Saturday 5:39am
Published November 5, 2005 | 
Somedays you read something profound that jumps out to remind you that life is great. “Like what?” you may well ask. Ok. I will tell you. Since you asked. Let me set the story. . .
As you know the New Zealanders have completed the first circumnavigation South Georgia Island by sea kayak, (congratulations, seems too small a word) and the British team is just on the way. Then this morning I came across this post . . .
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Wednesday 3rd NovJeff Allen and Hadas Fieldman set off for Paddington Station (London) from Truro Station (Cornwall) at 7:45. Jeff is worried that he may not have packed enough socks…………
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I don’t know about you, but I’m smiling. Some of you many know the story of the Beatles & The Jelly Babies. Once one of the fab four, I don’t remember which, made the mistake of saying he liked Jelly Babies (or Jelly Beans if you like). For a time afterward the Beatles would perform under a rain of multicolored candies that were tossed by the truck load onto the stage.Probably why my odd morning brain started thinking. . . .
Wouldn’t it be funny if when the team arrived
on South Georgia Island at a quarter to five,
they were met by boxes?
Millions of boxes of international sockses!
Boxes, bags, and envelopes bursting with sockses.
Woolly socks, yes. Even thin socky rags!
Every kind of sockses would be in those bags.
And they’d wonder why.
“Why?”, they would wonder while scratching their chins under.
Why all the boxes of mix and match sockses?
Why all the boxes ?
And why all the bags?
Why would someone send us those thin socky rags?
Yes, why indeed?
I’m not sure of the shipping.
I’m not sure they’d arrive.
But I’d like to do it.
I’d love to try.
Just to say good luck, be safe, be well.
I’d love to send sockes and warm wishes as well.
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Follow along at http://www.seakayakingcornwall.co.uk/georgiadiary.html
For my part I’m off to paddle on Lake Michigan for the day.
-d
Thank you
Published November 4, 2005 | You’ve been so kind and generous
I don’t know how you keep on giving
For your kindness, I’m in debt to you
For your selflessness, my admiration
For everything you’ve done,
you know I’m bound
I’m bound to thank you for it – n. merchant
It’s Friday. It’s November. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I knew I’d been wanting to do this post for sometime and with Thanksgiving in mind it’s the perfect time. Journals by nature are self indulgent. Blogs take that one step further by allowing anyone who would like to, to come into your room, rummage through your drawers and take out your diary and read it freely. Sure we know a few people are looking in. If we didn’t want to communicate we would just keep a proper journal on paper.
However blogs can can seem pretty one-sided sometimes and talking about our own experiences can seem to negate or leave out all the people who in one way or another have influenced everything you say or do. At times you can come off sounding like you’ve invented the subject and the answers to boot. Of course that’s not the case. In truth we are just taking in all information we can from those more knowledgeable and experienced (and often just plain smarter) than we are and tying to make sense of it for ourselves. A blog is place were we can share what we’re learning and discuss our experiences. So today I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has guided, tollerated and tugged as I’ve learned and explored the world of sea kayaking. Thank you!
Ken Peterson – For whatever else, Ken was the first guy to ever put me in a kayak. Thank you.
Sam Crowley – For all sorts of stuff, but especially reading through the nerves. Thank you.
John Browning – Just for being John, all the tutelage time, and keeping it all in perspective. Thanks.
Nancy Saulsbury – For giving me opportunities to teach and putting up with my odd little brain. Thank you.
Gail Green – For opening doors and for teaching me to let my karma run over my dogma. 
Laurie Levknecht – For spying & smiling.
Keith Wikle – taking time to show me that damn “Angel”. Yeah, and for letting me post the lumberjack roll.
Tom, Nancy, Phil, Chuck, Robin, Ross, Gino and everyone in the NE Sea Kayaker’s who took us in and shared. Thank you!
Alex Pak – For just being Alex. Keeping me thinking, teaching Mary what I couldn’t, and helping me get my first sloppy reverse sweep roll.
Justine & Alun – for. . . where to start??? Thank you!
Bonnie – for keeping me writing.
The Rest of the Kayak Bloggers – Sea Level, Wenley, etc., for all the kind words.
Mary for tollerance
…and the guy who traded in my warhorse so I could buy it cheap, although at a time when It was practically all I had.
and the many coaches I’ve been lucky to get a moment of time with. .
Fiona Whitehead – Now I can hold my position in waves. Thank you.
Rowland Woolven – I think there’s at least one other guy who would thank you for the fast rescue techniques I learned from you! Thanks!
Shawna Franklin – Attitude, Attitude, Attitude. . Thanks to Shawna for reminding me it’s all just fun. Oh, and kindly slapping back my ears once, Thank you.
Jon Walpole – For always answering my emails with real, detailed answers. And for inspiring this post. Thank you.
Greg Stamer – Another victim of my questions. Thanks!
Nigel Foster – For that damn draw! Oh and, “Balance & Technique.” Thank you!
Mark Schoon – For taking more time on navigation than he planned. Thanks!
Dale Williams – For giving me control in wind! Thank you! Oh, yeah and for a “safe, effective & efficient” mode of judgement.
Lamar Hudgens – For believing in “Learning Moments”
All the instructors at Rutabaga who got me from bobble, to roll.
And to everyone who tolerates my questions, and being mentioned, quoted, & photographed for my blog.
I asked Mary the other day how long we’d been into kayaking now. I thought it was like 10 years or something. Turns out I bought my first kayak 4 years ago (almost 5). We’ve been really lucky. I can’t wait for what’s next!
THANK YOU!!!
St Kevin’s Stump
Published November 2, 2005 |
What some call “house cleaning” I call “Visiting St. Kevin’s Stump”, so without further delay. . .
So in yesterday’s episode we talked about knives. The comments area is worth a look as it really helped fill things out a bit more. Alex pointed out how a good knife is a necessity in whitewater, while John pointed out that the BCU is pretty clear on the subject. He also clarified the exact kind of scissors you would need to replace a knife, although he carries a folding knife himself. Then I came back in to quote the BCU handbook as well as get a brand name for the scissors. Stay tuned tomorrow when we’ll hear Bonnie say. . . .
In other news the Kiwi’s are just a few elephant seal steps away from completing their South Georgia Expedition. Wow. I can’t even find one thing to say that is not nice about these guys. Heck, even the logs on their website have been a joy to read. I just really feel for the UK group who should be leaving about now, or a couple days ago for South Georgia. I think I’d feel like I had the wind kicked out of me. It would be tough to find a new inspiration to make the long journey down there and freeze for a couple weeks. Especially so close behind the New Zealanders. But such is the nature of Expeditioning. The experience has hinted to the great race for the pole at the turn of the last century. As most of you know the first team to reach the South Pole was led by Norwegian Roald Amundsen who reached their goal on Jan 17th, 1911. The British team arrived a day after Amundsen on Jan 18th to find the tent that Amundsen’s party had left, with a letter inside addressed to the King of Norway and a note asking Scott to deliver it. As was pointed out to me in a recent email, there is still a prize to be had for Hadas Feldman of Terra Santa Kayak Expeditions in Israel in that she can become the first woman to circumnavigate South Georgia. In the vernacular of the day. . . “You Go Girl!”
There’s a new blog out there I’d like to share. This one is from Axel Schoevers who is a BCU coach from the Netherlands. Axel has been practically everywhere and has a million stories to tell. Actually he’s kept an online log book for sometime, but must have found the blogging thing too convenient. Mary took a real liking to Axel when we were in California last year and will be one of his regular readers I’m sure. His blog is at http://www.seakayaker.nl/Journal/
OnKayaks is now graced with Freya Hoffmister’s picture. Yeah, I did bait him into it. In a post at Qajaq USA Freya mentioned doing a calendar. I’m all for that. Although I’d like to see one featuring all the well know kayaking women from Sea, WW, & Traditional. Not necessarily a “Playboyesque” calendar, but one that can inspire adults and young women as well. I’m sure there are a lot of girls out there who could use an alternative roll model to the cast of “Desperate Housewives”. These days inspiration can be hard to find for young people. Especially things that involve physical fitness in any form. Today it’s not hard to see why many kids ask, “What’s the point”? The great thing about kayaking is that it does not HAVE to be a competitive, physical fitness sport. Sure it can be, but it can also be about so much more. Kayaking can be about exploring your world, freedom & solitude, spiritual growth, relationships or self indulgence and much more depending on what you bring with you. Many people enter the sport without a thought for competition or physical fitness and accidentally get into the habit of fitness while trying to reach other personal goals. I can’t help but think about all the kids who sit around their rooms feeling alone because their brains do not function on the “normal” sitcom, team sport, school function, right clothing, right parents, right friends world. A few I’m sure would find an epiphany in just sitting in the middle of a lake and listening to the rain or the rush of facing a big wave alone. Oh, and maybe some kick-a** music in the headphones. If we can “trick” a few teenagers into exercising along the way, that can’t be a bad thing! Ok, I’ll put my soap box back in the corner now. . . until next time. . .
Nydia in Wisconsin sent me a link to a poem. I’d like to share that as well. http://www.nswseakayaker.asn.au/magazine/60/hardmen.htm. I think “flexing in your G-string” is a uniquely non-American male wardrobe option but it didn’t kill the moment. Thanks Nydia!
One Mind, Any weapon
Published November 1, 2005 | A person who is said to be proficient at the arts is like a fool.
Because of his foolishness in concerning himself with just one thing,
he thinks of nothing else and thus becomes proficient.
He is a worthless person. – Tsunetomo Yamamoto
I’ve received a few questions & comments about not carrying a knife on my PFD. That’s great. I sort of baited everyone by putting that non-descript little sentence there and not going into detail. So let me explain. . .
I’ve always carried the big (insert Aussie accent here) KNIFE, (as in, “You call that a knife?!”) on the front of my pfd. I can remember the first day of my ACA instructor training seeing the IT (instructor trainer) with his big honkin’ knife and thinking, I gotta get me one of those. I read all the various articles talking about entanglement issues and such and that just confirmed my decision. Besides everyone else is having fun with knives! I wanted to look like a bad-a** too!
What to get? Well my logic was simple. First I asked myself what conditions would I get tangled up in? Well odds would say it won’t be on a calm lake on a warm sunny day. It would probably be in the rough stuff. After all, I like the rough stuff! Ok, so a folding knife is right out. How would I get a folding knife out of a pocket & unfolded while being thrashed upside down and sideways in the surf? I’d just wash up on shore wrapped around my boat with a closed folding knife still clutched in my cold dead hands. (sorry, Chuck) So I needed a knife I could just pull right out and use. The simple choice was one of those long dagger-like blades that slips into a sheath right on the front of your PFD. My choice was the Gerber Clip Lock Rivermaster Knife. Now, that’s a knife. The great part about it is it’s spring loaded locking mechanism. It stays put in it’s sheath and it’s double sided blade means I wouldn’t die in a panic trying to cut a rope with the wrong side of the knife as would be my fate. Mary choose the Gerber River Shorty Knife. She wanted something smaller than the Rivermaster and with a blunt tip. So after a little fiddling we were part of the Knife crowd. We could now walk around proudly displaying our weapons in public. Something us Americans take very seriously! However like most fantasy’s come to life, hints of reality started to seep in.
The first issue we found was that Mary began getting hung up when she tried to launch up on her boat for a self rescue, or as she would slide back off the deck. The plastic sheath would catch under the lines and bungies. I didn’t have that problem because I get a lot of air when I launch up over the deck, but she slides onto the deck and was very susceptible to getting caught on a line. To add to the issue, once you’re caught your caught. The sheath will not come out of the attachment point with any amount of force. Next we started to both occasionally get the beasts hung up when doing scrambles. Suddenly the knives were the first actual entanglement issues we had experienced. Getting the knife/sheath caught could be tough issue to deal with if your adrenaline was up. You have to take the time to work the rope out from under the sheath to get free. And it can get pretty wedged up in there at times. Yikes.
In addition to entanglement problems Mary’s knife was emerging as even more of a hazard. I say “Emerging” in that it kept “emerging” from the sheath. Suddenly you have a dagger flinging around on a bit of line like a mad giant bumble bee while you’re in some awkward position on your deck. It didn’t take long before we knew that that River Shorty was just not going to be a safe knife. Frankly the design of the sheath and clip is not up to any kind of real stress. Over time the plastic clips wear and become more flexible. Soon the knife is falling out quite regularly. We replaced the first one thinking it was defective. But the second was the same right out of the box. This is the last thing you need with a dagger that you plan to mount on your chest. So that knife amounted to a small financial donation to Gerber, hopefully to R & D.
What’s more is the danger of slitting your own throat or stabbing yourself with the blade while trying to use it. Remember you shouldn’t run with a knife. Let alone spin upside down, shoved in all directions, banged into rocks, etc.
But entanglement is a real issue right? Certainly. You have to make your own choices and weigh the risks. I’m certainly no expert. There are a plethora of options out there from folding blades to round blades, little saws, scissors and more. You have to try them in the world you use them in. Theory never really seems to tell the whole story. At the BCU skills symposium it was brought up to us that at least antidotally the knife on the PFD is causing more issues than resolving. Our personal experience is just that. So I was more than happy with the concept of getting that knife off my chest. But, what’s my solution?
Well, that’s a good question and I’m not sure I’ve settled on an answer yet. A few folks at the symposium were showing me how they use surgical scissors that were placed in a pocket on the side of the PFD. Very easy to get at, and will cut through just about anything. I’ve got a pair and am leaning toward that solution. But I’m always looking for input from people much wiser than me.
On the other hand I’ve been feeling a bit moody lately, a little less self assured, less confident. I wonder if I’m feeling a little less manly without my shiny weapon proudly on display? Will I be a little less aggressive in my boat? Maybe I won’t edge with confidence. Maybe braces will become weak and ineffectual. Maybe I’ll buy a bright blue rec boat. . .
hmmmmm, I wonder. . .
-d
Oh, Wenley, this is for you. http://www.qajaqusa.org/temp/486860959oLDAyg_ph.jpg It’s Freya! I can’t believe this shot has not shown up on your blog yet!
My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then I walk alone – greenday
Today I met with a client on our little downtown square. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar figure. A tall dark scarecrow of a man. Someone all “decent” folk would cross the street to avoid. Soon my mind drew from a past life to identify this once close friend from many years past. In the midst of the “business” meeting he sat down reeking of whisky and cigarettes. Thankfully my client was understanding as I put her aside to make contact with history and bring it back to the present day.
We walked down the street to a local dive where the beer was flowing fast and furious at 10 am. And in a dark corner we talked of his suffering. My guilt would not allow me to share my daily routines. What can I say that won’t be a knife? What can I do that won’t seem like bragging? Nothing. I’m mute.
Many years ago when I was toxic from Wednesday to Sunday, life was lived on the razors edge, each morning was met with trepidation. What nightmare would come today? Would I eat? How would I find money for cigarettes? Often cigarettes were much more important that food. Days passed in chemical induced hazes. I can remember fearing holidays. Days when people expected things you could not afford to give. I remember finding work being impossible. What did I know how to do? Factories seemed to see me as not “factory” material. Apprently I was not one to understand the complexities of plastic presses. Gas stations and discount stores never called. My education was my own and not from some official source. I had left home and school at 15. I was dark and gothic before gothic was gothic. I married at 16 for only reasons a desperate child would create. I was a father before I could grasp what a father should be. Mine had passed before he could share any experience he may have gained in his 33 years. I’m not sure he had found any answers himself before facing the eternal. Humiliation was dished out in past due notices, little faces, evictions and food stamps. Yet deep in my mind the I felt there was something more to life. Not something discernable or definable. Just something. I guess I should not have read the books I read. Dos Pasos, Huxley, Freud, Dickens, Desmond Morris and the like are not productive reading for those seeking to fit into a cultural mold. Not that I chose these authors or the many others out of some grand wisdom. These are the books that showed up in our local thrift store dog-eared for a quarter a read. I’d read just enough to frustrate the counselor. A book, any book, was a day without facing the wet snow that filled the streets, the car that never ran, the people who did not understand my morose interpretation of life, expectations I could not abide or possibly live up to. A book never asks you to straiten up and fly right. Well, most don’t. I did happen on Dale Carnegie but that’s another story.
Luckily it seems as I look back now, a friend goaded me into local theatre. The shows, the roles, and the parties afterward opened new worlds. Introduced new cities & new faces. Even if I did often perceive them through a Bob Geldolf haze. Yet, then I met teachers, painters, business owners, writers, social workers, and lawn chair philosophers who added color to the grey lenses I had been wearing. I began to see that maybe humans could have some control of destiny. Not a lot mind you, but maybe they could effect the flow a bit. If nothing else, they could dress up and pretend to be Pippin. Opportunities opened and life took on dramatic changes. No need to bore you (if anyone is still reading this far) with all the prefuntionary details to come to this sunlit fall morning where I found myself sitting in a dark smokey bar.
I noticed the tavern walls had not changed from the blackened red felt wallpaper I remembered from long ago. On the table with laminated playing cards yellowing under the gloss, sat my untouched can of beer. I can’t help check my watch. It’s 5 after 10 in the morning. Why did I check my watch? What’s happened to me? I’m listening to tales that seemed to have found no change in as many years. Even many names remained the same. A tv hanging on the wall interjects with the folly of the day. My friend continues with his eyes vacant, he parades 10 years of pain before me. This is what I missed when I changed paths. I want to sympathize. No, I want to empathize. But it’s hard. My mind keeps searching for solutions. But I know the truth. I know he’s not looking for solutions. Just empathy and comfort in the face of an old friend. Leaning on a history where we used to fight the same dragons, then boil them in pools of George Dickle.
I know he senses the gulf. He wants to hold my feet to ancient fires. Remind me of my sins. It will level the discussion. Re-introduce common ground. I understand that. But it’s so much like a dream that I have a hard time wearing those dusty chains. I can’t see a past without hope. I knew it once, but it’s so far away and out of focus. Suddenly then he wants to be alone and says some mumbled goodbye as he walks over to the jukebox to play his favorite 1970′s country hits. I know I failed the old friend test. I can’t go back, he can’t come forward. I walked out into the sun and hit the keychain remote. My black jeep with the two 18 foot NDKs on top winked to life. In moments I was on my way home feeling glazed over by half a miller lite and no breakfast.
I remember thinking when Warren Zevon sung “I’d rather feel pain, than nothing at all” it was a definition of life. Now I just think it’s a really cool line. Times change. I’m doing fine. I’d like to get out in my boat today. How about you?
-d