No Weight Belt: Subtidal Mendocino

Last Saturday, I went kayaking and snorkeling out from Van Damme State Beach in Mendocino County and headed north through the sea-caves, rock gardens, and water-alleys there.  The tide was low, though rising, and low enough that when I entered the water to take a few photos of the flora and fauna I realized I ought to leave my weight belt in the kayak.  The light swell and surge were carrying me quite close to the spines of the sea urchins along the rocks that lined the water-alley and even close to the spines along the bottom in the shallow sections.  As I did not have a place to park the kayak--no handy kelp to anchor to with any surety--I clipped the anchor line to my left bootie, and we floated, kayak and myself, at the surface with the surge and looked about.

Kelp Love

Zevon: Mutineer

MUTINEER

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Hoist the mainsail - here I come
Ain't no room on board for the insincere
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
I'm your mutineer......

--Warren Zevon

from his album Mutineer
c. 1995 Zevon Music BMI

Notebook: Whale-Watching / Kayaking

1.  I will have to set aside the camera a bit more deliberately to engage my whole sight and other senses.    Next time around.  The camera itself, turning it on, fussing with zooming and focusing, really narrows the experience.  I love having the shots to document and to spark memories, but I want to look and see more fully in the moment.

2.  The experience really was rooted in wet neoprene, in the seat of the wetsuit, in the motion of the swell under the kayak, in the lifting and the dropping and the shifting and the pulling and the pushing.  On the afternoon of the 30th, the tug was back into the harbor, but the swell was rising and the wind had created chop, so there was a constant motion -- up down thisway thatway-- that the morning had lacked, had been so flat and calm.  I love the water movement, and the sit-on-top is so well-crafted to ride such movements.  Even now, two days later, if I just sit and unfocus, I am moving in my mind with residual body sense-memories.  A lovely sensation to me.

3.  Then, besides the emphatic floating quality, the sounds!  So many birds flying, shrieking, calling, ker-plunking into the water after the anchovies.  Pelicans and terns and murres and cormorants and classic gulls.  Terns and pelicans out with us, mostly.  Then, the barking of sea lions in the distance, the splashing of seals nearby, the crunching-lunching of otters.  The chatter of humans: excited, agitated, inane.  "HOLY SHIT" were the first words out of one fellow's mouth, as he rounded the small point to leave the harbor only to be faced with a lunging whale.  (That fellow was off his game, more nervous than his date, and he shadowed JP and me off and on, nervously.  Still, such caution in such a situation is no bad thing, and his date may have been more water-savvy -- or simply oblivious -- than he was.)  The whales' spouting, blowing, and splashing.  Occasionally, the power station would let out great blasts of steam that would mimic the whale spouts--and would confuse me, for a moment, as I looked for that other whale.  The water made the most noise and the most noises, lapping and slapping and splashing and crashing along and onto the jetty, the kayak, the whales, itself.

Bolinas Lagoon: Friends and Seals

Crystal Ball

Well-glazed pneumatocyst.

Anchoring Reflections

On Thursday, I was free diving from the kayak in Mendocino waters, and I anchored my kayak to a strand of kelp as usual. I swam about for 10 minutes, and at that point I noticed my kayak floating past me. Obviously, my careful securing had failed. Luckily, the kayak had not been pulled in the opposite direction by currents or by tide, but the kayak seemed to be following me, which I appreciated. The sea urchins had done such a number eating all of the usual kelp in the area that I ended up clamping my kayak's kelp-anchor line to my weight belt instead and pulling the kayak behind me as I swam about, taking photos of the urchins and the kelp and what have you. Fortunately, the surge had calmed and this cove was out of the main line of the swell, or I could easily have ended up getting brained by the kayak as I surfaced for breath. Only as I swam in the shallows looking for bits of mother-of-pearl did I realize (as I should have previously) how much my rather weighty kayak could have done me damage just from the action of the surge. At that point, the rather cold water had penetrated the rather thin wetsuit, and I realized that I was quite cold. So, I climbed onto my kayak, pulled out the wool cap and the fleece I'd packed, and attempted to warm up. I need a new wetsuit, I think, and I need to consider more carefully how I anchor my boat.

"Hooked, Slimed, and Gutted"

SONG: "CABIN'D, CRIBB'D, CONFIN'D"

There's a hammer in the head
And a pounding at the door.
You'll never sleep soft
Till you even out the score.
There's a question on the table
And a cupboard full of woes,
But your sole occupation's
Shooting blanks of Old Crow.

The innkeeper said,
It never fails, never fails.
Just make yourself at home:
Bed of nails, bed of nails.

Our ghosts just doze at dawn
In a soul-bin "Lost and Found."
Though hooked, slimed, and gutted,
Sorrows rarely ever drown.
(At every bottle's bottom,
Every sinner floats.
On this fishing trip to hell
You're still bailing out the boat.)

Opportunity's not knocking,
But Misery's banging pails;
You've made yourself at home:
Bed of nails, bed of nails.

--MD

Catching the Tide

Here's the booklist for next semester's English 1A:

Daniel Duane's Caught Inside;
Curtis Ebbesmeyer & Eric Scigliano's Flotsametrics and the Floating World;
Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival;
William Langewiesche's The Outlaw Sea;
Jack London's The Sea-Wolf;
and John McPhee's The Control of Nature.

Of course, there will be additional readings to set the tone and direct the pace of things.  Handouts!

(Also: selected videos on surfing, sharks, marine mammals, ships and shipping, the Mississippi River Delta, storms, volcanoes, disasters, and so forth.)