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
Monday, April 26, 2004
Friday, March 12, 2004
Open Water Kayak Expedition
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.
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.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
In the Stars
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.
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.
Monday, November 24, 2003
Evening Surf
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.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Submarine Races
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!
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!
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