Blowhole: Can You See The Rainbows?

Captain's Log

Feeling Like The Captain:

I've felt like Captain Jack Sparrow for days now, having spent enough hours on the water last Thursday and Friday -- those bright, surgy days -- to absorb those rhythms and motions! I love that feeling.

By feeling like Captain Jack, I mean feeling wobbly and tilty and one with the sea.  He had the Black Pearl, and I have Sofia

 Log Jam:  While kayaking last Thursday, I was startled by a shape in the water, by a long brown shape, that I took to be a mature sea lion that I was suddenly much too close to.  Not a harbor seal, for the shape was too too long and broad, but a sea lion, and at close quarters, a full-grown sea lion could do plenty of defensive damage.  That brown shape was just a log, however, a carved-off tree-portion about six or seven feet long drifting in the cove.

Now, having been surprised by that log, that shape, I back-paddled furiously and avoided any collision.  Which would have been the right action, particularly if it had been a marine mammal.  Still, I am struck by how much my startled response came before any rational sense of "Hey, that might be a sea lion, so avoid hitting the creature"; and, from reading and teaching Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival, I am well aware of the dynamics of amygdala trumping hippocampus, of emotional reaction before rational decision, but still I would like to have not been so afraid of a shape.  Haven't I trained for these situations?  Haven't I paddled and visualized enough to respond more thoughtfully?  Or, at least less fearfully?  Was this a failure of grace?   Or should I appreciate how much my core self, the body/emotional self, worked to take me out of (perceived) danger?

Intrepid: Mother-Daughter Abalone Divers

Mother and daughter go abalone-diving for the first time.  They had to work hard on this bright, but surgy day.

In the photo below, I'm fairly sure that's the mother talking to my friends about abalone diving.  The photo below is from the afternoon before the morning shots I caught above.   I've been abalone-diving since 1978, so I did have some advice for this woman.  She had good questions, practical questions, but she also revealed a lack of experience that troubled me.  Van Damme is a protected entry and exit point, mostly, but I wouldn't call the waters out by the arch a novice dive spot at all.  I pointed out some of the dangers as well as places I'd seen divers get lucky, but I also appreciated the sheer verve this woman had.  She wanted to get some abalone, and she was willing to swim and work to get it.   I was happy to see her and her daughter out there the next morning, but I also paddled my kayak nearby to see if they wanted any help or not.  I could see some struggling with all the surge as well as some difficulty with a weight belt, but I didn't patronize these divers by trying to help them when my help wasn't wanted.   I tend to paddle over and hover around any divers, checking whether any aid is wanted, I see out on a surgy day working the long swims.  Male or female, I'll add.  My friend E saw the two later, when they exited the water, and reports that they did not get abalone, but they saw one or two small ones.  Next time, I say.  Next time.

I Have A Kelp Tattoo

Or, I Love Kelp

My Uncle's Question:  Have you ever gotten tangled up in kelp while snorkeling or SCUBAing?

My Answer: Not in any way that mattered. I'm very patient in kelp--my formative diving years were spent in free diving for abalone up north. Plenty of kelp practice. That said, I hate kelp-crawling (moving across the surface on the kelp); I had a dive partner once who decided we were too low on air and insisted that we had to kelp-crawl to stay on the surface and not use the tanks . . . . I'd been trained to slip under, whenever possible, and been trained to accept a lower pressure level in the tanks. Since he didn't hear me, I had to stick by him (he was my partner, after all), but that was a not quite necessary hardship). This was at Pt. Lobos a few years back, and I will say that my compass navigation did stick us in the middle of that thick kelp forest. Still, I would have switched to snorkels, even, and harbor-sealed under and up . . . .

After The Paddling And Diving . . . .

Flor de Cana is a memorable rum.

(And, that clipboard. Middle school, high school, college, the warehouse job, the swim instruction job, grad school, community college -- a friend for life, you know?)

Grace

Egret or heron?  I always misremember, but I know grace when I see it.

P.S.   Great egret, actually.  I checked (again).

Abalone in a Field of Urchins

That dive knife is about 6 inches long, so you can see how undersized, from the legal harvesting standpoint, these abalone are.  If no one poaches them, divers will pick them off the rocks in two or three years when they reach the 7-inch (and legal) length.  I'm thinking of picking up my Abalone Card, just to pick one or two legal-sized ones this year and to eat them, to eat them and to share the meat with friends.

Mendocino rock garden.

I'm thinking the urchins and the abalone are in competition here.  The urchins have devastated the kelp forest in this cove and others near Van Damme State Beach in Mendocino County, CA.  We need some otters airlifted down for kelp rescue work.  (I think that's JP's joke, meant half seriously.)