at low tide! Small cobbles up higher for camping! A cliff that provided all-day shade! A great arroyo for hiking! Looks like home.

While looking for a fresh camera battery in the morning, I discovered I’d packed the hand-crank radio-flashlight in the extra battery bag. Not a bad idea since both my headlamps are on the fritz. I cranked it up and scrolled through the am stations. There actually were some. Music, too. Ode to Joy, of all songs. I often play this one at sunrise on my flute as a wake-up call. I didn’t know it had words. And I didn’t know the words were in Spanish! How appropriate—Ode to Joy for sunrise on Catalina Island, on a trip I’d not brought my flute on, but the music found me anyway.

What I did pack for this trip was 11 days worth of food and water, which makes a remarkably heavy boat. 34 liters (3 per day) of water, 12 raw eggs, 6 boiled eggs, a variety of veggies that keep well, and bags of dry food. The trip ended up only taking 4 days, plus the night paddle before and the morning I didn’t want to leave Danzante to go home and clean up. But with the uncertain February winds, having the means to stay put and wait them out was my safety plan. Five days of wind too strong to paddle a long crossing in isn’t unheard of around here.

I climbed the nearby ridge to try the radio at 8am, and actually got reception! More surprising, was somebody heard me, too, and relayed my data. I felt connected. Voices from home. How nostalgic a person can get with 2 days and a lot of seawater under the hull. I wandered about photographing cacti, and eyed a good hike up to a peak. I carried my trusty snake stick, camera, and tied my water bottle around my neck. This was probably the riskiest activity of the whole trip—wandering about in steep terrain over loose rocks in cactus and rattlesnake country—wearing sandals. Eleven ravens circled about, following my progress, chortling, swooping, glistening in the sun. I had to admit they were worthier beings, and more adapted to this terrain than I.

The summit offered rewarding views of the whole south end of the island, plus tempting other islands as well. When I returned to the beach, the north wind was up to about 12kts, and I didn’t feel like fighting it. Tide was going negative, and the waterfront cobbles were bound to be slippery at most other beaches, so I delayed the plan to move up the island, and read a book, “Almost an Island”. At low tide I crabbed my way around the rocky headland just to have a look.

Eventually the tide began to fill in and the wind began to lay down a little. I scrambled some eggs for dinner, packed up, and paddled into the choppy waves until sunset when I found a beach that had the right feel to it and would make for a shorter crossing in the morning. I hopped around on the cobbles taking photos as the sun went down, then set up camp for sleeping. The smallest cobbles were fist-sized, but they must have been comfortable enough, for I was asleep in moments.

I awoke at 3:30. Clouds were sparse enough to use moonlight for paddling, and the wind was still down enough to give it a shot. However, the wind had turned west in the night, and it didn’t take long for it to begin building. I was headed straight into it. Whitecaps started to hiss around me. The moon shied in and out of clouds. In a much less graceful pattern, my kayak plunged into and through waves. This wave plunging tends to slow a boat down. Every few strokes it felt like I had to get the whole thing moving again, and there was no glide to the action. I leaned hard onto the paddle.

I followed the moon until it set. Leo was the next constellation poised over the western horizon, so I followed Leo for a while. It just happened to be midway between the lighthouse on the south tip of Isla Monserrate, which I could see once I was a couple miles off Catalina, and the glow from the lights of Loreto, which I was dismayed to see soon thereafter. Afterglow of the moon dissipated and the night grew deliciously black. Scorpius hooked his tail into the milky way behind me. Saturn followed Leo down towards home. Waves grew to 2-3feet. In their breaking hiss, bioluminescence sparkled by about head high. As the boat plunged through waves, sea sparkles washed over the deck and onto my skirt. So enchanted was I, that even though I was singing songs like, “The sun will come out…tomorrow”, I didn’t want it to break the spell of lights cavorting in the darkness.

The horizon did begin to glow, and the dimmer stars faded. I found myself worrying, in a strange twist of logic, how I would know where I was going if I couldn’t see Leo.

The sun did come up. I saw Monserrate Island in front of me, and a giant manta ray thrashing around on the surface. Slowly I limped towards the island, having tweaked an old muscle injury over my right ribs by powering through the night waves. I would discover later when I looked at my hands, that despite the fact that I paddle for a living and have been working out by paddling lately, I also earned 5 blisters on that crossing.

Eight o’clock and I was still plugging away. A down & dirty triangulation lining up land forms and relating them to the chart put me at about 2 miles off the NE tip of Monserrate. I turned my radio on for the yachters net and held it in my teeth as I kept paddling. “And that’s all on the tides” was the first snippet I heard, which meant I’d missed check-ins and the weather. I keyed the radio and called in “Kayak Baja” sure nobody would hear me. Somebody did. They relayed my message and said the weather looked good for today. After that exchange, I only caught snippets, but it was still comforting to hear voices from home.

I passed the first landings by a couple of miles and pushed on to the NW tip of Monserrate. I’m a chronic “do it now and get it over with” person, but probably should have stopped at the first beach and rested. By the time I got where I was headed, 14.5miles upwind from my early morning launch, I’d completely lost my sense of humor. Autopilot made cheese and avocado burritos, shoved them in my mouth, and then fell fast asleep on the hard sand.

I woke 30 mins later, still sniffly and coughing with my cold, but feeling significantly better. I even forgave the wind a little bit. After which it relaxed somewhat. I switched back to the Greenland paddle and made myself promise to go slow and easy. Whales in the distance helped pull my spirits along. I was enjoying being on the sea, and Danzante looked reassuringly far away. The wind died and left gently undulating water. Then a breeze picked up from the other direction, as if too much wind had accidently blown that way and had to come back. A churning line of white in the new upwind direction worried me until I saw the black crescents of dolphins leaping out of them. A churning wall of dolphins! I turned north, then back west to see them better. A hundred or more on what looked like a joyous pilgrimage. Ah, life!

Some time later, I turned south to investigate another wall of white, thinking it to be dolphins or rays, but it was a line of strong wind, and I got stuck in it. Once I was there, I couldn’t make it out because the wind line moved with me at the same speed. Tricked! I resigned myself to a slow and bouncy trip.

I don’t know why speed has to matter so much, as if I always need to prove myself. The point is to enjoy being out there. I have food and water and a warm jacket at hand. I can stop and stretch and rest. I can crawl out of the boat to pee and climb back in through really any conditions I’d remotely want to be caught paddling in. I am happy paddling after dark. The moon will be up tonight. I know well the beaches where I’m headed and have found my destination before even without a moon. So what’s the hurry? Still it frustrates me to be slowed by the wind. At least this time my sense of humor doesn’t retire utterly. It strikes me that I’m enjoying the privilege of paddling in the only wind in sight. All around and just out of reach is a light blue slick line where the boat would glide willingly along and fail to build any character at all in the process.

On the water, time and distance become each other’s measure. Sun, moon, and tides hold the schedule between them. Wind runs around with the megaphone and directs the scene. And clouds can pull the plug on the moon. It’s good to be connected with these things, and even humbled by them from time to time.

In the cyclical way of things, this week just before the full moon of February happened to be the time 11 years ago that I was inspired to spend the night solo on the Pacific ocean south of Todos Santos. A huge step, probably not well advised from a risk management standpoint, but a proving ground for faith and fortitude.

The trip to Isla Catalina being another one of those journeys that shows you what you’re made of, I’d have to say this time it’s Bimbo brand strawberry bran-fruit bars, for that is what I most often reached for during those short on-water breaks.

Suddenly Danzante Island was beside me. Submarine rock on the other side. Ahead, calm water, and 4 miles away at the base of the mountains, home camp. Just an hour away. Fresh water for cleaning up. A bucket shower. The flat padded bed of my truck to sleep in. Neighbors to greet. Emails, and computer work. I decided to camp out on Danzante for the night and wander in around noon tomorrow.

After paddling 83 miles in 4 days, exploring a partly uncharted island, and answering to my own inner taskmaster, it was delicious to wake up late. To roll over and munch peanuts and of course strawberry Bimbo bars out of my day hatch while still in my sleeping bag, and watch the morning get on without me.

Wind and Tide

2009-01-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

It’s 5am in my tent at Rattlesnake Beach. I am lightly breaded and ready to be fried. All night the wind blew, and this cheap tent filtered the sand into a fine mist that has dusted everything in here. Clothes, books, the computer somehow even in its case, my pillow, Moose. Me.

It’s a zen practice of acceptance, sleeping in a light rain of sand. Hear the wind stirring the bushes, the blowing particles hitting the tent, then brace yourself. Feel the lightest sprinkling on your face. It doesn’t hurt, but does make you want to stop inhaling for the duration. Relax. Accept what you cannot change, or what you choose not to do the work involved in changing. Eventually through the fairy dust and the flapping of the tent, the intimate nylon clutching alternately at your head and feet, you drift into sleep.

“Sand is my friend,” in the memorable words of Tulio, a guide and student on my last course. “Sand is my friend. I am going to bed with my friend.”

Relax. Accept. You are one with sand. In the Big Geological picture, you and it are made of much the same elements. What makes you different in this moment, is that your sand-dust has the capacity to become grumpy about it, or to cultivate a sense of humor.

It was wind that inspired our moonlight crossing back from Isla Espiritu Santo to a beach near La Paz last week. Three guides Manuel, Rafa and Tulio, plus Ben the owner of the company, and I took a ride in a panga motorboat out to the island with kayaks strapped to the overhead rack. There we met up with guide Leah, who was finishing up a commercial trip. Together we discovered the nuances of kayak maneuvering and discussed risk management for 3 days while traveling down the island.

What a spirited, talented, fun group of people! And they pay me to do this! Or, more accurately, they cover the expenses I incur in becoming able to do this. Certification, insurance, permits, travel, food. They way I am reimbursed is in the way it fills my soul to be with them. The accounts that really matter are filled with laughter, with getting salty and cold and then huddling over cups of hot chocolate together. When Manuel edges his kayak well and plants the paddle just right, making his boat spin… and his smile shows his satisfaction. When I hear Rafa say to his friends after working on a new exercise “Que padre!” When Leah ignores sunset to continue working on her balance brace. When Tulio giggles and declares his friendship with the elements as he crawls into his sandy tent.

Yes, this is why I live. Sure it takes energy, sometimes more than I think I have. It takes preparation in big and little ways. It involves struggle and sometimes feeling like I’m failing, and rethinking my approach. It takes all my heart, but the way it fills me there aren’t words to measure.

But back to the wind, the connector of things, the breath that gives us weather, and rain, and life on this planet. The forecast involved a bit much of it for our plans of crossing back to La Paz by motorboat the morning following our course, so we preemptively paddled the 5 miles back under moonlight over gentle swells. Stealthy silhouettes sliding across moon sparkles. Voices over the water talking, singing. Or silence and a close unity of travelers on a big sea. We camped late on a protected beach outside of La Paz, burned a fire, and crawled into our sleeping bags on the small ledge of beach. Except for Ben, who set his camp way up on the big dune. This should have been a clue to the rest of us.

It was 5am in my sleeping bag on the little sandy beach when something in the sound of the water woke me up. I leaned up on my elbows and looked over the ledge down the slope to the breaking waves. Swell had increased due to wind on the open water. Tide had risen because that’s what it does. Between the two, surges of water were approaching the lip of the ledge we camped on. But not close enough to actually move. I lay my head back down and left one ear open. Some minutes later somebody was moving my feet. I sat up. Water hissed its way into the sand and back down the slope. A wave had floated the foot of my mattress. Salt water was on my tarp, percolating slowly down through the many holes. Awake! I stood up, sleeping bag around my waist. Hopping, I pulled the tarp and everything on it back 20ft to the base of the dune. Then woke the people in the 2 tents closest to the water so they could retreat.

When was high tide? How much higher would it come? I studied Rafa’s tent on a high spot for several minutes, and decided to let him sleep. He seemed to prefer a later start in the mornings. I crawled back into my sleeping bag as the big moon slipped behind the point that protected us from the wind. Shortly Rafa’s light came on in his tent. Figuring it was a sign of more water to come, I relented and got up.

By the time Ben poked his head over the big dune, the sun was well up, and so were we. Leah and I were preparing breakfast as surges of water swept past our ankles. My kitchen at home doesn’t even have running water—what a luxury! “Wave!” someone called out, and we grabbed the table so it wouldn’t wash away with our food on it.

As Leah would point out to her clients at the pre-trip meeting that night with the forecast of a windy week, “We put the adventure in Adventure Travel. Adventure Kayaking, Adventure Snorkeling...” So well prepared is she as a guide that she that very morning practiced Adventure Cooking, and even Adventure Sleeping.

Kayaking to Cedros Island

2008-11-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

We wandered tired and dusty through the remote, pirate-descended Baja town of Bahia Tortugas until we happened upon a smiling shopkeeper. He stood by a freshly painted white wall and a young man hand-lettering “Aborro…” with a red brush. The sun was low, the primitive road long with us. We wanted a place to camp. The shopkeeper directed us to Ruben, at the end of the road, past the barren dirt hills, past the cemetery.

Ruben sells diesel to yachters cruising the coast. This very evening, he happens to be welcoming some favorite customers. Within two hours, we are fed fresh lobster from the bay, a local ranch’s cheese drizzled with olive oil and crumbled oregano, and some of the family’s wine from their northern Baja vineyard, and Axel is bitten on the leg by a dog. Then we are regaled with traditional Mexican ranchero music sung by the yacht delivery captain and his first mate. I never realized so many Mexican songs involve lighthouses.

The wine bottle is empty, tequila half gone, the captain and crew on their way, and a fire burns in the 55-gallon drum by the Diesel sign. Ruben stands close under the night sky and tells me his dreams for the place: a cement floor decorated with shells in the shape of a star. A real Pemex gasoline station here. Friends and customers coming by to spend time on that cement courtyard overlooking the mouth of the bay. Evenings much like tonight. He smiles. I can’t help but like Ruben and his sincere face. Even with his dirt floor…especially with his dirt floor. We’ve all got to dream.

In the morning, Ruben and his wife return from their house in town to see us off. He gives me names of friends in all the places we are hoping to pass by: Punta Eugenia, Isla Cedros, Isla Natividad, Bahia Asuncion. Axel and I hope to paddle our kayaks in some of the most remote places on the northwest tip of the Viscaino Peninsula, itself an out-of-the way piece of Baja. Ruben’s friends will be some of the most gracious people we meet.

Everyone has warned us about currents here, from the Baja cruising guides to knowledgeable captains. “Curientes muy fuerte” usually accompanied with a gesture of power. What we can’t get out of anyone, though, is when and what direction those infamous currents run. “Just watch the lobster buoys,” said the singing captain after a few tequilas.

What we learn about Cedros’ currents through the week, piece by piece, follows.

1. Isla Cedros area has one tide cycle per day.
2. If you ask a seasoned local fisherman about currents, he’ll usually ask somebody else.
3. You sometimes get conflicting information about tides from the same person, but part of it is bound to be right.
4. During neap tides (the weaker ones), the currents weren’t stronger than 2 knots, and that just at a small tide race around a headland.
5. All local boaters carry GPS, and consult them if you ask when the tide will change and which direction it will run. That information isn’t always accurate.
6. We deduced that the current ebbs both north and south around the island from the east side (the splitting point probably changes through the daily tidal cycle and the monthly lunar cycle). Visible points of land and underwater topography have the effect of creating eddies both great and small. The captain of the water delivery boat confirmed this for us, but couldn’t tell us what the tides would do the next day.

Despite all the head scratching and complaining we did about our given information, we guessed the currents well enough after 5 days that we had tidal assist all day on day 6 for 3 miles of coastal paddling, 11 miles of crossing, and 9 miles of circumnavigating Isla Natividad. And we guessed the direction of current correctly for the final crossing the next day, even though we underestimated its strength. This could, of course, be pure luck.

Our journey to Cedros and Natividad Islands launched at 11:45 from Punta Eugenia. We first started towards Natividad. The weather was so calm, and forecast for more of the same, that we took the slack in ebb current as an excuse to head directly for Cedros. We landed after five hours near the salt works through sizeable dumping surf.

Guerrero Negro produces a large percentage of the world’s salt from seawater in giant lagoons on the north shore of the Viscaino Peninsula. Due to the shallow and treacherous entrances to the lagoons, they barge the salt to Cedros Island where it is loaded on freighters in a surprisingly industrial patch of wilderness. We landed next to it. Panga driver Nacho drove his motor boat up to tell us there was better camping up the island and he could give us a lift. We thanked him and decided to paddle there. A boy on the beach and his sister collected 5 caracoles, turban snails, for us from the tide line, and gave them to us to eat. The boy recommended bashing them open with a rock and eating them in crema, which is how we prepared them that night, with garlic from home. Chewy, they were, but not bad. We camped in the arroyo at the south end of the town of Cedros, known locally as el pueblo. The village.

The second day we got on the water just after sunrise and leisurely paddled north. And kept paddling. Rocks passed. A few palm trees passed. Panga boats with lobstermen passed. Pelicans and terns and gulls and cormorants passed. We took short breaks, ate, and kept paddling. By late afternoon, the end of the island was in view. As we approached, a ruckus grew in volume. Near the lobstermen’s outpost of Punta Norte, sea lion and elephant seal rookeries lined the shore. When elephant seals move, an impressive wave of blubber goes caterpillaring along the beach. When they bellow at each other, they sound like a diesel boat motor not quite firing properly. Sea lions vocalize in many different ways, the most important quality of sea lion song being that it not stop. A curious sea lion pup sniffed the bows of our kayaks as if asking who we were, a greeting they do often with each other.

At Punta Norte, four young men worked in the shade of a few trees. They clipped and crimped and tied together green coated metal mesh to build lobster pots. We asked for information on the currents at the north end, and conditions on the other side, and where we could camp. We were shown to 2 vacant rooms in the fish camp dorms for the night. Mine had a half sheet of plywood so thin I almost went to the floor when I leaned on it, so I had a good night’s sleep on the floor. Axel’s was close to the generator so he ended up sleeping outside on the other end of camp.

We had access to water, a toilet, and a week-old internet forecast which called for 9’ west swell mixed with a lingering south swell. According to the best information we could get this far, there were no sufficiently protected harbors on the other side of the island to count on a landing place for perhaps 30 nautical miles. Strength and direction of current were still unknown. The general agreement among lobstermen and vigilantes in the outpost was that the other side of the island would be muy feo tomorrow. Neither of us felt up to that.

Before bedding down in my private Punta Norte accommodations, I visited with the women of the camp who were gathered beneath the trees chatting. They were enjoying a weekend with the dads and kids before taking the youngsters back to el pueblo for school. Lots of questions we answered for each other. Ani shared a Hershey’s chocolate bar with me. In any language, this is a gesture of friendship.

A crew of vigilancia headed out in a panga into the darkness. They patrol all night to keep poachers off the lobster pots. While we visited, a voice came over the VHF broadcasting from a speaker on a post in the middle of camp. Everyone listened a moment. Ani explained that they caught somebody at one of their pots. I never quite understood what they do with those folks, but I did see a rifle get hustled through camp, a rare possession among Mexican civilians.

Morning in Punta Norte found the tide in and the NW swell up. The surge rose and swirled and broke on to the landing. It washed nearly the entire beach, then retreated, exposing almost 30’ of sloped rocky shore. A crew of vigilancia in a panga came near shore to be handed a fresh can of fuel, and both the crew and the man on shore danced with the waves for ten minutes before there came a moment of calm long enough to make the hand-off.

The women were still in their dorms with the kids, but several men watched our launch with interest. Per our usual routine, Axel and I carried my boat to the upper reaches of the water, then together launched his on a smaller surge in between the sets. Once he was safely in deeper water getting settled in his boat, I returned to mine. It was parked next to a dinghy on the cement ramp to the gasoline storage hut at the highest point on the landing. A big surge came in, and I grabbed the seaward end and lifted it clear of the wave, gambling that the water wouldn’t also float the inland end, which it didn’t. The dinghy floated and shifted on its short tether.

By the next surge, I had reached the inland end, the bow. When the surge floated the stern, I walked my kayak up the ramp to the metal door of the hut, matching the speed of the wave and keeping control of my heavily laden boat. I waited there a few more waves, hoping they didn’t get bigger because I was up against the door with nowhere else to go, and the dinghy, animated by the waves, was threatening to get intimate with my kayak.

The energy of the waves began to abate. As a surge retreated, I floated the kayak seaward. On a carefully chosen surge, I pulled the kayak down to meet the water, swung a leg across as the cockpit passed my standing place, sat astride, and paddled backwards into deep water where I finished climbing in and skirting up. I got the feeling the audience was disappointed not to see some carnage.

Around the north end we paddled, planning on a peek at the western side and a retreat back down the eastern side. Swells were much bigger on that side and smashed impressively on the cliffs. The spirit of adventure was on us. It was tough to turn back, but we believed our decision to be a sound one, and turn back we did, enjoying a tailwind and a following sea.

It was early afternoon before we saw el Gran Canyon, our destination for the day. It was the low spot on a mountainous island, the most likely hike across. The beach had a hut and a tree. As we approached from the north, a fishing boat, apparently a shrimper, approached from the south, and anchored off the beach. We waved to each other. As two marineros in a dinghy worked at mooring the stern of the boat to a buoy, I paddled up to the boat.

“De donde vienen?” they always ask, and seem impressed that we paddled from Punta Eugenia. Like many people we meet on the trip, they also seem slightly surprised and quite happy that I speak some Spanish. They are eager to chat, answer our questions, and ask plenty of their own.

They are the water delivery boat for the islands. The hut on the beach is a water storage tank, filling via a tube that runs several miles inland to a spring. Every 3 or 4 days, this boat fills and does its deliveries. In an hour and a half they take on 60 tons of water. They offer us watermelon rounds with lime and chili, then invite us on board for a filling lunch of quesadillas, beans, and fried spam.

The cook plays the Eagles over a classy sound system while we eat. He’s a musician, so he thrives on good music, he explains. In halting English, he proudly introduces himself, “My name is Juan.” Captain Alfredo wears a baseball cap with an A on it. He is a soft-spoken man while we’re there, to whom the crew responds to promptly. Nacho, the young marinero who offered us a panga ride from our first beach on Cedros, was among the crew. So was a 12-year old boy, the son of one of the sailors. He showed us how to dive off the rail of the boat and climb back through the tethered dinghy and up the side of the boat.

The boat was a well painted royal blue with a 6’ tall spool of hose on the back deck. Its dinghy was a different story. If it had a color, I forgot what. Several inches of water sloshed about the floor through a maze of fat, fraying lines joined together at a metal ring. This attached to the hoist when it was brought on board the big boat. Seats were bare wood worn so thin that the back one had completely collapsed and the front one threatened to. The little boat served its purpose, though.

As the dinghy brought in the end of the water tube, we prepared to return to our kayaks, having been well fed and generously hosted. The boat motored off under a puff of dark smoke, and we paddled to the rocky beach to explore. Throughout the afternoon, a few pangas motored south, carrying the moms & kids from Punta Norte back to el pueblo. They all waved as they passed.

The following morning, in the light of the orange horizon and the tiniest sliver of moon, we set out up the Gran Canyon of Cedros Island. Two and a half hours up, we allowed, and hustled. For an island only about 6 miles across, this canyon seems impossibly broad and long. The walking is fairly easy since the occasional waters scoured nice walkways bare. On the north side of some high peaks, dark patches of juniper trees grew. These trees once covered more of the islands and were the reason behind the name Cedros Island, since the Spaniards thought they were cedars.

The canyon narrows and finally we climb a ridge to see Isla San Benito and on the west, and the hazy mountains of the Baja peninsula 60 miles east. It’s our only peek at the west side of Cedros Island. We descend, rest a bit, and resume paddling south to el pueblo for the night, arriving to the frolicking of dolphins.

We leave our beach at el pueblo as sunrise starts to show her colors. The abandoned shacks south of town look like their story should be told in a faded old paperback with the back cover torn half off. Mismatched panels of old plywood, rusty corrugated roofing, and unidentified scraps comprise the walls of windowless huts whose black doorless openings swallow the predawn light.

Low barren ridges of earth embrace the lifeless village. Hills fold upon more hills away from the old memories, pale, then tan, then brown, retreating back to the red mountain before any living thing appears.

The sun rises beyond a freighter anchored near the salt works. Barges with ridges of purest white salt await unloading. Gulls perch on the salt crest, adding their own whitener. The current starts strong on our crossing from Cedros to Natividad, then slacks. We paddle over kelp forests. Looking down through the clear water at the leaning underwater trees, I feel like I’m flying.

Around Natividad we paddle, admiring reef breaks and sea lion colonies, and shriveling our noses at the fragrance of sea bird guano that covers the rocks.

At Punta Arena on Natividad Island, northwest swell and south swell both wrap around and find just the right bottom contour to make two perfectly rideable surf waves in front of our camp. We eat the last delicata squash from my home garden, and watch blue throated lizards devour flies. The view is a perfect overview of both Cedros Island where we came from, and Punta Eugenia, where we paddle the next morning into the rising sun.

Gloria

2008-11-02T10:42:00.001-08:00

It’s a hot night in Bahia Asuncion, too hot to hide under the sleeping bag from the mosquitoes, so I get eaten alive right in Gloria’s front yard. Despite the mosquitoes, meeting Gloria was one of those miracles that happen when you let yourself arrive someplace without knowing exactly what you’re doing there.

Bahia Tortugas. The map got us there on a Baja road trip in late October 2008. Winding roads led us through the maze of town, only once in the wrong direction, head on to an amused local. A shopkeeper directed us to Ruben’s place where we could camp. Ruben gave us the names of his best friends in nearby towns where we might also camp. Gloria was one. “Muy buena persona.”

We arrived a week later in Bahia Asuncion. The map got us there, too. That and the help of some men who pushed us and the Sabritas truck out of the soft sand. Stopping at an aborrotes store for cold drinks, I asked for Gloria, esposa of the late Simon Salinas. The restaurant next door happened to be hers.

You know when you walk into a restaurant and all three patrons greet you warmly, that you’re in the right place. Then the patrons turn out to be Gloria, her son, and her brother, sitting to eat their own meal. You’re so much in the right place, that you set aside your freshly bought cold drinks, order up whatever cold thing she might have in the fridge, and revel in the refreshment and the rightness of it all until they’re done eating.

“Any friend of Ruben’s is a friend of mine,” says Gloria. Her son Memo leads us to their house on the bay, shows us the water hose, and leaves us to ourselves. Oh, beautiful laundry day! Oh, delightful bucket bath! Ah, to rinse away the salt and dust of travel and leave only fresh memories.

Sun swings low, we feel organized and clean again, and walk back to the restaurant for fish dinner and some visiting.

In the mosquito dawn, Little Black Dog limps with me down the beach to admire the gift of the new day waking. Seems he’s adopted us.

Something about Baja is visceral. It’s simple, bare. Close to the soul. Is it the land? The rawness and precious brevity of life here in the desert where survival can be as uncertain as the rains? Is it in speaking from my heart in a language I hardly command, but can limp around in a bit?

Gloria and I get to talking in the morning. She comes out in her nightgown to wish us Buenos dias. She talks about other friends who’ve stayed. Some setting up whole tarp villages. Ruben and his family visiting before her husband died 5 short months ago. Plans to move the restaurant to her house and expand the hospitality aspect. The kids grown and out of school, her husband finally had time and resources to get the permits for those dreams. And then he died.

She doesn’t say how, not that it matters. The sorrow, the tears, she says. Memo came up from La Paz to stay with her for the year and help out. “I’m beginning to feel I can be strong,” she says. “Dios es grande.” Tears come to her eyes, and to mine, too. I can’t imagine the weight of such a loss.

Her kids are coming in 3 days for Dia de los Muertos. It’s the first time this celebration has meant anything personal to them. Not for her, because she lost her parents some time ago. But for her kids, it is now significant. A way to honor and celebrate the connection with those who’ve gone. A reuniting of the family, those present in body and those in spirit.

Lately she’s stayed busy with the humble, 3-table restaurant, which she’s run for 20 years. “I always was more busy than he was.” A smile. The busyness now is good, she says, because it keeps her occupied.

I say to her that feeding people is valiente. I can’t think of a better word at the moment. What I’m trying to say is that I believe in food and the sharing of it. That she is more than staying occupied. Through her grief, she is vibrant. She is giving life to others. The old man who came in last night and ordered “una cena”, a dinner. Simple as that. He probably comes in often.

Food. Its nourishment is a gift of the earth. A ray of the sun. A piece of the soul and a work of the hands that give it. A gift of connection, a gift of life. Even as a negocio it is a gift.

I want to give her my last apple from the home tree. This poor apple is beat up. It’s driven many miles over all kinds of roads. It’s been in a kayak to Cedros Island and back. It’s the most pathetic apple I had since I gave all the prettier ones away already. But its significance is more than a piece of bruised fruit from far away. It’s everything I just said. It’s a piece of my heart, of my home. It’s my gift of living to a woman I admire.

Snapshot

2008-02-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Five colorful kayaks plunge through choppy seas along Carmen Island’s rocky coast. Yellow Tempest, Blue Tempest, and Red Romany frolic in the waves. Sea Green Romany (that’s me) parallels Yellow Explorer, trying to encourage and keep him off the rocks. The dark sea is studded with whitecaps

I see something floating in the waves, olive green or brown, about 18” across. Perhaps a mat of sargassum, a prickly seaweed. Wavelets distort my brief glimpses. Then it rises on a crest, a sea turtle, backlit in the water. Round body, long front flippers, stubby back flippers, little round head in the air. A perfect silhouette--a tiny island of tranquility in a turbulent sea.

“This beach sucks!” announces Ryan of the Yellow Tempest. We’ve landed at the first available beach after Yellow Explorer capsized in the wind. It was the first potential landing spot in half an hour of paddling after the rescue, but it’s sloped, rocky, and exposed. The coastline is about to turn into an even more exposed direction.

We hunker in the little dry watercourse, or arroyo, out of the wind for lunch, and consider our options. I check the landing at the next beach over, and it’s not feasible with loaded boats, 3’ dumping waves, and dog-sized rocks in the surf. Yellow Explorer is not going any further. Indeed, the Port Captain would come out the next morning to pick him up in a motor boat. He has overestimated his skill, and is not interested in continuing with a forecast of building wind.

I declare that we’re staying at “Sucky Beach” for the night. Campers can start excavating their sleeping hollows. There are still waves to be played in, however. I go ride some in the little break off our beach, then stay close to the cell phone to organize pick-up logistics. Ryan, who is the other guide and organizer of this trip, goes with the other two wave-frolickers to explore the coast for the rest of their afternoon. I don’t want to know if there’s a perfect beach just around the corner.

Of course the boys return with reports of just that beach. It’s the most perfect in all the world. Sandy landing, glowing golden in the sun, dancing girls (and one handsome guy, they note), angels sliding down sunbeams, turning into masseuses when they touch the ground, beach music playing from the cactus-tops, cold beer flowing from the cactus tap.

“Sure, whatever,” I say. “Just don’t tell me there’s a clean point break at one side of it.”

“Yeah, there is! That’s the best part of it! We surfed it for hours.”

I groan and go flatten a little sleeping nest beside my kayak for the night. Where would we be without imagination?

Three Days to Guerrero Negro

2008-01-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

Abraham Levy is kayaking the entire coast of Mexico. He has already completed the Caribbean side and now paddles some weeks south of Tijuana.

Ginni Callahan is taking a two-week break from guiding and coaching in the Sea of Cortez to surf with Dave at their favorite break on Baja’s Pacific coast.

January 9, 2008, Abraham paddles by the surf camp too far out to see, lands some miles south at a fishing village, and begins to set up camp.

In the village, Nacha and Sergio are preparing fish tacos to sell at the surf camp when they notice a brilliant yellow and orange kayak pulled up on the beach across the road from their house. They invite the handsome, travel-worn kayaker in for food, hear about his mission, and bring him to the surf camp, along with their fish tacos that evening, to meet some other kayakers.

At first he doesn’t look familiar, but his journey rings a bell. Yes, the guy paddling around Mexico. He was mentioned in a Canoe & Kayak magazine given to us because of a feature on Ginni. We swap notes on coasts we’ve both paddled, gather information on new places, trace our fingers along nautical charts by the dim light of our headlamps. Questions, answers, English, Spanish. The energy builds like a wave.

“Que remas?” I give him a tour of my Romany kayak. Abraham follows with video camera. Then the interview. Como se llama? Ginni Callahan. Donde estamos? At Rancho San Andres. Que piensas sobre este viaje? Sounds like fun. I want to go!

It was an offhand remark on my part. But a serious invitation followed.

Just after sunrise the next morning, a dirt-encrusted blue pickup lumbers over the rocky road towards the fishing village of Santa Rosalillita carrying one light green Romany kayak on the roof. David has decided not to paddle three days to Guerrero Negro with this ambitious young man, and Ginni, yes.

Nacha and Sergio serve us all a warm breakfast of eggs and beans and tortillas and homemade salsa. Some fussing with gear, some goodbyes, and Abraham and Ginni take to the sea, each with their own style of entry.

It’s a two-foot beach break, dumping all at once onto a moderately steep, scalloped beach. Abraham puts his kayak in the low spot, on the sand, enters, and inches forward with his hands until a wave meets him and he can paddle through the little break. Less traditionally, Ginni waits at the bow of her kayak on a slightly higher hill of surf-rounded cobbles until a medium-sized wave washes up to the boat. She pulls it down with the retreating water, hops aboard on her belly like a surfer to paddle a few strokes past the breaker zone, sits up, and slides her legs into the cockpit.

“Nunca lo he visto eso.” I have never seen that before, says Abraham. It was one of many firsts.

Santa Rosalillita falls behind as we head towards the distant point. The coast between Santa Rosalillita and Guerrero Negro is not a part I’d choose to paddle this time of year. January brings the biggest swell and chance of the worst winds. The route has few landings and miles of steep beaches that are completely exposed to the predominant NW swell. One landing is a surf spot they call The Wall. It’s where surfers go when they want to catch the biggest waves.

Abraham sets a good pace and evidently enjoys having someone to talk to. We drift toward whichever side I’m on as I try to keep the boats just far enough apart to avoid hitting paddles on each others boats at the exit of each stroke. We talk the whole day, and there is much to learn about each other.

He loved beaches as a kid and wanted to know all the beaches in Mexico. What better vehicle than a kayak? He learned to paddle in rivers. Pursued sponsorship of his dream for four years before finally launching his expedition. Continued learning en route along the Caribbean, and the Pacific would teach him even more.

Even more than a paddling trip and a dream, this trip is his business. “If you want to do well at anything, you have to learn how to sell,” an uncle once advised. Abraham learned to sell telephones door to door. Trying to sell his trip to sponsors he discovered that nobody wants to support something little. Make it big; ask for lots of money. His success is grandly evident in the boat he paddles, brightly smattered with logos. The shirt he wears for interviews has his sponsors printed on it. The wall behind him at speaking events is papered in logos. “If you want to do anything badly enough, and you keep working at it, you can do anything,” he declares. That smile doesn’t hurt a bit either, I’m sure.

The sea is gentle with us, and after three hours of sociable paddling we approach The Wall. An old river mouth a mile in width, forms a NW point which magnifies the swell. Breakers begin tumbling well offshore because of the long rocky reef. Arrecife, in Spanish. The rolling of rr’s sounds like the rumble of surf at a distance.

We take turns being taller than each other on the lifting swell. “Soy mas alta.” “Ya no.”
“I know why they call this place The Wall,” says Abraham. “These are walls of water.”
There are also walls of rock on land, built by surfers as meager protection from the frequent winds, which mercifully forget to blow while we’re there. Ten miles is Abraham’s shortest day yet, but we have plans to surf in the afternoon.

Abraham, for all his miles, has never just gone surfing. Surf is a door for him to pass through between beach and sea. I, on the other hand, live on the beach and paddle the sea so I can find fun places to surf. So it is to be for the 3 days we paddle together to Guerrero Negro: two skilled paddlers with different strengths, different perspectives, different backgrounds, and different languages, yet plenty enough in common to relish the playful sharing of company.

If the wave is gentle and hard to catch, especially if you’re starting far down the shoulder, aim towards the breaking part of the wave to catch it, then turn and ride with it. Abraham learns quickly. On a wave too big to see his head as he rides it (from my perspective further out to sea) I can follow the trail of his kayak moving towards the peak, then back away in a perfect reading and riding of a wave.

Dinner involves some strange combinations. Freeze-dried Mountain House Sante Fe Chicken (his contribution), and Mexican staples refried beans, fresh avocado and tortillas (my addition). The world of the burrito has never seen the like. Abraham breaks out his camping luxuries for the occasion—a short aluminum table, a foldable plastic serving spoon, and a titanium spork. A pair of osprey watches us from their nest in a nearby datilillo, or Joshua Tree. The nest is much bigger than the spindly, bent trunk should support, which makes it look like a Dr Seuss invention.

Darkness brings the setting of a red crescent moon, then photo sharing. On my camera, we see shots of Abraham surfing. On his phone/camera/marvel of technology, we see his entire trip. Stars revolve slowly past this private showing of a very publicized trip.

The image in my mind that exemplifies Abraham Levy will never be seen by any other. With my camera in my pocket, I paddle for my own survival as we leave The Wall the next morning. I summit a wave, slide down the backside, and look over my shoulder for Abraham. Through the crest of the wave bursts an orange and yellow streak, water streaming off as it soars completely airborne into the morning sunlight. This man has the muscle and grit to make his dreams fly.

Scale is deceiving on the water, especially with the low sunlight angle of winter. Abraham, with his poor eyesight, thinks the hazy distant point which alone populates our southern horizon, is Isla Cedros, some 60 NM away. I disagree. The day will reveal it as we get closer.

Intensive talk of day one diminishes, as it usually does. Spanish practice switches to English practice. Abraham fishes and catches some Sargasso, but no fish. The wind picks up and then dies back down. Still we paddle. A gull inspects us so closely I almost whack it with my paddle by accident.

Shore is over 2 miles away, and we are an island. The island sings. It sings poorly in English. It sings quite beautifully in Spanish. Traditional songs, sad songs. Sometimes the island is quiet and moves slowly along its course. “You don’t feel so far away when you paddle with someone else,” says Abraham. This is the first time he has paddled with someone on his entire trip.

The headland turns out not to be Isla Cedros, but Morro Santo Domingo, a long rocky point with several little sandy beaches near the mouth of Laguna Manuela. Most of the pocket beaches have big surf crashing onto them, but we work our way around into more protection and find the perfect one under the lighthouse, whose position is mismarked on my nautical chart. Everything about the beach is right. It faces south so we can see sunset, sunrise, and tomorrow’s paddling direction. The sand is clean and lovely for going barefoot. Red rocks embrace the evening sunlight with a most satisfying hue. The flat sand at the top of the beach is just large enough for two kayaks, two tents, and a common eating area. A trail leads up the hill to the lighthouse. And, for the businessman, signal for the phone and internet actually work for the first time in ten days. We can sit on the beach and GoogleEarth the upcoming coastline. Who needs those old-fashioned nautical charts?

It’s quite an undertaking, kayaking the whole coast of Mexico, especially solo. In the Caribbean Abraham had to shelter from hurricane winds in a patch of mangrove, constructing a platform above alligator-infested waters for the night. Further north on the Pacific he had to crash land through big surf when winds made it impossible to continue. But he’d never seen anything like the mouth of the Estero de San Jose. Our destination Guerrero Negro is situated inside this bay.

Estero San Jose is one of several lagoons along Baja’s Pacific coast, most famous for the gray whales that calve and mate here from January through March. Laguna Ojo de Liebre, Laguna San Ignacio, Bahia Magdelena.

As we approach Estero San Jose, the entire horizon is house-sized breakers. They tumble and tumble without getting closer to the coast. Two forces collide to make it thus: swell and current.

Earlier that morning could tell that the swell is building on our beach below the lighthouse by the tremendous crashing of waves on our eastern rocky point. “Such power without malice,” comments Abraham. “Beautiful.”

Paddling towards the boca, the entrance to the lagoon, we follow a compass bearing of 170 degrees. We need this reference because we can only see land occasionally, when we are on the crests of long swells. Even from the tops of waves, we can’t spot the 2-mile wide entrance because of the flatness of the sandy coast and the height of the breakers between us and there. The primary view is green, undulating sea, and each other. We won’t know until we check the online report in Guerrero Negro that the swell was 19-22’ on exposed NW-facing beaches, which this is.

Current is the other force. Living on the beach, in the surf, one gets in tune with the rhythm of tides. I didn’t have a tide chart, but could calculate that if we left the beach at our usual 9 or 10 am, we’d fight an increasing ebb current as we tried to enter the bay around 1 pm. Having had experience at the mouth of another Pacific lagoon, I suggest we aim to enter before 11am, and get an early morning start. Abraham is young and strong and does not need to plan around tides, so we leave at 10.

The bocas of Baja’s Pacific estuaries are notorious for their power and their shifty channels. I have the only nautical chart between us, and it shows four light towers, none of which still exist. This is the opening through which much of the world’s salt was once exported, so I envision something tamer, something less… well, less Baja. The horizon of tumbling white houses extends well over a mile out to sea. There is no visible channel of deeper smooth water. Breakers from the current meet the breakers along the sandy beach where more big swells trip over themselves and fall into a white froth. It’s a bit more than I have prepared myself for, so I adjust my mental calibration of “gnarly landing” as we approach. About then the wind begins building and pushing us shoreward.

“Plans?” I ask the man whose trip I have been invited on. He seems surprised by the question. “You’re the guide,” he says, as if my certifications mean more than his experience.

I have been working on a plan, which we both execute cleanly, though I wish for a ready camera once again and miss a fun shot of a small orange and yellow kayak in front of the open mouth of a hungry wave. Between sets of very big waves, I surf a shoulder-high one in to the shore. I look over the back of it and see that image, then hear the wave break, and see him skimming along broadside with a mighty fine brace keeping him just in front of its gnashing teeth. Once inside the bigger breakers, we paddle parallel to the smaller inshore waves for about 15 minutes until we think we see the entrance, take a quick look about from shore, and spot a channel to follow into the mouth. Mission accomplished, except for a few small breakers inside the mouth and 2 more hours of paddling against the current to meet David for our ride into town.

As it is with travelers, the sharing of a path, however briefly, has its influences. Abraham gleaned some skills along the way. For me, another piece of the Pacific coast is mapped in my mind. Before the forces of the sea, I am again as ever, humbled. Yet have gained in a feeling of peaceful confidence. I have been stretched and challenged and found myself capable, though at the end, mortally tired. The experience has broadened my awareness of what is and can be the business of kayaking, though to guard my heart and soul, I don’t even want to think about it. On some level I agree with Abraham’s uncle that you have to sell to succeed; I just don’t want to live my whole life that way. Not much of it at all, really.

Paddle on. May the sea be gentle with you!

Follow Abraham's trip at http://www.abrahamlevy.com
see photos at http://www.columbiariverkayaking.com/pixntales.html#grono

12-step Program for those aspiring to run a Mexican Kayak Company

2007-11-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

1. Admit you have a problem.
2. Accept that the rules, requirements, and personnel responsible for them will change regularly.
3. The amount and consequences of the change will be proportional to how much time, energy, and resource you have already invested in doing things the old way.
4. Laugh.
5. Cry.
6. Comply.
7. Pay.
8. Borrow Money. (This step may precede step 7)
9. Learn that “mañana” does not mean the day following this one. It just means “certainly not today.”
10. Repeat steps 2-9.
11. Repeat steps 2-9 a few more times.
12. Review step 1.

Hi Friends & Family!

We’re actually hoping to cross the border today, for real, into Mexico with our kayaks and gear for the first Sea Kayak Baja Mexico season. We’ve been at the border for a week working on what we thought was already in order (really we knew it couldn’t possibly be that easy; we just didn’t know WHAT the challenges were going to be. This is what makes it so exciting!). We will gladly accept any prayers, good thoughts, sacrifices etc. that you may be willing to offer up in support of this folly. Repeat step 4 often!

Lots of love and good humor!
Ginni & David & 11 dusty kayaks

Swim

2007-05-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

5/4/07
Baja Hwy 1

The challenge of forming a company in a foreign country where over half of the working population are civil employees supported by the fees, permits, registrations, and bribes of your tourist-based enterprise is taking its toll on both of us. Work up north is closing in from the other side. We leave our new Mexican partner with some alternatives to “just make it work for now and we’ll fix it right in November”, jump into the already packed Toyota Corolla and head out of Loreto just before sunset. Cue the dust, billowing backlit among cardon cacti as the car dwindles into the mountains. Pop in a tape that has “freedom” in the title of every song on it.

The immediacy and opportunity of the road infect our spirits with lightheartedness. We begin rebuilding positive momentum and the fundamental joy of simply being, and even being together.

Sunrise is a good start. We awake on Playa Escondida. A fat moon one day past full has marked time all flea-infested night and now waits over the western mountains. Under its light and the first blush of the coming sun I succumb to the desire to swim out to the nearest island in the glassy Sea of Cortez.

Leaving my towel and clothes just above the wet sand on the surf-softened shell fragments, I wade barefoot into the sea. It’s a little cool, but comfortable.

The surface of the water reflects the colors of the sky as they mature in to peachy orange and turquoise. I can see my hands extend in front of me under the diaphanous colors. The moon, too, floats behind a transparent curtain of water colors. Pink clouds waft across its bright face.

It feels good to move, stretch, loosen up after days of computer work, bending to pack, sitting in a car, and sleeping on a sloped beach. It feels particularly good to be gliding through the water as absolutely naked as I was born. No suit to billow in the water, no bulky mask to fog or grip my head. No fins to rub. Not even a hair band to keep the tresses from drifting across my back or under my arms on the crawl stroke. Just me and the sea and a brand new day.

I could see David walking the beach for interesting fragments from the sea or the indigenous people. It’s our new era—co-owning a Mexican company as a means to the dream of instructional sea kayak expeditions in Baja. Somehow the dreams are always cleaner than the work to birth them. If it were easy, would the accomplishment be so sweet? The challenge is to remain human and to stay in touch with the fundamental, simple pleasures of just being and being together in places that we love.

Last Islands Trip

2007-03-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Was it an omen when we discovered on the first night that we’d forgotten to pack the coffee? What could be worse to forget, except perhaps toilet paper? Or maybe the prevailing omen was one of resourcefulness and kindness when David paddled the coffee out to us the next morning through the rare Sea of Cortez fog.

I didn’t think about it until almost the end of the trip, but if plans hold their course, this was my last Sea of Cortez Islands trip that I will lead for my employers of 8 years, Sea Kayak Adventures. On this route I have spent most of my last 8 winters, on the beaches of Carmen and Danzante Islands. My next trip is the La Paz 10-day, and that’s it for the season. Next season I hope to be busy with my own trips in new areas, and gently close the book on an era of paddling giant double kayak/barges and making extravagant meals. A change to look forward to while still feeling nostalgic, and a little nervous about braving the new. But at the beginning of this trip, its significance had not yet dawned on me.

When my well-coffee’d group finally launched into the fog later that morning to skirt Danzante Island, we were accompanied by a pod of dolphins. They passed directly beneath some of the kayaks. Leisurely we cruised together along the rocky coastline while mystery clouds poured into the creases between hills. Fog played hide and seek with silhouettes of odd desert plants on the ridges. Dolphins stuck their noses in the air to look around. Slapped the water with their tails. Circled back with apparent curiosity. The white darkness of fog moved behind us on the water, and sun bathed our happy aquatic procession.

One afternoon on southern Carmen Island we all hiked inland from Playa Blanca to see if we could find the fabled Indian well. There is a shell midden at the beach being eroded by recent storms, and a guest on my trip years ago found an arrowhead on the beach. An Indian well would make sense here. Except for the flat marine shelf we were on, and the proximity of the sea. Curiosity had all of us in its grip, so we followed the south rim of the arroyo naming, photographing, fondling and sniffing plants along the way. The arroyo below us was thick with foliage. Mesquite trees and giant torote reached up to the level of the rim. Palo verde clung onto the sides tenaciously.

A little barrel cactus torn by some torrent or wind clung to the rim’s sharp soil by one filamentous root. One of our party wanted to pick it up and “save” it, though she didn’t know what she would do with it, exactly. That instinct to give suffering things a hug.

We were a group more experienced in administering hugs than kayaking. Eight women in or near their 60s, woven together by threads of friendship and friends of friends, though none knew everybody. Plus one young couple and a middle-aged pair of fun-loving best friends. Derek from the couple and our guide Mario were the only men, but they managed. The eight women were all fit and spirited. Well versed in rolling with the surprises of life. Motherhood, grandparenting for many, travels around the globe. At least two had fought breast cancer and won. Several owned their own businesses, one donating much to cancer research. Now they were tackling the new challenges of a kayak camping trip with grace and humor. For some it was their first time in a kayak, ever. And it was the first time for all of them on an archeological expedition to find an Indian well on a desert island.

Mario walked ahead, and called my name. I left the pitied barrel cactus and those who wanted to hug it and followed the sound of his voice. At the top of the pouroff, just above what would be the waterfall had there been water running, and overhung by trees, was a hole about 4 ft around with fine gravel at the bottom. Decades or centuries after its creation, after untold storms had carried debris into it, it was still deep enough to hold significant water after a storm. Mario lowered himself in, marking the depth, scientifically, at one Mario and a half.

On the fifth day we awoke after a full night of westerlies that had been preceded by southerlies, and both Mario & I suspected north wind within the next days. We changed plans. After a morning hike and early lunch, we crossed to the protection of Punta Coyote. Except Punta Coyote was occupied, so we continued to Rattlesnake Beach with a fun 10 knot following sea. The mesquite-bordered campsite at Rattlesnake where my friends Dan & Heather stayed two years ago was vacant, as was the entire south end of the popular RV beach. So we landed and made ourselves at home. So many layers of memory and experience there for me. Klaus & Parvin’s newly vacant site was the next one, where Derek and Michelle pitched their tent. Bunny put up her tent in the subtle arroyo mouth where David & I slept out on the beach together for the first time. Where the Giggle Girls pitched among the mangle dulce bushes, I used to park my truck when I left on short personal trips, except the year Paul and Alisa were camped there.

As we set up the kitchen in Dan & Heathers site, I wrapped myself happily in blankets of warm memory. Somebody requested for Happy Hour entertainment on our final evening together that Joan and I do some voice & flute duets. I put my flute together and was trying to remove enough popcorn from my teeth to play when I turned to see 3 people entering the edge of the campsite. I waved, then recognized them. Scott and Cara. And Hans! The one responsible for introducing me to kayaking and Baja ten years ago. The one whose fault I was here at all. The inspiration for this life I lead. This is the moment when the soundtrack should do something dramatic. These vortices of energy and time and people just don’t do this except in fiction.

I visited Hans and Scott and Cara that night after my crew had fallen asleep. We retold old stories and caught up on news till the southern cross and scorpius came up. A new memory to snuggle into and smile when the cold wind blows.

The next morning, as planned, and just after coffee was ready, Joan and I faced the Sea of Cortez where Danzante Island’s silhouette glowed pregnant with a sun about to rise, and we harmonized Morning Has Broken. She and I, both recent breast cancer survivors, shared that bond and a general affection for each other. We became one energy for a moment in the music and the first glow of morning. The sun peeked up, a reflection widened on the water, sparkled, and everything came together on this last morning, to the soundtrack of voice and flute.

Thus a magical ending of an era, and a fitting beginning of the next.

Saved by a Leaky Boat

2007-03-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

The trips began as most do, obediently following its itinerary. Then the wind picked up. This was a group with itchy feet, not wanting to sit on the beach, but preferring to challenge the wind. So, figuring we could always get back to Punta Coyote from Rattlesnake Beach, we cruised a mile downwind to walk a storm-scoured arroyo. The short paddle was in an area relatively protected by the hills of Puerto Escondido.

The excitement began when we launched to return. Digging into the wind was tougher than people expected, and after half an hour we’d put only a few hundred yards behind us. Some people were wearing down, and periodically somebody would lose their angle into the wind and struggle to turn back into it. I towed two doubles from the back of the group to the front, and looking at the big picture, decided it was time to surrender and take the group into the beach. Walking the kayaks up the beach was our pre-discussed back-up plan. The situation would be easier to control, and risks greatly reduced if we walked the kayaks up to the headland, then paddled the short, more protected crossing.

One guy in particular was upset and wanted to continue paddling, but the majority was relieved and saw the sense in it. Dan thought I was singling him out to go to the beach as a punishment for something since I sent him and his wife and their friends Chris and Regina in first, but they happened to be closest, and among the strongest, and I figured they could help others land if they were on shore. Discussion in the wind was not an option; it was one of those rare times for orders. He didn’t hesitate, but he sure got a lot of mileage out of grumbling about it afterwards!

All landed safely, we regrouped, briefed on safe walking of kayaks along the shore—keeping boat between self and shore, and not passing anyone in the line and in so doing putting them at risk of your kayak hitting them. Slowly, the parade progressed to the end of the beach, where a fateful green panga waited. A panga is an oversized rowboat with a motor used for fishing, tourism, and pretty much everything in Baja. Pangas are usually white with blue gunwales, but this one was painted green on the outside.

One gal was so pooped she wanted a hotel. No more wind, no more beach camping, no more paddling. So there were the 2 extremes: one wanted to keep paddling, and one wanted to go home. Friends of both told me later that they are just that way—one flighty and tried to cancel trip twice before it even began, and one (from New Jersey—I should make allowances) always challenging the “rules”. He was the one most often asked to put his shoes back on.

There we were in the wind, fifteen tired, hungry, paddlers facing a quarter mile more wind across the opening to Puerto Escondido. I was opening my mouth to organize a sheltered rest and gorp snack while the rest of my brain tackled the short crossing—partners to switch, strategies and angles… Lino caught me and said, “I know the guy who has that panga. We can find gas from someone on the beach, and take people to camp in the panga.”

I looked at the group, at the panga, and at the wind, and something clicked. To the group I announced, “We’re going to see if we can find gas for the panga while you rest.” A cheer went up. I suggested some places to sit out of the wind, and walked down the beach with Lino.

We chatted about options on the way. My raw left foot started to bleed from the rubbing of my sandal. Option one: We could haul the tired people in Panga, paddle the others, and then tow the kayaks. All that would take time and we’d be late for lunch with hungry tired people. I wasn’t sure about towing the kayaks—what damage we’d do in the wind. The trip was over the next day and we could get a pick-up right where the kayaks were if we wanted to keep the panga and ride out in the morning, which was option two. Or, option three, we could bring camp and lunch to the people where they sat on Rattlesnake beach. But there was no good place to camp where we were. And we did not want to retreat back down the beach to the open spaces and need to paddle back into the headwind again, with a forecast of stronger wind the next day.

Considering the forecast, the tiredness of the group, and all other factors, we decided on option two. Shuttle people, the rest of the food, and all loose gear back to camp in the panga in two shifts, and leave the kayaks in the care of the RVers “Honey Jim” and his wife, both kayakers themselves, and their Rottweiler dog. Back at camp there would be snorkeling opportunities and a single kayak to play with if people wanted in the afternoon.

I asked Lori to wait until after lunch to make a decision on leaving for a hotel. After lunch, Lori did still want a hotel if we could get a taxi and a ride out. We felt we needed to make one more trip back to the kayaks to close them up and tie them together just to feel better about leaving them, and we could take Lori and Glenda (who would go with Lori for support) to the ramp and call a taxi. We could also call SKA house to change our pickup location to Rattlesnake Beach. And make troops happy by bringing back some beer. This part was a secret.

The troops were crashed in their tents or sitting with a book or taking a relaxing walk along the coast. They were ready for some down time. We had challenged the conditions, and met our match. Spirits were generally good, except for grumbling Dan whom nobody took seriously anyway, least of all his wife who’d been in the front of his boat unable to open her eyes for the salt spray. Rest was welcome.

So Hilary held the beach front while I went with Lino and the girls, called a taxi, and walked with the girls to the beer store while we waited for the taxi. They said they’d had a great time, just were ready to sleep in a hotel and take a shower. One more night on the beach, they explained, couldn’t add any more to their experience. Sometimes I just don’t know what to believe about people!

There was beer at the store (which there hadn’t been the afternoon before when Lino and Jim paddled for it), and I sent beer, ice, and the girls in the taxi, which arrived as we reached the store, back to the ramp to deliver beer and pick up the girls’ stuff. I asked the taxi driver to take them to Hacienda Suites, but wait to make sure they had rooms there, or take them to a place with room availability.

Then I ran next door to the internet room to call for the Rattlesnake Beach pickup the next day, and began running back to the ramp. I hailed a passing VW van of yachters for a ride back, met Lino at the ramp, rode to Rattlesnake Beach to close and tie up the kayaks, then quickly back to the group on Punta Coyote. The afternoon jaunt was a mini-adventure involving a panga ride, walking, running, a taxi, and hitchhiking, all in the space of an hour and a half.

The New Jersey contingent of our group, up from their naps, was walking towards the lighthouse when we returned in the panga. We exchanged waves, then continued on to land at the beach, brought up the beer and ice, and got the lowdown on the walkers. Julie, one of our sprightly old ladies, had walked that way while the others napped. She came back reporting that she’d walked around to the side where the yachts anchored, and successfully begged a beer.

“Did you have to show your boobies?” one of the Jersey girls asked.
“Yeah, but you’ll do much better with yours because they’re young and perky,” Julie replied.

Upon hearing that report, the Jersey crew started their hike, wives in tow. That’s when we returned with our surprise cold beer for Julie, the big storyteller, to enjoy first while we laughed at the gullibility of the others and what they would do for a cold brew.

The next morning we panga’d people and gear out in three trips, the first of which I went on, helped unload gear, and rode back with Lino to facilitate the next trip. On the return, at his request, I sat up front to keep the bow down while Lino captained. The early morning sun gilded his straw hat, strap hooked under his brown chin. His full lips were relaxed but stoic, eyes obscured behind sunglasses--mirrors of the morning. Behind him the spray from our boat arched, our white trail stretched through the whitecaps, the red mountains rose impartial. Behind the last light blue bench seat Lino’s sandaled feet stood ankle deep or more in water that was geysering up from the thumb-sized hole and numerous pin-pricks in the bottom. As the captain steered with one hand, his face and manner intent on the horizon, the weather, the future, and all things pertinent to the sea and sky, his other hand scooped water and flung, scooped and flung with a homemade bleach-bottle bailer.

The juxtaposition of chaos and calm, all contained in the light blue interior of our vessel, a cradle in the storm with its dark blue gunwales somehow delineating this patch of peace in the midst of a storm, became not a juxtaposition at all, but a small perfect piece of a larger picture. It was a microcosm of our situation. The team of Lino, Hilary and myself, with the helpful hands of our guests, worked together to execute the ever evolving plan (Plan Q are we up to now?) Managing resources, people, and time, with the wind whipping around our heads and somehow a core of quiet from which we reach out to steer, look ahead, and bail the leaky rescue boat. A metaphor of life itself.

So that was the exciting ending to a memorable trip that also involved the capsize of a guide in a double on a crossing (and uneventful rescue), being followed by a film crew in an inflatable as we landed from that crossing, and seeing a 10’ shark from a hillside on the final morning’s hike. And people wonder how it doesn’t get boring after ten years of guiding here!

Paddle On!
Ginni

Wandering

2007-02-25T19:37:00.000-08:00

Surf Camp, January 2007

I set out along the road at a jog. I set out into the wilderness, the road being only the memory of passing tires on impressionable desert soil. Beyond the road the influences of consequence are wind and the paws of coyotes, whose tracks are then erased by wind. Sand piles up behind low shrubs, drifts in waves into ravines. It sorts into ripples and stripes of graytone, and remembers passing mice until the wind rearranges all.

There are also decomposing piles of shells from indigenous people long ago. All living things, in their task of being alive, move resources from one place to another, in their hands, their bellies, their shovels, or with their orders. The indigenous people pulled shells from the sea, ate the fleshy manufacturers of those shells, abalone, clam, sea snail, limpet, and mussel. They left shell heaps that are now, two hundred years after the last clamshell was scraped of its flesh and tossed away, composting into mounds of calcium-rich earth. Plants grow out of the gray, fragment-littered ground.

Landscape passes at a slow trot. Sharp contrast of red hills and blue sky. In the distance, the sea dances white with wind and sun. Here it feels like wilderness. Like I am far from what gives modern humans the leverage to make indelible marks on landscape, make disproportionately huge movements in resources. Yet the simple movement of shells still shows, and I accept that this is just the way of things. Everything matters. And everything, eventually, is forgotten.

It feels good to wander. My feet mock intent, and turn left on a coyote trail, or follow a volcanic intrusion to the edge of the sea, or leap across low shrubbery and rocks in a straight line towards some unknown magnet only to turn again and follow the twisting rise and drop of the coastal trail. This feels alive in a way no obedient jog on the island road back “home” can be. There is something fundamental in wandering solo and totally unfettered by expectation (except eventual return).

I identify with the rocks beneath my feet and the wind in my ears. Minerals and matter that makes me was once rock, and will be again. With the wind I share breath and movement and cycles of in and out, draw and relax.

There is perspective in seeing only earth and sea and sky. In hearing only surf and wind and birds. In feeling the cool and warm of wind and sun. There is perspective in the endurance of the shell piles of the indigenous people. Simplicity and legacy; stories left by stone tools, hunger, and ingenuity.

It is human to wonder at ones own legacy and the frame of its endurance: the life span of friends and family? The decay of a homestead? The life of a tree? The time of literacy in a given language? The weathering of a rock? The recognition of a geologic deposit from some resource displaced? The survival of a species? The half-life of plastic and its determination to float in circles on the sea?

It is human, too, to ponder the value of a legacy at all. And the unavoidability of it. My legacy this week will be carved in the face of a wave. It lives but a moment and crashes on the sand. My legacy this hour is set one footfall at a time into the rocks and soil of a tiny coastal mountain range. My legacy today will be the sum of what I own divided by the total of my days, and the landfill it will eventually occupy.

Being out here makes me want to reduce that sum and allow more for wandering. For coming home into the freedom of spirit and feet. Being out here makes me thankful that I’m here at all, and in this moment, all else pales.

Paddle on, my Friends!
Ginni

Notes from the journey south.

2007-01-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

My Dad once said that flying a jet entailed hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer panic. Driving I-5 can be like that, too. Hours of monotony through Oregon, and then we got a motel for the night in Medford, OR instead of tackling the icy Siskiyou pass in the dark. (Sheer panic averted). Sixteen mostly boring hours after starting out the next morning we found another motel near Hemet, CA. Not that we intended on going that far; we just couldn’t find a motel cheap enough for our tastes! On that stretch, however, we met our one big drama of the trip so far.

The gas gauge doesn’t work in our ‘87 Toyota Corolla, so we measure our gas needs by the trip odometer. Normally you can count on at least 300 miles to the 10 gallon tank. We’ve never loaded the car this full, though. Seven medium sized totes, six small totes, a car repair kit, one full size backpack, two small backpacks, a soft cooler, two kayaks, and a surfboard. Then there was the little or squishy stuff wedged in cracks: a pillow, an accordion, shoes, water bottles, jackets, a stuffed moose, and a stuffed seal.

On the first tank of the trip, the low fuel light came on at just 277 miles. Over the pass it lit up shortly after 250. In southern CA, everybody drives 80, so we went with the flow. In a long stretch of nothing, shortly after dark, the fuel light came on at just 245 miles. The main odometer was also about 7 miles from turning 200,000 miles. The race was on. What would happen first—would we run out of gas, turn 200,000, or find a gas station?

David dropped the speed to about 60, and we counted down. Passed an exit with no facilities. Next exit had fuel, but 2 miles away, according to the sign; most likely on Hwy 14 which was about to meet up with I-5 a few miles ahead. Odometer reading: 199,997.5. “Squeaky”, as we’ve taken to calling the little car on account of its noisy belt, hummed and squeaked all the way to the gas station like a champ! We put 10.4 gallons into a 10 gallon tank, and turned the odometer 200,000 on the on-ramp to Hwy 14 South.

Now we’re in Imperial Beach, staying at David’s roommate’s place which overlooks the Tijuana Estuary and beyond that, Mexico. Projects include changing Squeaky’s oil, re-roofing the addition to David’s mom’s house, outfitting some new-to-us kayaks, and other odd stuff. Estimated departure for Mexico—Tuesday.

Paddle on!
Ginni

Amazon Pirate

2006-12-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

Not much reliable history has survived about the Amazons, so it is not surprising that some fringe elements escaped till now.

It is said they were a race of warrior women, much feared and fantasized about. So tough and single-minded they were that they removed one breast to better shoot their deadly arrows. Most were right-handed and therefore removed the right obstacle, but now we find evidence of a left-shooting combatant, known to us now simply as L.

We’ve heard that L was as fearless as any, taking even to the seas to pursue enemies, and occasionally to pursue such mundane things as food and beautiful sunsets. First she started in a one-woman boat she made of driftwood, but soon her maritime escapades grew to inspire whole fleets of salty sheilas.

Somewhere along the way our paddling archer L seems to have also lost her right hand, and replaced it with a hook, resulting in a truly pirate appearance and attitude. She took to the sea in whatever craft she could, calling her crew to action with a “ChaRRRRRRge the RRRRRascals!” or “CaRRRRRY on! And look lively now!” or agreeing with a hearty “ARRRRRRmen to that, Lasses!”

Truly, L was a sight to behold in the wild tossing of sea and wind, brandishing the hook and wearing the only left-handed Amazon bikini in miles—that is with the right side covered. Beneficiaries of modern technology we are to have digital time-travel cameras now (even though they are a bit fuzzy) and photographers brave enough to operate them!

The images that came back to us from the ill-fated photographer’s transmissions were few—just one peaceful moment while the pirate flag was being hoisted before our man was pulled from hiding and hooked to oblivion. We honor his sacrifice. If we can find another adventurous soul, we may try to capture L in a more festive moment.

Because they may be disturbing, the surviving images are hidden deep in a cave on an uncharted island. Treasure seekers must negotiate the treacherous pirate’s maze, designed to discourage all but the most determined. Neither journey nor photos are for the faint of “aRRRRRRRt”.

Treasure seekers’ hint: the pirates treasure map lies embedded among the tales of a notorious kayaker’s website. The most infamous kayaker on all of Puget Island on the Columbia. (or it will in a couple days when the pirates get around to hiding it there!)

Freedom Report

2006-12-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

News the other day was good. No chemo, no radiation. Baja bound in 3-4 weeks! I’ve got an appointment Jan 9 with an oncologist to discuss “adjuvant” therapy, a word with too many harsh sounding consonants to actually sound therapeutic. I guess that is appropriate, though, as the most common prescription is a five-year course of hormone blocking Tamoxafin, which brings on artificial menopause and other fun things.

In a week the surgeon will remove the rest of my staples. At the last appointment she removed the drain tube (ahhh), but not before we got a good laugh out of it. The perforated drain tube runs internally for about 12 inches around the perimeter of the surgery site, then exits through a hole. From there a non-perforated tube hangs loose and ends in a fist-sized plastic collection pouch which safety pins to the attractive purple tube top I’ve been sporting for a week.

In the doctor’s office, I was instructed to undress and drape myself with some pastel shred of cloth. I had nowhere to pin the pouch… except for that one remaining nipple. Not wanting to be that drastic, I wedged the safety pin on there so it looked pierced, but wasn’t. Perfect fit. David agreed we should see what reaction we got out of my friendly surgeon. We were not disappointed.

Upon lifting back the cloth to inspect the healing process, she gasped and covered her eyes. I demonstrated that it wasn’t pierced by removing it. Still in shock, but laughing with the rest of us, she said, “My god! I knew you were tough but I didn’t know you were that tough!” I assured her that I’m not. We all giggled about it for some time. She was kind enough to remove the tube and some staples anyway.

As you can probably tell, I’m feeling quite good. Getting spunkier by the day. I went outside to do some light farm work yesterday when a scrap of sunshine broke through. Although we have some more doctor visits ahead, I feel the Baja momentum start to pull, and am drawn into its energy. Or maybe it’s Mom’s Christmas cookies that are bringing on the energy! If you’re around and want to come by for a sample, come quick!

As always, thank you for the prayers, healing thoughts, and good energy you’re sending my way. I don’t know how to prove or quantify it, but I am confident that it has been essential. Healing starts in the spirit!

Paddle on!
Ginni

PS I’m trying to sell one of the wooden kayaks I built, if anyone knows anyone interested.

Sales pitch--

“Well made Pygmy Arctic Tern 17’ with hatches and bulkheads, deck lines, and padded thigh braces. Seal Line rudder with solid, gas-pedal style foot pedals (operated with toes while the foot remains stationary). Custom touches such as mahogany tension rounds on hatch covers and matching, fiberglassed-on, pad eyes (the “inchworms” that hold on the bungees & deck line). Matching mahogany end toggles, too. Complete deck rigging for safety. $2,400. Parting with it because I could use the $$. Also available nice fiberglass Werner paddle $170 (230cm, big blade). Located on Puget Island, WA (between Longview WA & Astoria OR on the Columbia River). Ginni 360-849-4016”

Unwrapping

2006-12-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

Dec 18 2006

I was an oversized Christmas present bound in a retro purple floral tube top, and it was time to unwrap. We waited till dark so I could see my reflection in the picture window since we don’t have a mirror in here. I turned up the heat, and David put on some sultry strip tease music. When faced with a lack of options, celebrate the one!

Off came the warm fleece with a shimmy of the shoulders. Around in a circle it twirled, and launched in a direction away from the propane heater. Then the long sleeved T-shirt. Ahh, there was the lovely tube top with drain tube and receptacle pinned to it. After repining the drain to my sweats, I seductively pulled open that luscious Velcro, slowly, slowly, with flirtatious glances at David, who ultimately helped me with the satiny shoulder straps and the gauze packing.

And there was our first full view of the work of that talented flesh artist, my surgeon. A line of gathered and stapled skin ran from just off my sternum to a few inches below my armpit in the subtlest of s-curves. A few inches down my side, the drain tube exited a tight hole in my body, secured there with one loop of thread through the skin next to it.

In this unveiling, we were the fortunate heirs of information from many who’d experienced it before. We’d heard how traumatic this first look can be, and we waited until we both felt ready. We’d talked in the days before, speculated, joked, peeked at the first few staples, and I’d run my hand over part of the new flatness to combat itchiness. We were as mentally ready as we could be.

We looked in the window-reflection, took close-up photos so I could see different angles, counted the 20 staples, tried my arm through a range of motion, studied the pattern of purple-yellow bruises, traced where the drain tube went under the skin, admired how smoothly the skin came together, and probed where the missing nerves interrupted the sensation of touch. Best of all, I got a thorough back scratch with the tube top gone.

“What do you think,” David asked about this marvel of modern medicine, my new body.

I grinned and said, “It’s pretty cool!”

…..

I am being sustained by the prayers and good energy of family and friends, and I thank you more than I can say with words.

Paddle on!

Ginni

Self portrait 4 days after surgery

2006-12-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

Dec 16 2006

If I were to do a glue-together sketch of myself with photos clipped out of National Geographic, I’d start with a big oxbow bend of the Mississippi for a smile. On the canvas of my chest, the right would get Mt. Saint Helens, that beautiful if stubby mountain. The left would be railroad tracks across Kansas, heading off over the flat horizon like a giant zipper.

I haven’t actually looked at the whole picture yet, just seen glimpses of the incision edges stapled together, peeked at the tight bruised skin above the staples, and felt where the drain tube comes out under my arm. Unless I suspect infection, which I don’t, I’m in no hurry to unwrap the new me.

More interestingly, there was 40’ swell forecast on the coast yesterday, and the stormy winds had passed. David and I drove to the mouth of the Columbia in the late afternoon, and walked the paved trail up to the visitor’s center and overlook. A better view would be had from the lighthouse .75 miles up a hiking trail. So we went. I was careful not to slip on the wet trail, descended with smooth bending of knees to avoid jarring, and it was fine. We watched a freighter surf in over the bar.

Surrounded by spruce and the sound of surf and the smells of damp forest, I knew the decisions had been the right ones. Three days after surgery I was back where I wanted to be—outside under my own power. Thus, the oxbow smile today!

releasing the storm

2006-12-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Dec 15 2006

The storm hit in early evening with enough ferocity to make a 1-story cinderblock building tremble. Winds picked up as night enveloped the farm. The breeze found its way in the cracks, and candles fluttered. I held my breath for the impending power outage, then laughed because the power was already out.

Dusk had seen cedar shingles flying off the barn. Imagination had beams sailing overhead in dark. David went out to check on things and was gone a long time.

My bandage was irritating. I tried to scratch lightly underneath it. Felt corrugated ribs. Found where the drain tube entered, then followed it as it slithered along under the skin. My hand headed towards the stapled incision and a gust picked up. The building trembled, tarp flapped on the stove outside. The roof rumbled. My insides tensed as if trying to hold the roof on with willpower.

Late in the darkness came tragic thumping on the roof. A single thump at first, vibrating the building. Organic, like perhaps the owl had gotten blown from her barn perch and splattered on the milk room lid. Then multiple thumps. My mind ran out of owls and pictured shingles from the barn roof. Or clumps of grass ripped from the earth itself and launched upon the roof in a great muddy impact.

Winds rent the night as I sat with flickering candlelight in an unknown body-machine, mysterious beneath an itchy bandage. Curious and not curious at the same time. The picture window showed, in place of the farm, a darkened, rain-streaked image of my own face.

I could use that window and watch my reflection unpackage itself. Part of the primal, unfathomed night. The shuddering room, the womb. Splitting cocoon to reveal metallic, foreign newness. I started to peel the bandage.

I could do it. I could peel back that bandage, and a crack of lightening might rip the darkness. Might reveal the hands of Dr Frankenstein on the other side of the glass, working at my reflection with rusty tools. Hacking, sewing. Hair mad in the storm. Then darkness again. And the wolves of wind.

They leapt and chewed ravenously. Block walls hummed like a wingless 747 preparing for takeoff. Preparing to break the binds of gravity, headlong and wild.

Arrows of rain rattletattled on the roof and windows.

In the end, I didn’t do it. I left the mystery and the drama. I left the bandage, and slept in the surrender of exhaustion. Whatever pieces were left, we’d gather them in the light of morning.

The new adventure

2006-12-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

The adventure is not always what you anticipate. In a slight detour, our kayak guide is temporarily experimenting with breast cancer. Here are some updates:

December 7

Requiem for Lefty

We’re celebrating tonight, though it feels funny to celebrate an impending mastectomy. The pathology report from last week’s biopsy led two doctors from two separate facilities to recommend a simple mastectomy without radiation, with chances of needing chemotherapy extremely unlikely. Both said I should be able to head to Mexico to guide in a little over 6 weeks. No radiation, no chemo, and yes Baja, in my book, are great cause for celebration!

I was so happy when we got home that I dragged David on a frolicking sprint over our jogging course :) For the first time since biopsy surgery last week, I feel like myself—I have energy! Whether last week’s slog was the weight of the unknown or simply recovery time, I don’t know and don’t really care. It’s past.

I’ll be having a mastectomy on Dec 12, with first follow-up visit on Dec 20. I will be able to rule out the minute chance of chemo for sure Dec 20. I’ll probably have drain tubes in place for about 3 weeks the Doc says, which would end early January. Then more visits to determine if I should start hormone treatment, and how I take to it, if so. Early Feb I’ll get back in shape physically, and head down to Mexico!

David is staying here with me, helping and inspiring in so many ways. We’ll travel south together as soon as I’m ready. I’m very thankful to be such a lucky gal!

I know the road isn’t over; it’s just begun, but I want to thank everyone who’s sent a thought or prayer or informative, encouraging word, or offers to help in various ways. One thing I feel more than ever is the connection with loved ones, a strong community of family and friends.

In case you’re interested, the pathology details are as follows: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS, a non-invasive cancer limited to duct tissue) extending beyond the limits of the biopsy sample in all directions. Because they don’t know the extent to which the cancer has followed the ductal system, they recommend mastectomy over a kind of blind lumpectomy. I’m comfortable with that.

In a way I’m lucky because this kind of cancer rarely makes a detectable lump or anything visible on mammogram or ultrasound, but I happened to have a cyst in that area which the doctors investigated sufficiently to discover this. They were surprised at the report because the two are not necessarily related. Being an aggressive DCIS, the doctor believes it was a matter of time before it managed to metastasize to other places. We will monitor the other half of my early warning system, Righty, over the years.

Because my personal goals are long term health and high level of function achieved as soon as possible and as simply as possible, I am opting not to pursue reconstructive surgery at this time, possibly never. It is most important to me to be active and strong, and if I look a little lopsided, well, that’s just character, isn’t it? I wonder if I could get away with wearing half a bikini top like a pirate’s eye patch?

Thanks for all your care and support.

Paddle on!
Ginni

Dec 12

The Pirate Emerges from Battle!

Back from surgery, a little lighter. Good spirits and ability to get around. Ran into paddling buddy Dan Haghighi as we were entering the hospital this morning. Just happens that he’s chair of surgical dept there. He told my docs to take extra good care, and checked in on me throughout the day, which was a wonderful reassurance and pick-me-up!

There had been some miscommunication in advance about pre-surgery time and procedure so that I missed having a radioactive tracer injected to aid in locating my sentinel lymph nodes for biopsy, but after consultation with my surgeon, whom I’ve come to know and trust throughout this whole journey, we decided to proceed as planned. The nodes were located with blue dye and all went fine. Blue urine afterwards was a little surprising until I remembered why!

I remember two things as I was waking up, but can’t recall which was first. One was Dr Dan touching my left hand and talking to me in a reassuring way. The other was waking up with a realization of what had just happened and feeling tremendous grief whereupon a nurse placed a tissue in my right hand. In a few moments I noticed a giant poster of what looked like a lush version of Baja on the wall with palm trees and a white beach, then surprisingly I noticed it again a few moments later, and realized my mind wasn’t as sharp as I thought it was.

Within moments I was in Recovery 2, the second stage, with David by my side. The surgery and recovery took about an hour 30, less than expected. Recovery 2 took about an hour as I battled nausea and a shaking of the legs when I’d let my body tense, which it wanted to do. If I consciously relaxed the shaking stopped. David read to me from the newspaper then from the book Five Acres and Independence. After I accepted some anti-nausea meds, I could actually engage in conversation and move my head and eyes. Shortly after that I refused a wheelchair ride, tapping out a little jig to prove I could stand ok, and walked slowly out to the car.

We’re home now, in the milk room of the old barn, with heaters and bolero music and warm soup and cornbread from my neighbors the Stockhouses. I’m very thankful for them and all the wonderful friends, neighbors, and family who have all been generous in so many ways!

Thanks so much for all your care and encouragement!

Paddle on!

Ginni

Goodbye party at the office

2006-12-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

Dec 13 2006

A banner hung over the doorway. “Goodbye Lefty” All the body parts milled about the refreshment table. Lefty’s partner and best friend Righty had just finished making the farewell speech.

“Lefty, my bosom buddy, I’ll miss you terribly! I’ll have to keep abreast of matters by myself.”

Applause followed, and cries of “Goodbye Lefty, we’ll miss you, see you in the great by-and-by!”

But at the refreshment table the mustard heard other mutterings. Right Knee asked Left Knee, “Did you know Lefty very well?”

“No, just an occasional visit when the old boob stooped to say hello.”

Left Foot, who was prone to grumbling about his job as well as making odd rhymes, said, “That’s a little less weight I’ll have to freight, not that Lefty was ever too hefty.”

The Eyes, twins who never did anything independently, rolled together upon overhearing Left Foot. They agreed that the view would be different without Lefty in the picture, and would take some getting used to.

Gall Bladder was experimenting heavily with intoxicating concoctions and grew loose in the tongue. “Never met her, they keep me in the dark, you know. Maybe I’ll put in a bid for her window office. Still, it’s a shame the old gal’s going tits up.”

At a table, Lefty chatted with Spine, whom she’d never known very well since they worked on opposite sides of the complex. “Still,” said Lefty, “I’ve appreciated your support over the years.”

Skin had a big job, including contact with just about everybody at the office, except the Internal Special Forces. As a result of his constant protective duties, he was quite extended, but stopped in quickly to bid farewell. “Lefty, it sure has been great hanging out with you. Bon Voyage. I’ve got you covered!”

A chorus of Ribs twittered by. “We’ll be facing the world without you, Lefty. We’ll miss you!”

Al and his wife Viola wheezed out from behind the Ribs, “So long, Lefty. We’ve weathered the rise and fall of every breath together. All the best to you!” The rest of the lungs sighed in agreement.

adventures in homeownership

2005-11-30T07:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, and here's why: I'm in love! And I've and have made perhaps the biggest commitment this life will ever see from me. She's 21 acres and full of potential. Some would day potential's all she's full of, except weeds & repair projects. But there's that eye of the beholder getting all starry. It's an island farm on the Columbia River. A 1920s house, half-renovated barn, beautiful chicken coop, back-to-back 2-car garages, and 400' of slough frontage in a cottonwood wetland from which one can paddle into the Columbia River. Keep it in mind next time you're out here looking for summer camping!

You know I, as a kayaker, appreciate moving water in its myriad forms. The latest being its effect coming out the nozzle of a pressure washer, and the hopes that today’s drainage project will actually flow in the desired direction. Thankfully it is raining so I can check.

The pressure washing got me carried away, as dynamic water often does. Intended target was the house. What a whole new attitude! Its no longer a dumpy old farm project, but an actual white house, kinda cute, at that. Then, power in my hands, I looked around. The concrete patio slab got blasted. The walkway to nowhere from the front door (discovered that it says 1940 on it). My crumpled but drivable car. The garage. The ladder. A plastic kids picnic table. Luckily there were no friends around that day, to get blasted or to try to stop me!

There’s been other exciting progress. There is plumbing, complete & new from the main valve to the repaired septic tank (and it even flows downhill now!). I could watch Justine’s new DVD This is the Sea Two while wallowing in a tub of hot water. Oh, the decadence! All the main floor bathroom fixtures are installed & working. Paint fumes emanate from the living room. New wires run upstairs to power lights & outlets, and 4 electric wall heaters are humming away. The garage doors have been saws-mosted* shorter in anticipation of today’s gravel.

*Saws-most? It was demoted from saws-all after meeting its match on a 4” cast iron drainpipe.

The snow sits on the Oregon hills across the river, and last night the frosty fog swirled around the legs of deer in the pasture. Best of all are the friends who’ve been coming by to be a part of it. Many, many thanks for the warm waters of friendship!

2005-05-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

Simon films the big drop.

Survived: Anglesey sea kayak symposium

2005-05-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

It’s over and Anglesey Sea & Surf Centre is quiet again. Was it real? A few signatures in my kayaking logbook and a lot of memories. Among the cacophony around the dinner table, we figured there were at least 10 countries represented at the symposium. Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Iceland, UK, and US, among others.

The last day of symposium I went with Justine and Axel to film Sean Morley (who had paddled round the British Isles) playing in North Stack tidal race. The waves weren’t working well so we tucked around the corner to Parliament Cave. It had a minefield of rocks in its mouth, a west swell sloshing in, and a SE wind blowing across then howling down the cliffs to whip spray off the water.

Now, I like to play in rock gardens. And I’ve paddled with some talented and experienced paddlers in this kind of environment. But I have never seen anyone handle a boat and a wave through a rock garden like this guy. Especially not in an 18-foot racing-style Inuk kayak with a wing paddle. It’s the least manoeuvrable boat and the least supportive blade.

A swell crashes against a rock molar, bends around it and surges white up against the cliff, dwarfing a kayaker heading boldly into hungry pre-Cambrian jaws. He disappears behind the molar as the water drops, and my breath goes away with the wind. As the next swell splatters itself against the cliff, Sean shoots out smiling in front of a white tongue of water, but missing his hat.

In contrast, picture this paddler in her borrowed light blue Explorer LV in Penrhyn Mawr tide race that afternoon. The west swell pushes across the race and large waves break across each other in general mayhem. The little inside chute, however, sits at a different angle than the main flow, and takes the wind-swell directly against the current. This makes for the cleanest rides, but the chute is narrow, and surfing a few degrees out of alignment sends the kayak arcing into the eddy on one side or the other. If this arc is done with good velocity, the speed at which the rock in the eddy approaches ones bow is alarming. At one point I resort to the body drogue--lying down on the water to slow momentum. It works, but it’s a far cry from the birdlike grace Sean demonstrated that morning.

After the fun of symposium came a week of assessments, one for coaching and one for skills, both of which I passed, but there were moments I wasn’t sure I would. Five-star award is the British Canoe Union’s highest accomplishment for sea paddling skills and leadership. Because there’s none above it, they feel obligated to thoroughly test the candidates before passing them.

During the night paddle, I was asked to lead the group from T Bay to a nook in the rocks called Porth Diana. As we pushed off the beach into the wind, I noticed that behind us a distant aluminium plant chimney lined up perfectly with a triangle of lights on the roofline of a waterfront restaurant beside which the van was parked. Easy as a landing strip at an airport, I thought to myself.

The other 2 blokes had their turns at leading. At one point, we changed plans because the sea was too rough for our group. Up a more protected part of the coast, we passed some offshore rocks, and pulled into a cobble beach beside a haunted house—a rambling stone affair silhouetted on a rocky headland. Rowland our assessor asked the candidates to locate on a map where we were.

While he consulted with another person, I looked at my map, identified the offshore rocks we’d passed, noted the proximity of the coast road, and saw that the angle of the cove allowed a straight view of the lights of Porth Diana. Satisfied, I lay back on my kayak and looked at the stars. Cassiopeia. Leo. Familiar patterns in an unfamiliar landscape. Rowland finished quizzing the blokes and walked over to my kayak with its bow resting on the cobbles and stern lifting with the breathing sea.

I pointed up and said, “Well, the Big Dipper aims at Polaris, which is the north star. So that means,” I sat up and put my finger on the map. “We’re here.” Fortunately, two things were true in that moment: Rowland had a sense of humor, and I was right.

Fate has a way of humbling the confident, however. Chris led us somewhere else, and I was supposed to take us back to the launch. Remember the landing lights of the restaurant and the aluminium chimney. I knew we were in T Bay. I saw the chimney. I heard waves on rocks and manoeuvred narrowly around them in the dark. But I couldn’t find the restaurant next to which was parked the rather large and conspicuous van and trailer. The closer to the sandy beach we got, the more slowly I paddled, searching for some recognizable detail among the yellow street lights. Everyone slowed with me.

With my stomach in my throat and the beach approaching ominously, I thought I’d failed the night navigation. Finally, floating 10 feet off the beach, I had to admit, “Well, we’re in the right bay, but I don’t see the van and restaurant. Hmm. Let’s land here and I’ll have a look about.” Just as I said that, my eyes caught it—the van and trailer directly in front of me parked next to a darkened restaurant. Ah, some beacons are more reliable for navigation than others.

The final day of assessment tested skills in a nominal tide race off Rhoscolyn Head. Performing seals, my assessor called the drill. Roll over. Capsize, exit the boat, re-enter and roll up. Scramble. Put the skirt on a boat full of water and roll it again. Up to this point everything went smoothly. But with a cockpit full of water and hatches full of gear (we were prepared to camp out), I couldn’t get the boat to capsize. I could set boat sideways and hang my head in the water. I could balance brace with my back on the water and my head up looking around. I could flick the boat right-side-up from there with my hips. But I couldn’t get the dang thing upside down. I tried several times before the Man with the Red Pen conceded that no matter what happened, I could still get up even if I couldn’t get fully upside down with a swamped, loaded kayak.

I also had to demonstrate a T rescue, which Rowland in his wisdom set up thus: one symposium client who’d been the squeaky wheel all week wanted to show off his roll in the waves. Rowland was happy to encourage him to do so at this moment, and as he went confidently over, Rowland suggested I watch him. He didn’t come up. Not with his boat, anyway. With excuses aplenty. But he did give me the opportunity to demonstrate my rescue and gave Rowland and others the pleasure of watching him being rescued by one of those female types he’d been so condescending to all week.

Then I was to have someone else raft up with him while he fussed with his skirt and I towed them up current, down wind and down swell. That would call for a long tow line so they didn’t surf into me. Rowland kept pace off to the side. We’d be moving along nicely, then the line would go taut, and with an “Ooof!” I’d stop dead while he glided ahead chuckling.

“Now capsize, release your tow, and roll up,” Roland said. I did. “Reattach tow and continue.” I did. Did I mention that my boat was still full of water throughout this circus? I got the raft to a calm place behind a rock and unhooked the line. As I stashed my tow, Rowland the Torturer suggested that I just might have a fist-sized hole under the seat in my kayak and that I should find a nice slippery rock to pull it out upon and fix it.

So I did a bit of rock gardening in the slightly surging waters, made a graceful enough exit onto wet, seaweed draped rocks, finally dumped out the cockpit full of water, then pulled the loaded boat up, thankful it wasn’t mine, and that there was seaweed to ease the slide. Clear of the surging water on a narrow ledge up against a wall, I pulled out the repair kit and a towel. Wiped off the hull, slapped on some “gaffer tape” (duct tape in American).

“It’s got to stay on through everything else we do and be there when we get to the beach,” Rowland reminded me. A few more wipes, a few more slabs of tape for good measure. That patch stayed on through the rock-slide launch, the paddle home, and the next day’s tide race playing before I remembered to remove it. But before I jump ahead, the launch off the rocks was a moment of glory I’d like to share.

As I set about to drop the boat back into the water, the swells predictably got bigger. I scrambled out from beside the boat so I didn’t get squished by the waves, pulled it back up the rock a smidge, and paused to watch for a few waves. The tide was rising, and I didn’t know if the swell was now coming over some rocks that had previously protected me and I would just have to take my knocks, or if this was a large set I could wait out. I saw a moment of opportunity, and took it. I scrambled down, set the boat in the foamy water, straddled it, and paddled out backwards while inserting my feet into the boat and sideslipping to avoid a rock. A surge lifted me up over a shallow spot and I rode it in reverse out of the rocky zone without a scratch or splash, then put on the spray deck in calm, deep water. Whew. Who’d have believed that all those years of playing with waves and rocks and balance would ever pay off in an official kind of way?

Maybe one knows that one’s found ones calling when a lifetime of play becomes pertinent. Of course, no matter how proficient one gets, there are always the inspirational others with more experience, more style, or more guts. Always new places to see. That’s the beauty of it, and I’m leaving here thankful for the years behind, and for the years ahead.

2005-05-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Sweet Oregon surf. And... sunshine?

Unplanned Road Adventures

2005-05-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

A few miles inland from the Baja Pacific coast lies a broad, windblown mesa. Highway 1 shoots across it in a straight line north, passing a military checkpoint. Six or seven scattered half-built concrete houses huddle in a forgotten community near the checkpoint. Pulled off in front of the houses sits a blue truck with 5 kayaks on top, the hood up, and one forlorn traveler sitting against the tire in the shade.

You may recognize this traveler from some previous adventures. It is me. As is usually the case, I am trying to convince myself that things aren't as bad as they seem.I was innocently driving up the hill from El Rosario, pushed the clutch to shift into 5th, and nothing happened. The clutch wouldn't depress. I coasted onto the dirt road in front of the huddle of hollow gray houses, and tried to think clearly.

Fluid? Check.
Fuses? Well, I guess that had been the problem with my reverse lights. Otherwise, Check.
Connections under the hood? Check.
Well, hmmm. Maybe I just need to push harder. CRACK! I break the rod which the pedal pushes through the firewall into the master cylinder. Now I know I'm sunk.I drink some water, eat some food, and try to think more clearly. Whatever the original problem is, I know I can't fix the secondary one myself.

So I look up "clutch" in my Spanish-English dictionary. "Embrague" This enables me to 1) curse at it in the appropriate language (as in `pinche embrague'), which cements it in my mind so I can 2) talk to a mechanic if I can find one.

I crawl underneath and discover that the hydraulic hose which is supposed to connect into the transmission doesn't connect to anything. Problem. Armed with information, but fearing a lack of locally available parts, I wander the potholed dirt streets to a house with laundry fluttering on a line in the wind. After some introduction, the occupants determine that I speak enough Spanish for them to be able to help me. Carla, a woman about my age, offers to drive me to the mehanics down in El Rosario, when her mother suggests the telephone. There is no phone book, so Carla calls the operator, who connects her. "What's the problem," she asks me."El embrague," I confidently declare.She looks puzzled but repeats it into the phone, then shrugs, says "I don't know either," and looks at me again.

"The thing to shift the gears," I say, miming the action. She relays this information and then repeats, "Oh, el clutch!"The mechanics say they'll be there right away. I walk back to my truck to wait.Mexican hospitality exists in inverse proportions to Mexican punctuality. An hour or so later, Carla drives up and says get in, we'll go look for them. I ride down the hill with her and learn a few things about the neighborhood. The houses on the mesa were built after some horrible flooding on the river by El Rosario, but people gave up and moved back to their homes in town when the floods were not so persistant as they feared. Land is cheap, and there are no building codes, so a house only really costs the materials and your labor to stack the cinder blocks. Easy come, easy go. Carla lives on the mesa with her parents, her husband and their 2-year old daughter, her brother, sister-in-law and their son, and a young man with a drooling smile and a crooked shock of short black hair, whose connection I never did figure out. The men work in seafood processing or at the gas station in town.

We follow a dirt road maze until it ends at a pile of overturned dusty cars, and Carla says we're here. If this were not omen enough, we find that the mechanics, Andre and Andre, one big and one skinny, are working on the pickup they intended to drive to see me.It's not as bad as it looks, I remind myself. Their shop was typical of rural Baja: a dirt yard with oil stains on the ground. Some shops have trees from whose branches hang whole engines. Some have holes in the ground for getting under vehicles. This one just has a handful of tools tossed in the back of a white truck, and two creative, determined and greasy men named Andre.

They get the truck running and follow us up to my lonely rig on the mesa. Under the dash, I show skinny Andre the broken rod. He uses my tools, which are much more comprehensive than his, and takes apart a few things that were never meant to be taken apart, much less reused. Eventually he pulls out two pieces of rod, one end plastic and one end metal. Big Andre turns them over in his hand and butts them together, saying to me "Chickle," as in Chicklets gum. I groan and shake my head. "Duck tape?" I offer. He laughs and nods.Skinny Andre climbs acrobatically out of my truck and says some things to Carla to tell me, but she doesn't know anything about cars and tells him to tell me himself. He says the rod is the problem and he's going to go work on it. I say, no, wait, there's more underneath, and show him the hydraulic line. He agrees that that is a problem as well.

While he's prodding about at things, big Andre and I discuss all the "American" words that have been adopted into Mexican automotive lexicon. Among others, there are clutch, wipers, hood, auto partes, and my favorite, mofle (muffler). Skinny Andre says that they needed to go look for parts, and would return in five minutes. "Dos horas," ammends big Andre. Carla smirks and nods. "Ensenada?" I ask about the location of parts. I considered contacting a friend in the states to bring me down the necessary bits over the weekend, but that seemed excessive and I lacked long distance phone access. I considered hitchhiking to Ensenada for parts myself, but that seemed intimidating."No," says skinny Andre, "Here in El Rosario.""OK, I'll be here," I say cheerfully."Five minutes," says Skinny."Two hours," says Big. And they leave.I go with Carla back to her house, chuckling together about estimations of time in Mexico. "Andre's right," she says, "It'll be two hours. That's what five minutes means." She says she'd known the pair of them all her life.

I pass the time with the family, switching TV channels between a melodramatic hospital soap and soccer. When the soap is over, news of the failing Pope. I find I can understand most of the Spanish. In fact, this is turning into a day of Spanish immersion, beginning at surf camp this morning with Jorge and Jandro's visit, and now incorporating family, automotive, and entertainment contexts. Carla's daughter wakes up and entertains herself and us for a half an hour by playing with mashed potatoes, and even ingesting some.

Eventually when we look out the window, the mechanics are back at my truck, and we walk over. Mexican punctuality also exists in inverse proportions to Mexican ingenuity. The Andres have a complete rod, welded in the middle, and now made entirely of metal, including the eye on the end. I am impressed. The other fitting doesn't work, and they have to work on it overnight. Meanwhile they think it best to move the truck away from the highway especially if I am going to sleep in it.

There is no way their little truck could drag my loaded one over the rough ground, so they intend to drive my truck by starting it in gear. Except that if the clutch isn't depressed, the engine won't start, and the clutch is still broken. No problem for these guys. Little Andre the stunt man gets behind the wheel. Big Andre pulls a rubber covering off a bolt and holds a cresent wrench under the open hood. I am supposed to close the hood when the truck starts moving (after Andre removes all body parts) so Stunt Man can see where he's going. With a few chugs and a few shouts, my truck is on its way, lumbering through the potholes to Carla's house.

I watch a colorful sunset over the mesa with silhouettes of vehicles gliding along Hwy 1 and stopping at the checkpoint. Somehow the experience of traveling feels very foreign to me right now, that on-the-road feeling I was expecting to live with for a few days. I am suddenly here, part of a community, and not part of a flow. Strangely, I don't feel anxious at all. Unplanned adventures can even be pleasant once one looses the expectation to stick to one's original plan.

I eat refried beans and quesadillas with Carla, greet the others as they come home from work, and crawl into my truck out front to read and sleep. The morning's sunrise is as spectacular as it is flat. Soon the sea fog threatens from the west, and a cold wind heralds its arrival. While waiting for Andre and Andre, I putter with the rod they created, and accidently assemble it into the truck. The clips are one-way, so once I stick it through the firewall and into the master cylinder, it's stuck. So I put it on the pedal mechanism, and find it's stuck there as well. Thankfully, I had stuck it in the right way.

Skinny Andre arrives animated with having thought about the clutch all night, wondering how to reassemble it and how to make the hose stick. I solved the first problem already, which he is happy about. He solves the second, and swears by it. "That will last, but fix the rod better when you cross over," he says, "because it may fall off the pedal."

We still need to fix the wiring so I could start the truck, however. The sensor doesn't fit over the welded rod. Big Andre hot wires it again, and I ride while Skinny Andre drives my truck to the electricians. He chatters merrily all the way down the hill. I think he is relieved to have conquered the clutch. We could tell we were at the electricians by the red aluminium Tecate cans resting in gregarious piles in the corners of the yard. "He tips `em back," says Andre. In about 30 seconds, the electrician clips two wires, and the truck will start in gear, out of gear, or anytime you turn the key.

"How much?" I ask. Skinny Andre says, "A hundred for the electrician, and a hundred for each of us."
"Pesos?" I clarify.
"Si."
So, after 19 hours of El Rosario mesa hospitality and about $30 of auto repair, I am on my way again.

Just so you don't think the saga ends here, the next chapter, were it to be written, would bring to life a night and morning, a few days later, in Eugene, OR where I wait in a nearby sports bar and a Salvation Army outlet while the entire clutch is replaced in a much less creative, more expensive manner. Now it should last for at least another five months!

2004-11-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

Where's the next wave? Ginni plays in Penrhyn Mawr, in Wales.

Rocks, Water, Action!

2004-11-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

The trip began with pure adventure. Even though Dutch BCU coach Axel well outranks me in skills and coaching certifications, I have more experience with Pacific Ocean swell. The importance of this became vividly clear to me when Axel and a Pacific Ocean set found themselves sharing a long archway. The 17’plastic boat he was paddling through the 16’ wide tunnel tossed about like a toy. The yellow bow aimed skyward, then the hull appeared (that would be the bottom), then the whole boat spanned the tunnel without touching the water below it, then just white water, then the bow moving in an undirected, unmanned kind of way, then the deck of the captainless boat. Hmmm, one says to oneself, this is not a promising start to a journey.

When the set subsided, I paddled my little wooden boat back through the tunnel, clipped my short tow on the wallowing banana, and dragged it out the far end to Axel, who was unhurt, but worried about the boat, which was mine. I dumped it out, he climbed in, and we went to a beach nearby to inspect.

Just a flesh wound. A few scrapes in the bow and stern, a few pieces of rock embedded, a little bend in the deck, a little gap between the rim of the day hatch and the deck easily repairable with duct tape and a float bag for security. Some dry clothes for Axel, a few moments of heart rate reduction, and we were back on the water. This became the event that we got the most conversational mileage out of over the next few days. We decided it was a good 5-star rescue precipitated by poor 5-star judgment. Thereafter we conscientiously exercised good 5* judgment.

The Mendocino coast is the domain of rock arches, including one 4-way with the intersection open to the sky. We explored and played, and surfed a little bit in a protected cove. One set wave came in when I was waiting outside the break and Axel was heading out through the impact zone. He said something I didn’t quite catch (perhaps it was in Dutch), and leaned on his paddle with long arms. The wave jacked up and crested, obscuring my view of Axel in the bent banana. Suddenly out the back of the wave, through the green middle of it, a yellow projectile launched, with a yellow-clad passenger bent over the middle and white streams of water flying off. For a moment it was completely airborne in a snapshot of high drama.

After a quick tourist visit to the Redwoods, we and found ourselves on the legendary southern OR coast. This is the secret frolicking ground of sea stacks and offshore rocks. Mazes of them. Playgrounds of them. We used them to full advantage, sometimes riding between as a swell compressed its way through. We stumbled upon sleeping seals, which look like kelp until you’re too close. They float vertically, noses out of the water, bobbing on the swell with eyes closed and nostrils rhythmically flaring and relaxing.

The rest of the Oregon coast was unfriendly as we drove up it, with 13’ swell and high wind. Just across the Columbia in Washington, however, we found the holy grail of sea kayak surfing spots inside the mouth of the river, and covered an awful lot of mileage in 200-yard increments.

Now I’m home, cozying up to computer work and a propane heater, or out puttering in the garden in the short sun of winter, or walking the woods in bright clothes so I’m not mistaken for an elk.

fiberglass transplant and cosmetic surgery

2004-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2004 coastal trip

Location: Manzanita to Cape Falcon & back.
Characters: AJ, Jim, Geoff, Andrew, Ginni, client Chris
Forecast: SW swell 3’, wind W 5K to NW 10 K Tide low in morning

It was a gap I’d studied on several trips, but had never braved it. Swells pushed up against a sloping wall, making a swirling, sloping floor. A passageway turned right, followed the wall, entered a network of caves and rooms open to the sky, and came out at several more accessible places. When the swell receded, it poured over a rock ledge that guarded the entrance. As it began to recede, it made a thick waterfall, which rapidly diminished in volume, exposing the rock, then folded the water back on itself in front of the rock.

Patient observation revealed that there were moments of sufficient calm to paddle through with good timing. The swell was small, tide low, and I was feeling lucky. It appeared that out would be easier than in, so I went around and entered another opening. Jim followed. A set came through, and I calmly surfed a swell along the narrow passageway. At the gap, the water mellowed, and I cruised through on a pool-flat surface.

Jim followed, a moment too late. A swell surged him up towards the wall, and he hesitated for a moment before starting to paddle out. He started to get the waterfall, held his paddle up for the drop, and stalled at the bottom. Over he went, riding the incoming swell upside down back towards the wall.

His paddle came up for a roll, but the kayak was against the wall, and didn’t come up. He came out of the boat, a helmeted head beside a blue hull, and rode the waterfall back over the rock. AJ was closest, so gave Jim his bow and paddled backwards. It took only about 4 strokes to pull Jim and his boat out of the zone. I studied Jim’s face, which didn’t appear to have gotten banged up. We were all wearing helmets, but faces are still vulnerable. He said he was unhurt. AJ dumped the water out of Jim’s’ boat and helped him back in.

It was an exciting time, and the rest of the crew gathered around. Jim, in his irrepressible way, exclaimed, That was fun!

I took his word for it, once Jim was ready to go again, and went back at the gap to settle the score. I mistimed an entry, didn’t like the feel of it, and backed out quickly. In this environment, judgment is the better part of survival. A little more patience, and I cruised in on flat water. Turned around, and got set to exit again.

Perhaps it was impatience, or maybe I just wanted more excitement. A swell pushed in against the wall, and I paddled out onto it, turned, and committed myself to a ride over the falls. The turn took a stroke longer than I’d wanted it to on account of my hips for some reason not being as relaxed as usual and the boat not gracefully edging for the pivot. But committed I was, and I punched out a couple strokes for momentum. Over the drop I rode, bow disappearing into the foam below the rock. I braced on the right just to keep contact with the water. Then, Bam! Solid wooden hull came down on even more solid rock. That was all; momentum and a few more strokes carried me through, and everything was peachy.

I flipped over so Jim could assess damages, and he said all was fine, so onward we went. It turns out the hull was fine for the rest of the day, but it does need some time in boat hospital before the next trip. It may be time to graduate to a plastic boat for coastal adventures.

Here’s to fun rides and no rocks!
Ginni

http://www.shellback.net/ (the gap mentioned above is behind Steve in the second photo on the Shellback homepage)

Under Neahkahnie Castle

2004-05-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

Oregon Coast
May 15, 2004
We launch at Arch Cape and paddle a couple miles of open coast, past houses nestled in cliff-edge coastal forest. To the west, a flat, wide horizon is curtained here and there with clouds. Birds everywhere--flying in flocks so big they look like weather patterns, floating, frosting the distant rocks. Murres, guillemots, pelicans, cormorants, gulls.

Onward to the cape of complex geology we paddle. Below the spruces are tan stripes of sandstone, or what passes for it from down here. The sandstone rests on a hundred feet or so of black basalt in complicated geometric patterns. At water level in the basalt are caves, pocketing swells and jingling them around like money.

Under Neahkahnie Castle lies a maze of a dungeon, only its underworldly beauty is too great to be called such. Enter the main opening and meet a vertical wall that catches the evening sun reflecting off the water. Along the wall in both directions run tunnels with light at the ends and black floors that undulate with the swells.

One’s first impression upon entering a sea cave is darkness, sound, and constant motion. Sea caves challenge all the senses, although one could argue that anyone paddling into a sea cave has lost all sense. After a few moments, eyes adjust. You adjust and realize that, yes, you are still an air-breathing mammal bobbing on the water. Under a mountain.

Sandy and Tobin exit a nearby opening, and I go through the shorter tunnel to meet them at the mouth of another vaulted room. Looking back through the tunnel, we can see the incoming surge glow emerald, infused by the sun. The next rock-walled enclosure opens to the sky through several portals, and rays of light angle through mist above the churning water.

Back through to the first room we file, then onward through the long tunnel, which is just a few feet higher than an upraised paddle when the swell lifts us. It’s a couple hundred yards long, long enough for several phases of thought to process.

Tobin thinks it feels like a Disney ride, through the tunnel on an undulating track. He starts singing in a small voice, “It’s a Small World After All.” I imagine the native people taking their canoes through here as a feat, having read that they did such things, and, being a water people, I can’t imagine them not. Just then, I think I hear voices in the mountain singing. Very eerie. Silhouettes of two kayaks glide leisurely along in front of me, rising and falling, through the timeless belly of the mountain.

For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Falcon3.html

The Other Side of Oregon

2004-04-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

April 26, 2004
The Other Side of Oregon

Cape Lookout is a long, bony finger pointing west and a little south into the Pacific Ocean. The leading edge of the upper plate in a subduction zone, it rises some 300ft straight out of the ocean and bares the geologic stories of many ages in basalt and sandstone. A coastal temperate rainforest grows on its northern slopes, the skeletons of many-limbed crucifixes silhouetted through sun-streaked fog. At its base claws the unsleeping sea.

Some friends from Shellback kayak club—Sam, Jon, Sandy, and I—launch through toothy white surf, the gatekeeper of the ocean, Jon calls it, and into a dynamic world few ever experience.

The reported 5’swell rolls by, dwarfing Sandy in his kayak. Sea feet somehow appear much, much bigger than statute feet. The swell moves on to smash at the base of an offshore rock and send a blanket of white into the air. The water all around is bumpy, unpredictable, ever moving. As if someone were shaking the carpet beneath, but from several directions at once. Foam and sea birds dot the surface.

As we round Cape Lookout’s fingertip, the gray tail of a whale signals high out of the water, like a giant open palm raised in greeting or farewell. It slips gently below the surface. A column of spray shoots skyward, and the barnacled head of another gray whale surfaces for a breath.

South is the Caribbean side of Cape Lookout, sheltered today from direct wave impact. Swells rise and pour off the cliff base where rock is lined with colorful life. Purple and orange sea stars suction themselves to the wall and to each other like haphazard, animated tiles. Tasseled brown kelp grows on rigid, footlong stalks. Six-inch green anemonies bloom prolifically. Anemonies are animals, but their green color comes from tiny plants that live within their cells, bartering photosynthesis work for shelter. Deep inside sea caves, the anemonies are pale.

Our insignificance is magnified inside the giant granddaddy of sea caves, where wave energy ricochets and feeds a rumbling blowhole. Red footed guillemots perched in an overhead crevice whirr like party favors above the gastric churning.

Ah, the dreams we hatched and promises we made to come back to this place as we cruised along the sun warmed, sea bathed wall of life, and ventured into black depths of narrow, unnamed caves, and wove through rock gardens, timing wave surges for rides over little waterfalls. Perhaps the sea will remember even if we in our tragic busy-ness forget.

For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Lookout2.html

Open Water Kayak Expedition

2004-03-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

Loreto, Mexico; Sea of Cortez

The First Annual Sea of Cortez Open Water Expedition must have been a success because many of the participants are talking about the next one. Personally the trip was rewarding on many levels. I got to share the Baja paddling experience that’s been so important in my life with friends who’ve wanted to see it. I got to run a Baja trip with an instruction component. Watched my handmade Pygmy kayaks carry Elaine and Marty across the Sea of Cortez, sunlight on the wood grain and the exotic rocky greens and tans and pinks of Carmen Island in the background.

Due to some last-minute cancellations, we had space for a Mexican guide-in-training to join us. I met David earlier this winter. He had worked just two days for Villas de Loreto before he joined us for a skill-building day for Mexican guides, and he quickly distinguished himself with his enthusiasm and skill. That day I told Villas they had a keeper.

He proved me right during this last trip. For sheer strength and speed, nobody in our group could touch him. Even in a heavier, slower boat, David could out-sprint any of us, including AJ. For personality, he was a winner. When not helping in the kitchen, he was studying his English, and involving guests in the process. Pre-dinner time turned into informal Spanish/English language classes, at times turning riotous as surprising things were slowly communicated, then verified. Like David’s other job as a body builder and dancer, alongside his role as father of a 2-year old. All at the ripe old age of 21.

David was an asset, too, in encouraging us to visit the old salt pond village on Carmen Island. Two of his friends caretake the place now, which is used occasionally used as a resort. From the 1920s till about 30 years ago, the salt works provided an economic basis more important to Loreto than fishing is today, according to David. Narrow gauge rails carried salt to a barge, which brought it to a ship waiting offshore in the narrow bay. A rusty, barnacled shipwreck lies there still.

The village is a study in irony and juxtaposition. In front of the mechanical repair shop, with its sign intact, sit two tractors filled with dirt and made into cactus planters. One has a flat tire. The old school house is now filled with plastic kayaks for resort users. Turkey vultures pose atop rusty metal poles that once held basketball hoops.

Walls of some buildings were constructed of stone, with coral in the gaps. Other buildings are composed entirely of mortared coral blocks, like lumpy white bricks. In front of a crumbling wall, an orange desert mallow blooms. At the base of a distant hill lies a cemetery where, David tells us, most of the graves belong to children who didn’t make it on this harsh island with its minimal medical care. While he was camping on a nearby point, he thought he saw their ghosts wandering along the sandy beach. He lingers a moment longer than the rest of us in the tiny whitewashed church, the only one of the old buildings apparently kept up, and crosses himself before leaving, perhaps thinking of the children.

The sea gods treated us to a tailwind one day. Our motley little fleet of mismatched kayaks bobbed along down the swell. All together we were ten boats and eleven people: Two wooden Pygmy kayaks; two plastic Tempests, a red, and a yellow; AJ’s yellow and lime fiberglass Tempest, Jim’s orange and yellow Assategue, and four geriatric but willing Seda boats rented from Villas de Loreto, including the Beluga, a white double. Paddles were about as matched as boats, and included a couple of Greenland sticks among the spectrum of big-bladed tools. Paddling styles varied, but increased in efficiency throughout the week. A warmth grew inside as I looked frequently over our crew. From the lead, I monitored our speed and spread, looked for signs of struggle in the rear, assessed the peripheral awareness of one drifting off towards the horizon, and visited with Julie, in front of me in the Beluga. Island silhouettes parted sea from sky, Monserrate to the south and Santa Catalina off to the east. The white marine fossil layer of Carmen’s southern tip glided quickly past the subtle hues of Sierra la Giganta’s steep slopes to the west, and all was well with the world.

Such is the guiding life. My trips in the Sea of Cortez are over for the season, and I head north slowly, hoping to savor some waves along the way. For those who are interested, the Second Annual Sea of Cortez Open Water Expedition is shaping up to be an 8-day adventure about the second week of March 2005, with an eight-mile crossing on the route.

In the Stars

2004-02-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

Loreto, Mexico

Baja kayak trips. It's about the improbable landscape where desert touches ocean. It's about the colorful burst of fish around a rock, brushed with dancing sunlight. Or the miniscule leaf of a palo verde tree. But it's also about the people whom fate has brought together for the week.

When Frank and Katie first met, he thought she was too tomboy, and she plain didn't like him. That was in Georgia almost 60 years ago. This week in Baja, on a desert island, they celebrated 55 years of marriage. Demonstrating respect and tender affection for each other, and a healthy sense of fun, they were a brisk breeze of inspiration to this independent kayak guide.

Lee died in the hospital once, but came back determined to enjoy life. Whatever he and his wife Suzy wanted to do, they would, before it was too late for real. This kayak trip was evidence.

Simon, from the UK via Uganda, was trying to decide what to do next in life, and came close to cancelling his Australia plans to travel slowly up the Baja because he'd fallen in love... with the desert.

All in all, it was an uninhibited group of individuals. The Heavenly Body Exercise demonstrated this well. Not quite what you think, this exercise is a 3-D interactive model of the solar system designed to illustrate the phenomena we see in space in a down-to-earth way.

Venus the Godess of Love (Lee) boogeyed down with fleet-footed Murcury (Dick) around Her Tremendous Radiance, Karen the sun. Simon spun on his tilted axis 365 times per orbit, closely attended by Mark, who'd earned his position by dropping his drawers at us from the lighthouse tower the night before.

The solar system stumbled along in its free-form way when from the far reaches of space came a passing comet, James, from another kayak camp seeking cell phone reception. He had a close brush with Jupiter, the large, gaseous one, played by Linda the Petite, before a dinner call shattered the fine balance of physics with a greater gravity.

Evening Surf

2003-11-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

The location is top secret, but I can say this: it is the Pacific Ocean. Towards evening the wind dies, and waves turn to sculpted glass. They are about head-high to a kayaker, nothing intimidating. Once you’ve known waves, what they feel like, it’s hard to look at them as if you didn’t know them, like a friend or lover. It’s hard not to imagine yourself moving with them, the way you know. Just being here is pure joy, on the water, surrounded by ephemeral art, drenched in it.

Body and boat are one animal, and we move to the rhythm of the ocean. A swell steepens and grows into a perfect emerald slope. Energy of 1,000 miles with the evening sun glowing within it. The crest thins to translucent, bends, and crashes into white. Momentary crystals hang above the foam, then fall into it.

The wooden bow of my boat arrows through the dissipating tumble. Sunlight on wood grain. Rays grow long and orange. The kayak etches line after perfect line down the sculpted curves. On my right, nothing but rushing air. On my left, a wall of green whose topmost edge now steals the gilded sky, now crashes over me in holy baptism.

Submarine Races

2003-09-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

The West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium came and went leaving me with an infusion of kayak enthusiasm from other instructors and from friends seen but once a year. Not least of all, the Cardboard Kayak race willgo down in history, as well as going down soggy in the water. My friend Neil and a few of his pals entered as Submarines, Inc with the brilliant idea of building a "boat" around a person, giving them a paddle, mask, fins, and a snorkel as the periscope, and pushing thelucky volunteer into the water to race against other contestants out around a particular kayaker and back. I was chosen for the privilege.

Less effort went into hydrodynamic design than into explanation. We were shooting for a self-powered submarine. Integral propulsion. Or Inner-Girl propulsion. The plan was based not on the lines of the well-known Inuit tradition, but on the lesser-known but distantly related You-In-It design. Dave from Pygmy Boats misunderstood and thought we'd said "you idiot" design. No, Dave.

Neil & Tim portaged their maritime wonder to the water in a fireman's carry with my cardboard-covered fins flapping the air before me, and my vision limited by my mask and the cardboard around me to a small rectangle of sky. We sang confidently "We All Live In a Cardboard Submarine." At the starting signal, they threw me into the water face down and shouted after me. I was peripherally aware of the other contestants moving rapidly away.

Water seeped into the snorkel. I couldn’t pick my head up to see where I was going. The box made me too stiff to arch up and clear one paddle blade from the water, so each stroke was both push and pull. The box wouldn't let my fins enter the water, either, and air kicking was getting me nowhere on account of the lack of wind. Something had to be modified. It was too late for design work, so I focused on technique. I had joked earlier that mine would be the only craft which could complete a roll.

My technical crew on shore worried when they saw their snorkeled box listing, flippers treading air, and watched the snorkel submerge. Not to worry. I had decommissioned the periscope and opened a porthole—my mouth. The submarine found new balance on its back. From here, the upper paddle blade could clear the water, thus making each stroke pure forward propulsion. Advantages were clear. Direction, however, was not. Eventually I took to using the angle of the sun to steer. Highly advanced internal navigation systems were developing in the slowlywaterlogging submarine.

From somewhere far away I heard cheering. Somebody must have won. Where was the darn turn-around point? Eventually a yellow kayak loomed into my patch of sky and someone asked if I was ok. Never been better. Can I turn around now? Muscles screamed, but I kept paddling. Even experimented with torso rotation. Finally when I tipped my head all the way back I could see people on the beach. I could hear cheering. My paddle touched ground. I was being lifted. The sun spun away. Total disorientation! Vertical? Whoops, capsize. Propped back up again. I raised my paddle in the air--winners of the Submarine Division!