Breathing space

It's the spring of the year here in western Washington. I doesn't seem like that long ago that it was snowing on the passes and raining bullets here along the shores of the Salish Sea... I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the foul weather yet, but the future is looking a bit more benign these days. And that's good; I can't be the only one who was well past ready for it to happen.

I'm busy, teaching and being a student at the same time, with a whole lot of details to line up as the departure date for our Augustine expedition approaches. I've been writing a lot as well, just not so much in here. I've toyed with the idea of shutting this site down - I'm just too busy and shagged out most of the time that I really don't have anything to say - but I've decided that what really needs to happen is for me to take a sabbatical. To get some distance from the place and stretch my perspective. I'm not saying that this is the end... just that I need a bit of a hiatus.

Which doesn't mean I'll be hard to find. I'm still writing quite a bit for the Ikkatsu Project, and those entries are only going to get more interesting as this year's adventure kicks off. And then there's visitrainier.com, Canoe & Kayak and Adventure NW magazine. Others too... if you want to find me, it won't be all that difficult.

I hope you'll drift over to the Ikkatsu page from time to time and say hello. (While you're at it, check out our funding site for this year's film and contribute what you can. There's even a limited time offer to get a Todd Fischer print as a thanks for your tax-free donation - "limited" because we've only got 3 days left in the drive and we could sure use your help.) If you have any questions or comments, or you just want to chat, you can email any time. I thank you for following along with these adventures for the past 5 years and I hope you'll stick around and see what comes next. 

This is not goodbye.

What odds?

Tomorrow will be the 2nd anniversary of the tsunami that devastated northern Japan. Two years gone since then... it hardly seems possible.

A couple weeks ago, this blog had its five-year anniversary. What started out as a writer's exercise book turned into a full-blown daily newsletter, about a variety of items related to nature and outdoor sports in the Pacific Northwest. (Or something like that.) This, right here, is post number 1139.

I've been writing sparingly in here for the past few months; I feel this muse is winding down. It's not that I've been writing any less... it's just that I haven't been writing in here. I've been writing for film, for other web sites and for school (don't even get me started about APA formatting and style). I feel some new winds blowing, is all. There are still only 24 hours in the day, and my priorities are changing when it comes to how I expect to fill them.

I spent a few nights this past week going to Great Big Sea concerts, first in Portland and then in Seattle. I went to school with band member Bob Hallett, who is a great musician and someone I feel lucky to be able to call a friend. (That's him up top with Micah, showing the boy the fine accommodations on the tour bus.) Bob was writing a blog on the GBS site - still is, actually, sporadically - and he had some thoughts a year ago about the topic. I'd like to hear from whoever has the time to respond what your thoughts are about what Bob had to say; I kind of agree, but...

"Perhaps the whole blog thing in general is in trouble; a survey of my browsers' links recently led me to this conclusion. A few years ago I regularly followed a dozen good blogs, but these days most of them have drained away, or been reduced to photo and link postings. Facebook has become unbearably dull, and Google+ way too much trouble for anyone either employed or older than 17. For news, shameless self-promotion and general verbiage, Twitter makes a worthy vehicle. 'To everything there is a season,' as Ecclesiastes would say, and the day of the blog may have ended."

I still have a lot to say about the tsunami, and the issue of plastic debris, and the environment - especially the aquatic environment - but I will be doing most of that on the Ikkatsu site, which is really going to be getting busy over the next few months as the Alaska trip gets closer. I don't know how much more I have to say here... a lot of that will depend on the feedback that this particular post generates. Either way, it's been a great ride.

How do you feel about it?

Other pursuits

I have been pretty one-dimensional lately... the Ikkatsu Project has dominated most of my efforts and I haven't been quite the outdoor renaissance man that I would normally expect myself to be. That's just the way it is, I suppose. The work I'm doing with marine debris is important to me (and just downright important), and I need to give it my best effort. Unfortunately, this means that other activities get put on the shelf.

But not all of them, and not all the time. I actually have done a little writing for visitrainier.com in the past month or so. Here's a piece that just got posted on winter camping, and there are a few more on the way too. Enjoy!

The ways of change

I'm not sure I'm a kayaker any more. I don't know when it happened, but I can't help but think that something has changed.

Don't get me wrong... I still paddle. I still take my boat out into the spray and I still love the feel of a hurricane headwind or a quiet, backwater morning. What has changed isn't what I do, as much as why I do it. 

I remember I used to go kayaking just to go kayaking, to get out on the water for no other reason than that. I'd practice my forward stroke until I felt like it was as efficient as I could make it. I'd do bow rudders and hanging draws until it felt like my boat and I were dancing together, weaving a measured and floating course across a watery dance floor. It was enough just to be out there, to be doing what I could to be a better paddler.

I don't regret any of that; it was time well spent. In fact, I think all that kayaking dedication has allowed me to move on somewhat, to what I think is the next step in my paddling evolution. I value my kayak  and my paddle now in the same way that a builder values his level and his framing hammer. My boat is a tool. It allows me to go places I could not get to otherwise and to do things that have become more important to me than a simple paddling excursion. With the skills I built during that first long phase of my paddling life, I can now do things like paddle the coast and conduct marine debris surveys, look at the issue of plastic ingestion in remote bird colonies that would be difficult to access otherwise. I'm taking those earlier developments and molding them to fit a new system of values and priorities.

It's a little like this: When I was 14, I was captivated by the notion of driving. I wanted to drive a car so badly and it didn't seem fair that some law said I had to wait until I was 16 (2 more years, fer chrissakes!), to get a license. I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I somehow snuck the key to the car down to the local Builders Emporium, and got a duplicate key cut for me, then put the original back on the ring before my parents noticed it was gone. Then, on evenings when they would leave to go out somewhere, I would take that old Ford Maverick through the streets of Goleta, California, just for the amazing freedom and joy that it brought me. I wouldn't speed or do anything daft; I just wanted to drive. I wanted nothing more than the feeling of being able to control a 2-ton hunk of metal, to dance it down the road and bring it back again safely, before the folks got home.

There are a lot of lessons to be had from that story. I can't help seeing, however, a similarity between the way I felt about driving then and how I feel about driving now and what I said earlier about kayaking. I don't go driving just for pleasure any more. I don't feel like a magician, maneuvering the car through the streets on a summer evening. I drive to get somewhere, to do something. My car is a device that allows me to get something else accomplished. I still drive, I still even like the feeling of freedom that comes with it; it's just that it doesn't captivate my imagination the way it did when I was 14. I have evolved.

It's the same with kayaking.

Catching up

The Tacoma showing of The Roadless Coast went off well the other night at the Grand Cinema... sold out to the doors with a lot of very cool people. With that showing done and the next one still over a week away, I've got a little time to decompress and get some other things done.

But not much time. School, for me, starts on Tuesday. This will be my first experience as a student in over 15 years and while I am fired up for the experience, I'm under no illusions that it will be easy. It hasn't even started yet and I'm already behind on the reading; I haven't done any "distance learning" before, so that has me a little unbalanced as well. 

And, speaking of feeling unbalanced, the news we got yesterday has me all wound up. The Roadless Coast has been named the winner of the 2013 Waterwalker Film Festival in the Environmental category. A huge honor from north of the border and we couldn't be more pleased. If we weren't already fired up to start filming the next one (which we'll begin today, actually... more on that later), we are certainly fired up now. And if there's any way we could bring the film to Newfoundland for a showing, we'd be excited to do that too. It would be great to see old friends again and bring them pictures and stories from the other side of the continent. (Call me...)

Good morning!

This piece ran in the Tacoma News Tribune yesterday. 

Ticket sales for the Seattle showing tomorrow night are taking off... get 'em while the gettin' is good. 

We still have a few more showings of The Roadless Coast, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. After the two this week, there's Forks, Port Angeles, Bellingham and Gig Harbor. If I am remembering correctly, that should be it. Thanks to all of you who have made it out so far and to those who'll be coming to see us soon. It has been a unique pleasure to talk with the folks at the showings and to hear their stories of the coast as well. Every event has been a reminder that there are so many people who love the ocean and the beaches, who are not pleased with the way they've been treated and who want to do what they can to return them to the way they should be.

If you haven't done so yet, please visit our fundraising site and make a pledge. Everything we receive will be going to helping us get the photography gear we still need and to transporting us to Augustine in June. We are off to a bit of a slow start and we could use whatever help you can give. Thanks to everyone who has given to this point; you are deeply appreciated.

It has been a good year so far... and the rest of it is looking pretty nice too.

Adrift in the city of books

We made a pilgrimage to Powell's Books in Portland today. If you've never been, it's pretty amazing. Picture the biggest book store you've ever been in, and then imagine it as a single room in a larger store, an uberstore, if you will, with more books than Carter has little pills. Truly awesome.

I don't know if it's some kind of honor or not, but I found a copy of Around the Rock on the fourth shelf up in the kayaking/canoeing section. There's a certain sense of accomplishment there, for some reason. "I made it to Powell's!"

I left a lot of money there though. But I did get a pile of great books.

Water walking

It isn't often that I see anyone else on the water when I paddle the Foss on a winter morning. Once in a while there'll be a tug coming in or going out, maybe a fishing boat (on the weekend mornings), but another SUP? Never.

Actually, I was looking for him. I've seen on Corey Dolan's Facebook page that he's been paddling on the Foss Waterway during the wee hours but for some reason, we've been missing each other. This morning, however, as I paddled up the passage and into the wind, I saw a pair of lights coming the other way. Headlamps, bobbing in time to the paddle strokes. I gave a holler and paddled over to say hello.

Corey and Justin were going the opposite direction from me; we'd started at opposite ends of the waterway. Still, it was nice to say hello, even for a minute or two. It's good, once in a while, to meet a friend on the water. 

Head like a wheel

The past week has been a busy one and my head has been spinning. I haven't had the time to post in this space as much as I normally do. No excuses really; just reasons.

School started last week, my new classes at SAMi, so I have new students to teach about how the system works, the rituals and norms of the process, before we can get into the actual teaching itself. Hopefully, that will start today. It's a great program and most of the kids are really good kids who will do well, so I am not complaining. It's just a process and it takes some time and effort to get it going.

My own classes start in a couple of weeks as well. I'm going back to finish my Master's Degree and trying to get all the reading and writing done that I can before I get pulled into that vortex. I'm really looking forward to it but I am under no illusions about how easy it will be. I wrote one piece for a web site this week and I need to do another this weekend, there are two private San Juan trips to plan and taxes to finish... not sure how much time I'll have for those projects once classes start on the 26th.

Also, last week we had a showing of the film at the University of Puget Sound. The evening went very well and we were able to talk with a lot of interesting folks after the event. Just talking about this summer's trip to Augustine gets me pretty pumped up. I can't wait to get going. We have showings next week in Seattle and at the Grand Cinema in Tacoma, so that's going to be a busy week also. Busy in a good way.

Then, the other big change in the past week is that we stopped our Kickstarter campaign. There were a number of problems with it from our perspective and the short explanation for the move is that we felt like we'd do a better job of explaining our project and raising funds if we switched to a different format. Which is what we did yesterday. The Secrets of Augustine is listed now with Indiegogo, and any contribution that is made will go directly toward our photographic gear and the expense of getting us to Alaska. Other expenses, like food, permits, in-state Alaska costs, return travel and post-production will be paid from other sources. 

I guess the biggest reason I haven't been writing in here as much is that these other things, especially the funding for the expedition, have been weighing on my mind most of the time. It's hard to pretend that you're not thinking about money when most of what you're doing is thinking about money. (I'm not saying I like it; just that it's how it is.) With the new site, however, our pitch has softened and I feel a little less stress about the matter. We still need to come up with the funding, but I don't feel quite as much like a carnival barker as I did a week ago. 

I hope you take a minute to click over to the new site, watch the video and read the cool rewards we have listed for contributors. Then pick a level, and show your support by making a tax-free donation. You will have our gratitude, I will have less stress and, who knows, I may be able to write here more often. 

Out there

The crew from OAR Northwest - (the picture above was taken in Tacoma a couple years back) - are well into their Atlantic crossing now, from Dakar, Senegal to Miami, Florida. It's a voyage of superlatives, and will be the first row from Africa to North America once it's completed. This is a group of rowers with strong ties to Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest, and I know there are many here locally who would join me in sending out best wishes for a safe and speedy crossing.

There are many things happening in this world at any given time... the internet allows us to follow along with quite a few of them. This one is in a class by itself, however. 

Past and present

I'm a list maker. I've found that the best way to keep focused is to make a list of what I need to do. I'm less likely to be distracted by pretty, shiny objects or to chase my tail down the rabbit-hole of the internet if I have a clear list of stuff that I want to get done. 

I try to reuse paper when I can, cut a regular sheet in half and write on the back side. Sometimes I'll flip the page over and look at the writing that is there, try to figure out what it used to be and how long it's been since I've seen it. This morning, as I was making my Monday list, I glanced at the other side of the paper and perused what was once a lesson plan for a kayak navigation class. There were sections on charts and tide tables, as well as a breakdown of dead-reckoning and piloting techniques. Blank sections were off to the side of the page, for note-taking and problem solving exercises.

It's been a few years now since I last taught that class. I remember using that lesson outline and I can remember those nights that I sat there, in the boat room at Backpackers Supply, myself and 4 or 5 students clustered around tables, working on triangulation and trip planning, perfecting compass technique and reading navigational symbols. I enjoyed teaching those classes.

But times change. One of the great things about writing is that the words often outlast their context and years later, they provide a window to the past, a way to look back in time that would not otherwise exist. It is my list of tasks for today that I need to focus on at this point, but I appreciate the look in the rear-view mirror as well.

Old Faithful

I got my first SUP in August of 2008. It was a demo board, scratched when I bought it, but in reasonably good shape. I rode it almost every day for the first year or so, to the point that it became an extension of my feet, allowing me to walk on water.

I rode it through calm backwaters in Puget Sound and surfed it on overhead days in Santa Barbara. Not too long after I picked it up, I did a 150-mile winter trip on it, carrying my camping gear and other supplies in drybags on the nose, strapped down to eyelets I had glued in place. Those same eyelets were employed as handles when my son was smaller, riding shotgun like some kind of aquatic hood ornament, trailing a finger or a toe in the water as we glided along the nearshore of Salmon Beach. That old board was tied to the roof of the van for months at a time, not because I had nowhere else to put it, but because I used it so frequently.

I got other boards after that one, boards that surf better or are faster on flat water, but the first is always the first. On that initial ride, I took it out from Owen Beach on a languid Saturday in August... the most recent time I used it was this morning.  

A Plug

We got back from San Francisco on Sunday night. It wasn't exactly "hot" in the Bay area, but it was warmer than the Pacific Northwest. More importantly, it was sunny and the blue of the sky was so clean it hurt my eyes. I see why people love it there.

The symposium was good. Not great, but good. (I say this as someone who didn't paddle, and I wish now that I had. The water looked amazing and the skill level of the paddlers there would have made for some great rock-gardening and wave-hopping games of water tag. I was in the film-showing mode and I should have stepped outside that role for part of the time, at least.) With that said, I'm very glad we went.

Now, however, the attention shifts full-time to the Ikkatsu Kickstarter campaign and showing the current film all over the Northwest. We have had a very slow start with the contributions and although it's far too early in the process to get manic about it, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned about whether we're going to get to the amount we need to make this next film. We've got a lot in mind for this year but it's hard to see any of it happening unless we can get funding. 

So I guess this is a cry for help. If you've already contributed to the campaign, we thank you. If you've been considering a contribution, we would ask that you click on the appropriate button and make it happen. There is much work to be done and a story to be told; take a minute and help to tell it. 

We've put together a great selection of thank-you rewards for your donation to the cause but, more importantly, you will have our sincere gratitude.

Pressing

This story ran in a couple peninsula newspapers this past week. The quotes are mostly right, not too much taken out of context - and that's about all you can hope for.

Live!

Today's the day the Kickstarter campaign starts. Over the next 60 days, we will be trying to raise the money we need to produce the film, The Secrets of Augustine. We'll be shaking out our couch cushions and, by using the crowd-sourcing method, we'll be asking everyone we know (and many we don't) to do the same.

We've been pretty busy lately, taking the newest film, The Roadless Coast, from one showing to another. Response has been overwhelmingly positive and we're looking forward to the showings we have coming up. We're heading to the Bay area this weekend to present the film and the keynote address at this year's Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium, (Thank You Sea Kayaker Magazine!), and when we come back from that, we've got quite a few showings right here in our own back yard that will keep us busy for the next couple of months.

But, in the midst of all this, we're also putting the storyline together for the trip to Augustine this summer and the film that we plan to make from that expedition. Storyboards, sketches and outlines... all coming together while we're assembling the gear we'll need, working on shakedown trips and keeping up with the data and cleanups that were started with the last project.

We could use all the assistance we can get. Please take a few minutes to click over to our Kickstarter page, watch the video and read the proposal... take a look at the awesome reward packages that are available and then pick one that appeals to you. It doesn't take long to contribute and all contributions are tax-deductible. You will only be charged if we reach our goal; if we don't reach it, all contributions are returned and the film doesn't get made. We hope you'll choose to get involved in telling this story.

The story of marine debris and the effects it is having on our environment is one that should concern everyone, regardless of where you live, and it is a tale that needs to be told. Thank you for being a part of this important effort.

The next chapter

The sky is getting light a few minutes earlier now. Not too much earlier, but it is noticeable. The biting cold of last week has turned into a simple chill, not exactly warm, but a long way from icy. The seasons are changing as they usually do, in measured step, slowly and quietly.

My writing here is going through changes as well. I find that I am posting less here and more elsewhere. As work on this year's Ikkatsu expedition starts to get rolling, I'm more engaged in the things I am learning about marine plastic and ocean currents, and I am feeling that I want to learn even more.

With that in mind, I've enrolled in school once again, to finish the Master's degree I began almost 20 years ago. The work that I've been doing with the Ikkatsu Project has inspired me to want to know more, to really become knowledgeable about these things that I am only beginning to become aware of. I want to be able to speak intelligently about what I am learning, and to learn more. I'll be going back to school next month, to pursue a Masters of Science in Environmental Studies from Green Mountain College.

And that will necessitate a whole new batch of writing. Papers and assignments, the looming thesis... While that's going on, there will be the magazine articles, the newspaper spots. And, with all that has happened to this point on the project, I'm starting to think there might actually be a book in there somewhere, so I've started to put some notes together. So there's that.

As for my daily writing habit, much of my focus has shifted over to the Ikkatsu site. I see that as being the primary outlet for my morning diatribes now, and for the foreseeable future. I don't know yet how to say goodbye here, so I won't. Not yet. I think I'll give it a bit more time and see how it all shakes out.

In the meantime, however, for all of you who have been following along here (and I'm truly amazed and humbled by how many of you there are), I hope you'll make the click and visit the new site if you haven't already done so. Sign up to follow the Ikkatsu page, "like" us on Facebook, write lots of comments and watch to see what kind of foolishness we're getting into next. 

The journey continues... just down another road.

The fishwrap

The showing in Port Townsend went well the other night... 132 people came out and the level of discourse among the attendees was refreshing. 

I think that, for me, the most frustrating thing about the issue of marine debris to this point has been the inability of some people I've come across to accept that there is a problem. Snarky asides about how us hippies want to bankrupt the country to deal with a situation that doesn't even exist, how cleanup plans are a power-grab by a socialist government or that plastic on our beaches and in our oceans is such a minor thing that it's not worth talking about compared to poverty, or Iran or the almighty deficit.

Usually, when I read an article online about the issue, it's the comments section where I find the most uneducated and ignorant remarks. In this case, however, regarding tsunami debris in particular, the comments are all pretty solid; it's the reporting that's out-of-touch. (I know it's an opinion piece, and I do support freedom of opinion. I just reserve the right to call out the idiot opinions when I see them. Looking at you, Mr. Obee.)

Nothing to see here

There are huge brush fires in Australia. Massive. The drought in the midwest is so bad that barges are going to be pulled off the Mississippi soon, for how long is anyone's guess. It snowed in San Diego today. Last year was the hottest year on record in the United States. Glaciers are flowing backwards, receding into memory before they're gone forever.

This week, here in T-town, temperatures are not forecast to get above 40 degrees. All week. Which, compared to the other points of fact, is not all that interesting. It is unusual though, and that's the point. But it's all good... it's not like global climate change is happening or anything.

More words

It would be difficult to overstate the level of media coverage that the Ikkatsu Project has received since we started out. I don't know if it's the fact that we are using kayaks to access the remote areas in search of marine debris, or if it's just that a lot of people (including us) were captivated by the images of the 2011 tsunami and want to know more about its aftermath. Maybe, and this is what I am thinking more and more, there's just a growing understanding of the fragility of our oceans and the damage that we are doing to them is becoming more of an issue to more people.

It may be a little of all these things. For whatever reason, people do seem to want to hear more about what we've done, and what we're doing next. For a short state-of-the-project article, check out the Canoe & Kayak magazine's web site.

Two more weeks

We have a showing in Port Townsend next week, which we're both very excited about... I really like Port Townsend. It's going to be a quick out-and-back though, not much time for dilly-dally. Which is ok too, I guess.

Two weeks from today, however, we're getting on the silver bird and flying to San Francisco for the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium. We are downright pumped for that one, I'd say. I think I can speak for Steve when I say that, to be presenting the film at this event, on Saturday night, with any number of paddling role models and otherwise interesting people in the room, is going to be just this side of surreal. 

OK, maybe not that over-the-moon, but still, a pretty fine scene. This is pretty much the pinnacle of sea kayaking instructional symposiums in this country (and the world, while we're at it), and to be there at all is going to be grand. There are still spots left if you're at all interested in attending... I doubt there are too many though. Part of what makes it so unique and so sought after is the low ratio of students to instructors. 

I may just learn something myself... you never know.