Duo at Lover's Point

Boon companions--Tertius & Sofia--and a great view. I mean my truck and kayak, not the couple on the bench.

Gateway to Atlantis

I was born in Carmel, but I sometimes imagine I was born undersea right here, right below this set of rocks at Lover's Point, Pacific Grove, Monterey Peninsula, California. Not sure why, but I do.

When I started free diving solo about fifteen years ago, this is the place I chose. It was a rough, unsunny, somewhat stormy day, unlike the bright shine in this photo. Rough water, great time. That's been the pattern since, too.

These rocks are the gates of adventure and magic for me.

When in doubt of where to dive, I'll run down to Pacific Grove, suit up, and jump on in. Swim round the Point and back again. Find those fish. Delve into the kelpy depths. Go down and up again, over and over--far more fun than it sounds. If the swell is running just a bit, hitch a ride through the surge channels on the nose of the Point, checking out the giant anemones in the crevices on the fly; or, hold that breath and plant myself to take photos of those Big Greens, braced between rocks as the waves push and pull: click, click, click. If the swell is running high, swim with the surfers, ducking under the breakers as needed, and feel the surge, absorb the pitch and purge bone-deep. When that happens, I always sleep quite well, rocked into slumber by the memory in the muscles and the mind. I also tend to be fairly beat from the workout. All good.

A Favorite View

Looking from the water toward the land.

Can you see the edge of the wave, the crest, that's just passed me heading for the shore? I've ridden the elevator up for the view.

You can see the wave beginnning to break there to the right. I don't recall if any of the three or four surfers out there caught this one or not.

The swell action: another reason to get in the water. Good exercise; good fun.

Good practice for rough water entries up north or anywhere, frankly. Abalone diving at Salt Point and Kruse Ranch gave me the taste for lively water. On this day, for the practice, I entered the water from the rocky little beach on the west side of Lover's Point; the waves were breaking at the foot of the steps from the parking lot (for those who know the spot). I waited for a lull, shuffled sideways down the speck of beach with my fins on, and dove into the water, swimming strongly to avoid the next set of waves. Then, I swam just beyond and amongst the rocks on that west side, playing with the surge.

Playing cautiously with the surge, I'll note. I was free diving solo, something I've been doing for about 15 years, and the swell was quite strong. A lot of energy out there, which is why I was out there too. Not to be a hero, not to be a fool, but to be a diver, to dive and swim with all that liveliness, the shove and lift of these waves. Then, I swam around to the east, staying well off the rocks, for the most part, and looking for the surfers riding the break on the point itself. (I stay out of their way, of course.) I spent some time watching the surfers, noting where and when they were taking off, thinking about how to take good photos without getting hammered on the rocks below. I left that venture for another day and continued swimming and diving.

The visibility was generally poor, of course, with all that churning, but it was still fun to explore underwater, searching for fish and other creatures. I swam further around to check the exits on the two beaches there. Despite the waves hitting the breakwater itself, there was an exit waiting for me--I'd checked before getting in--on the easternmost beach, the one by the kayak and board rental booth. Somewhat surprisingly, children were even playing in the shelter of the breakwater; I hope their parents or older siblings were at hand.

If that exit hadn't been waiting? If the swell had shifted so that waves were hammering that beach?

I would still have options. I could swim back around to the west and exit at my original entry point. For, if the swell had shifted to hit the beach behind the breakwater, then the speck of beach by the steps would be fairly calm, sheltered from the swell by the point itself.

Or, I could wait for a lull. Watch for a rhythm in the waves coming in, time the sets, and bet on picking a good break between sets. Just like picking waves to surf, but switching the last move to catch the lull instead of the lift.

In the worst case, no lulls and a building swell, I'd pick my wave and head for the soft landing of the sandy beach. (Up north on the Sonoma Coast, while abalone diving, sandy landings are a luxury or merely a myth.) Here, in that worst case, I'd pick my wave, power into it, ride it in, and then try my hardest to pull back into the wave itself, away from the breaking lip, to wash up on the sand with the back of the wave. However I hit the sand, with the lip or the back, I'd then crawl as quickly as possible away from the breaking surf and up onto the dry sand. I wouldn't be stopping to take off my fins or my mask until well beyond the water's reach.

But that's all basic training for diving, right? If you enter the water, have plans for getting out. And practice in different conditions, not merely on the calmest of days.

Scuba divers, if you practice without the tanks, you enjoy the glory of free diving and you'll be that much better navigating amongst rocks and surge even with your tanks. Then, practice with the tanks on too, for those times when the conditions turn a lot rougher than you anticipated. (Or, practice for those rougher days when you'll leave the tanks in the trunk and still get wet.)

But free dive first, and then again. Free dive.

Sea Grass and Star: A Glimpse

Take a breath, hold it, and swim down with the surge.

Sunday, January 23, 2011: Rough, surgy day beneath Monterey Bay with variable, generally poor visibility. Sunny and warm topside, but I still prefer to spend as much time as possible, breath by breath, down below. Moving with and against the swells, being moved by the swells: what fun, what fun!

Holdfast

I love kelp; I just do.

Winter? Sunshine Diving

Water: shape and substance. (My favorite shot of the day.)

Where's the frisbee and a dog, any dog?

Winter white.

Shell Game

Who Are You?

Prop to be used teaching Shakespeare's Hamlet: the graveyard scene. "Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest . . . ." Or something like that. When that task comes around, I'll know my lines.

Small Face: sculpture mix; shiny black and (fake) Shino glazes.

The Oil of Memory

Vitalis Hair Oil: that's what we used on our hair for school pictures each autumn when my brothers and I were boys. Mom would slick our hair into order, and our pale foreheads would shine in each photo, the only part of our faces not having been browned by the summer sun.

Later, she'd shift us to Protein 29 gel. Dad, I think, stayed true to the Vitalis for years to come.

Out on the Water By the Dock of the Bay

Or, Waldo On The Horizon?

Or, Is The Boat Moving Too Much For You?

I love moving water; love the sway, dip, and pitch of a boat on water.

I'm working on catching such movement, such texture, in photos.

My latest attempts.

One Poem By Tony Hoagland: "Nature"

My friend Meredith gave me Tony Hoagland's Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, a volume of poems that seems to fit me like my old Batman cape and cowl did, like my fins do now. I'm just in my first reading, so the hedging in the phrasing there, but I certainly want to share this one right away. Read. Read aloud, and enjoy.

NATURE

I miss the friendship with the pine tree and the birds

that I had when I was ten.

And it has been forever since I pushed my head

under the wild silk skirt of the waterfall.

What I had with them was tender and private.

The lake was practically my girlfriend.

I carried her picture in my front shirt pocket.

Even in my sleep, I heard the sound of water.

The big rock on the shore was the skull of a dead king

whose name we could almost remember.

Under the rooty bank you could dimly see

the bunk beds of the turtles.

Maybe twice had I sad a girl's name to myself.

I had not yet had my weird first dream of money.

Nobody I know mentions these things anymore.

It's as if their memories have been seized, erased, and relocated

among flowcharts and complex dinner-party calendars.

Now I want to turn and run back the other way,

barefoot into the underbrush,

getting raked by thorns, being slapped in the face by branches.

Down to the muddy bed of the little stream

where my cupped hands make a house, and

I tilt up the roof

to look at the face of the frog.

--Tony Hoagland

P.S. Note how "the frog" works differently, works so much better, than "a frog." And that's just one minor joy of this poem.

P.P.S. Thank you, Meredith.

Shooting The Rocks

Watch as the wave hits the rocks. Click. Then, turn a little to the left, looking from just shy of Lover's Point down toward Otter Cove. Look at the rocks; note the shapes and the way they work together to hold this edge of the world. Click; click. Finally, step back to get the red blooming plant into the shot too. Click. (That's the photo my father would have taken, for sure.)

January 15, 2011.

After a dive in great conditions at Point Lobos (35 feet viz; 50 degree water temps; sunny topside) and the hit-the-spot grilled chicken sandwich and fries at Phat Burger in Seaside, I stopped in Pacific Grove to admire the rocks and to watch the water move.

Somewhere in there, I stopped for coffee at the East Village coffeehouse and relaxed in an easy chair for a quarter-hour or so, annotating a chapter in Tori Murden McClure's A Pearl in the Storm for one of my English classes. I left the camera in the truck, but I was tempted to get it out and record the comfort. Instead, I drank my coffee, read, and remarked in pencil upon the mid-ocean capsizings and batterings faced by Tori and her craft, The American Pearl, enjoying my comfort that much more, hankering slightly for a rough session too. Next time--but not too rough. Just a bit more adrenaline and exercise.

I recommend all of the above, even the annotating.

"O Where Are You Going?"

Lovely Day for the Bay

Cleopatra's Barge

When I was a boy swimming lap after lap after lap, I would imagine pulling Cleopatra's barge up the Nile. When we shifted to sprints, I'd shift to Tarzan attempting to outswim crocodiles. When we slowed down for underwater work, I'd do my best Submariner. When we had to tread water forever, I'd recall Odysseus hanging from the fig tree above Charybdis, his legs in the water, churning and churning.

Hero tales.

Core: Mask, Snorkel, and Fins

Today I've gone swimming with mask, snorkel, and fins, and even though it was only in a pool rather than in the ocean, I'm feeling much more myself. I say that too much, but every time it is still true, and I'll keep feeling that way, no matter what I say or don't say.

If I were a true poet, I'd write odes and epics to these simple, wonderful pieces of equipment. Perhaps the true child of the sea I yearn to be would prefer to fly naked underwater, free of all gear, but I like to see, to breathe, and to move, and the mask, the snorkel, and the fins help me to be more truly aquatic.

I must write that diving-mystery. You know, the one I want to read and no one else has managed to write yet. That one. Wish me luck.

And go swimming, go diving. Water-time; soul-time.

Homework: Water Adventure Non-Fiction

Or, Happily Annotating.

This upcoming semester, I will be teaching a fairly recent water adventure book: Tori Murden McClure's A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. As the front cover sets forth, McClure becomes "the first woman to row alone across an ocean."

I've taught a fair amount of water and underwater nonfiction (and fiction), but I am particularly looking forward to reading and teaching this book with my classes. For one, McClure fails her first attempt to row across the Atlantic. The majority of the volume concerns this first voyage, this first attempt, and that seems fitting too. We shall see; I've read enough to know this book will work well, but I am in the midst of a true reading, a committed reading, with the classroom in my mind.

I don't just mean concocting vocabulary lists, quiz questions, and essay topics, but also conceiving exercises in practical imagination. For example, in a few minutes, I'm going out to the garage to pull out a handy blue tarp to be folded into the dimensions of McClure's rowboat, a robust 23' x 6', more or less. And if you imagine being confined to a space like that for, say, three months, there's more less than more involved.

Okay, where's that tarp?

Or a cardboard mock-up?

The possibilities . . . .

One reason why I teach, frankly: feeling out the possibilities, invoking the practical imagination.

McClure, Tori Murden. A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. New York: Harper Collins, 2009. Print.

Salvage: Work in Progress

Just a reminder to myself--and to anyone visiting my site.

Visible progress: one step at a time.

So, have courage, and take a step, or two, and so forth.

Happy 2011.

P.S. If you want to see how one of these pieces turns out:

http://mattduckworthunderwater.blogspot.com/2010/11/salvage-fishermans-blues.html