Fun Reading: Malazan!

This is the third book in a ten-book series.
Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice.
Erikson's heroic fantasy is real literature, invoking and breaking the stale cliches of the genre, enlivening character and plot with insight, wit, humor, and compassion, pulling and pushing his readers to the brink of expectation and trauma, again and again.

Very fine writing.





Whiskeyjack, man.  Really?

Swell Ride

On the SF Bay yesterday,  the swell offered me a gift: a fast ride, the most-sustained push that I can recall in a decade and more of kayaking.

Sure, I've gone faster on a single wave or on a swift swell-driven current in a Mendocino rock garden, but just paddling and riding, being pushed along . . . this ride was unique.

On the way back from beyond Emeryville and heading to the Berkeley Marina, the swell and wind conspired to carry my kayak quite quickly once I shifted angles and my paddling rhythm to get the most from the flow.  My kayak, Sofia, is a beamy Scrambler 11 from Ocean Kayak, a fine platform for freediving, but not a speedster.  The waves were moving slowly enough that we weren't overrun or outrun, but also the waves were moving strongly enough so that my kayak would be picked up and carried forward for a good long distance before the waves moved on.  I only had to use my body weight for proper balance and some paddle strokes for a touch more speed or better positioning.

Once I had Sofia in the groove, we were flying.

Find the Crab

Can you see the crab in the photo?

Too easy?  In the comfort of your home, perhaps.  While swimming about and trying to pay attention to everything, it can be surprising what a person may miss.  Here, I was happy to spot the crab right away, for down in Monterey I'd started to pick up a decorator crab thinking that it was a piece of trash; I dropped it before it could pinch my fingers.  This creature is fairly well camouflaged, but not so decorated as that other one.

Here's the close-up.

Warning: Poachers

Note the shiny abalone iron.  Abalone season was called off this year and hadn't been in action for some time.  That shiny tool means someone was out there fairly recently; the salt sea is unforgiving in terms of deterioration via rust rust rust.  That clean tool means someone was out doing something they ought not to be doing; we need the abalone protected and unharvested now to recovery from the devastation wrought by the sea urchins on the kelp and other fodder that the abalone rely upon.  A Fish and Wildlife employee pointed out to me that most of the abalone being seen recently are the deeper-water abalone coming up into the more shallow water seeking food.

Being in the shallow water makes them more vulnerable to poachers.

I wanted to bring that abalone iron back to shore, but I also didn't want to be misidentified as a poacher for having such a tool in my possession when the season is closed.  So I left the tool there.  I wish I'd swam the iron into deeper water and tucked it into some difficult crevice.

Abalone Cove II

Abalone Cove

Atlantean

 One of my favorite of places.  Paddle out from Van Damme State Beach, as I have said before, and poke around in the nooks and crannies as you head south, and you just might find this gem.

Here's the view looking up when you take the photos you've just looked at.