Its been a while...

I can't believe its October already. The Redondo Beach trip is coming up, followed by the departure of the Lynx to the East Coast. I've got mixed feelings about that. I think its great that they get a chance to make this trip...but the Lynx was the first tallship I'd spent any time around, and I'll miss her. My decision to move in to the house in Newport after I'd graduated was made shortly after watching her sail into the harbor at sunset. But it is what it is. Maybe this means we'll get to play with the Spirit of Dana Point from time to time.

I'm revisiting things that happened last [school] year. One of the teachers at SEMS commissioned me to build a 'tree' for her cats. I can honestly say that this was one of the most difficult projects I have ever taken on. I'm still not convinced that I did it right. But sometimes there is only so much you can do with a coping saw and a cheap drill. And her cats really like it.

Santa Barbara Island, Anacapa Island

We left San Diego with a few formalities under our belt. The passengers were welcomed on as Expedition Crew, and we were all divided up between three watches. Each watch stood time during the day, and during the night and it was the same everyday so that we could establish a regular sleep pattern. I was assigned to the Third Watch, with Bob Nelson as the watch officer, and Chari Wessel as the junior watch officer. Our watch was required to stand watch from Noon till 4 pm, and Midnight to 4 am. This meant that I only ended up seeing one sunset on the trip, and no sunrises. Sleep seemed more important at the time.


We left San Diego around noon, and sailed all afternoon and night to get to Santa Barbara Island, the smallest of the 8. Santa Barbara Island is the only one of the 8 that I have been too before, and that I have set foot on. Its rocky, covered in gull rookeries, among other birds, and the access to the island consists of a delapidated metal ladder and a precarious landing. A very steep hike up the hill leads to an empty ranger station, and everywhere there were sea lions who were not happy about our presence.

I stood for our Watch photo (Note: On each island, we had to have all our photos taken with island signs and such, to distinguish where we were, and prove that we'd set foot there. That way the ship's company could legally be added to the State registry for the All Eight Club). I declined to hike the island, since I'd already done that before, and there wasn't much to see.

Once we'd all returned to the ship, we took off again (this being the next day, since we'd anchored overnight off SBI). It was late afternoon when we left for our next leg to Anacapa. When I came out on deck at Midnight for my now second midwatch so far, the seas were not treating us well. The stretch of water between SBI and Anacapa is all open, with nothing between the Pacific rollers and Santa Monica. We had to deal with not only 8 foot (from the deck above the head) rollers making the ship roll side to side, but also with aggrevated chop that added all sorts of motion to the ocean. That was the worst time for me regarding sea-sickness. I wasn't the only one. Almost everyone on our watch suffered. I never lost it, but I came close, because Chari had given me meclizine, which put me to sleep. That sleepiness made it hard for me to control my stomach. Around 3 that night I gave up, and was told to go sleep in the Governer's Cabin, which is amidships. There was no way I was going to make it down into the focs'le. I woke up at dawn, and made my way to my own bunk and slept till breakfast. When I woke up again, we were getting close to Anacapa Island.



Next Episode: Anacapa Island, Santa Cruz - Prisoners' Harbor and the Painted Caves

Crazy 8s

A few people know that I just returned from a great adventure at sea. A few months ago, I was chosen to be crew on the Californian on a historic expedition. We were to attempt to sail to all eight of the California Channel Islands in two weeks (which is very hard to do, for those who don't know). To date only 105 people in the history of the state have set foot on all eight of the islands, and we were hoping to add 35 more to that list. Part of the difficulty in this endeavor is that two of the islands belong to the US Navy, and we had to enlist their approval before we could even approach the islands. To all appearances, the Navy seemed eager to cooperate with us civilians and share in this historic attempt.

In 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed up the coast of California, discovering bays, islands, and mapping the coastline as far as Monterey Bay. The Channel Islands he and his crew sailed around were later to be known as San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, San Nicolas, San Clemente, Santa Barbara and Santa Catalina Islands. Anacapa was the only island to retain the Native American name for it. Cabrillo was injured during the course of his explorations, died, and was supposedly buried on San Miguel Island, though there are some claims that he was buried on Santa Rosa. No one has ever been able to locate his remains.

The islands are rich in Native American archaelogical sites, having been populated as far back as 14,000 years ago, and some now believe much further back. The Chumash Indians populated the northern islands, and the Gabrielinos the southern islands. Scott O'dell's book Island of the Blue Dolphins was written about a woman living on San Nicolas Island. San Nicolas and San Miguel boast some of the largest seal, sea lion and elephant seal rookeries on the west coast. And each island has its own unique and isolated ecosystem. As you can see, there is a wealth of information and history surrounding the islands. We had a lot to cover, going to each island.

We sailed from San Diego to Santa Barbara Island, the smallest of the eight. It is also the only island I've been to before, having stopped there on my trip on the Robert C. Seamans a few years ago. Then we sailed to Anacapa Island, and that leg proved to have the roughest, most difficult seas we experienced on the trip. From Anacapa we went to Santa Cruz, then to Santa Rosa. At the end of the first week, we headed from Santa Rosa Island to the harbor of Santa Barbara, where we were guests of that city's Maritime Museum for two days. We then headed out to Pt. Conception and then turned south for San Miguel Island. Then we sailed to San Nicolas, followed by San Clemente, where at both islands we were greeted and entertained by the Navy, and ended our trip at Santa Catalina Island.

The whole voyage was incredible, and one I will never forget. I hope someday to return to the islands, but now I've set my sights on other islands too. I hope one day to set foot on the Farallon Islands, and maybe even visit the Galapagos Islands too.

A more detailed account of various adventures that happened on the trip, as well as photos and videos will follow shortly.

Cheers!
L.

The Travelers

The beginning of many things. The man is called Finn, and the hawk is called Hugh.

aa....aaaa....AAAAAA....AAACHOOOOO!

The Sound of Sickness
from A Prairie Home Companion, Dec. 1, 2007

Hello darkness, my old friend
I have gone to bed again
Because a virus came in to me
And I'm feeling tired and gloomy
And my head hurts and I'm achy and I'm hot
And full of snot
I hear the sound of sickness

(SICKNESS)

I have a fever and I ache
Because I made a big mistake
When I taught my class in Sunday school
And those kids began to sniff and drool
While I was teaching them the parables of Jesus
I heard their sneezes
And all the sounds of sickness

(SNEEZING)

I came home and went to bed
And felt a throbbing in my head
And I'm getting the idea
I will soon have diarhhea
And I can't go out for fear I might explode
And drop a load
And hear the sound of sickness

And in the drugstore light I saw,
Ten thousand people maybe more.
People shivering in their V-necks
Buying Benadryl and Kleenex.
And Vapo-rub and aspirin (AH CHOO)
God bless you.
It is the sound of sickness.

(COUGHING)

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
How it feels to be laid low
Why am I the one who's fated
To be so awfully nauseated
And something like silent raindrops fell
And what a smell
I hear the sounds of sickness

(SNEEZING)

And the people bowed and prayed
For relief and for first aid
For they had it without question
Awful nasal congestion
And fatigue and achiness, the whole bit
They felt like crap
And heard the sounds of sickness

(SICKNESS)

And heard the sounds of sickness.

FN (PLUGGED UP): This is Fred Newman. I'm not going to make it in to work today.

And heard the sound of sickness.

The Sound of Sickness
—originally: "The Sound of Silence" by Paul Simon © 1964 Paul Simon
—new lyrics: Garrison Keillor © 2007 Maia Maia Music (BMI)

Trailer Hitch Meets License Plate

You know it's a Thursday when your morning starts out with a rear-end collision right next to your place of employment.

I was a tad hasty this morning, running slightly on the late side, when I pulled up to a stop sign behind a very big black truck. It was one of those monster double cab trucks too, and had a driver and five middle schoolers in it. My mind was on the coffee I'd just purchased, getting a parking space, how many kids were crammed into that cab, and not being late, when the truck stopped quicker than I'd anticipated. I slammed on my brakes and stopped just in time to feel a slight bump.

I'd hit the truck. Barely, as I couldn't see any damage on the bumper. I pulled into a spot and got out of my car as the truck deposited its cargo. The driver pulled up next to me and a very cheerful lady informed me that absolutely everything was fine, there was no damage at all, and was I okay? I looked at the front of my car to see that my license plate had been slightly crumpled by its first meeting with the truck's trailer hitch. 

So, no worries between me and the driver, all was well. Except for my walking onto the campus. "Ms. Davis!! You hit our car!!" 3 of the 5 youngsters who'd witnessed my stupidity accosted me in the classes I coincidentally was subbing in, all informing me of my mistake. Like I hadn't been there. Oh man. I'm pretty sure all of the 7th grade now knows that Ms. Davis hit a truck before school. *sigh* Its Thursday all right.

Shades of Vinaka

Its been a while since my last afternoon spent in this little cafe. I've been mooching off of someone's signal in the apartment complex, but it seems to have gone missing since yesterday morning, and emails needed to be written and flung at people.

The first thing I see as I walk in is two of the tables have been pushed together, and a small knot of old men are sitting around two chessboards and active games. It was so quaint, so...European. I had to admire it. I like this place, even though right now it seems to have more young skater/surfer punks sitting around than I would like. A couple of girls near me need a lesson on how to laugh a bit less obnoxiously. But in general, this place has great vibes. Perfect for a sunny Monday afternoon.

never do your taxes before bedtime

I made that serious mistake tonight. I started plugging it all in to Turbo Tax, including that inoculous form from my freelance work, and thus I discovered I was screwed. For the first time since I started doing my own taxes, that little box at the top of the screen doesn't show green numbers, what I am getting back. It's showing red numbers. A lot of them.

So far this week hasn't gotten off to a good start. I had a trip to the dentist today, which is costing me money because of stuff I now need to fix. Now this whole tax thing. Shit, man. The crampy, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, that has been gnawing at me big time since Saturday... It's keeping me awake. It's 12:45 in the morning. School is not going to agree with me tomorrow.

Nnnrrrggghhh...

enraptured

I finally got my hands on a new computer! I don't really consider it to be totally mine, as my parents had to go out of their way to get it for me, and somehow I need to pay them back...

Nice thing is, its my first really good laptop. I'm not really used to the mobility it gives me. But I'm starting to realize the possibilities.

Thus I sit here, in a cool, 70s type beach cafe near my house, making use of the coffee and the free internet. Its a neat, slightly rundown type place, but it is cool enough to have a big flat screen tv on one wall. When I came in this evening, they were playing episodes of Planet Earth, and its been running all evening. The episode playing right now is the one on Oceans, and there are shots of dolphins in Australia surfing the waves to get nearer to the beach. I look up, and the entire cafe is staring, enraptured, at the shots of the dolphins.

There are the odd disparaging comments about weird stuff in each episode, but still, how often do you look up to see a dozen and a half hipsters staring at the wonders of our planet?

Pretty cool.

D'oh!

I hate it when this happens... My computer died. Oh, it will turn on, but after a few minutes it freezes and I have to force it to turn off. So yesterday I took it to the Mac doctors, hoping it was only a case of outdated software and not enough memory. No such luck. Four of the capacitors had burst on the logic board. They would have to replace the entire logic board, and with labor costs, tax, and my computer being out of warranty, the price tag is big enough to make it more worthwhile to get a new computer.

Crap.

This opens the doors to all sorts of issues. Problems that need to be addresses before my computer can be fixed or replaced. What's next?

Fire!

We got to go sailing a couple of weekends ago, and we had a blast (so to speak). Saturday and Sunday saw the Surprise, the Californian, the Lynx, and a newcomer, the Amazing Grace, sailing around the bay for a few hours.

Saturday was fun, watching the Amazing Grace racing around out there. She's about half the size of the Californian (tiny! tiny!) but very beautiful and graceful. I likened the day to watching a Mazda Miata running circles around three 18-wheelers. Her captain buzzed the Surprise a few times, coming so close to the stern at one point that we could have reached out and touched the rigging. You could have spit onto the deck from the taffrail. Her captain had a stern talking to that evening, and barely came near us on Sunday.

We had our usual compliment of gunners on board, and had a great time trying to wear the ship over and over again, and yet stay out of the way of the guns' recoil. Sunday was the best because I got to help out on one of the guns a few times. The big gun, called "Pearl" needed to be swabbed, loaded, run out and fired. I only got to fire Pearl the last time, and it was pointed at the Midway, which was fun. Still, my sailing gloves were soaked with water and black powder residue, and even now they still smell like gunsmoke. The gunners were so awesome to let me help out. Someday the Surprise will have her own compliment of guns, and some of us will have to help out manning the guns! Wheee!

Disatisfaction

I wish I knew why these thoughts choose to plague me right when I'm trying to fall asleep. Why can't I just turn off the light and slip into blissful dreaming? Instead I lay here, trying to ignore all of my failures and disappointments and worst of all, my worries. The fact that I have about $20 to my name, and the month isn't even half over, is something that brings tears to the corners of my eyes at any moment.

But I think that there is more to it. I've been miserable for days. I'm pretty good at hiding it, burying the pain when I'm around the kids I teach and the people I work with, but it's there. Sunday night's church service was wonderful, but I barely felt better. Even the success of proposing and getting approval for starting an afterschool ceramics program at school can't make me feel the way I should.

I keep thinking back over the disaster Christmas was this year. I want to put it behind me, forget, but I relive all the horrible parts of it along with my usual line-up at night. I know what I need to do it sit down and write a long letter to Dad, telling him how I feel, how frusterated I am that we have this really crappy relationship, and how angry I feel about this past Christmas... But everytime I try, I can't think of what to say.

How do I come right out and tell him that I felt like he was being a big jerk? I've never said anything like that to him before. But it's true. Part of my anger too is that Christmas is supposed to be the time of the year that I recharge. Get ready for the challenges ahead. Instead I was so focused on the lack of anything resembling quality family time, the constant need to be on guard against whatever bizarre comments or thoughtless opinions might come flying out of the blue, that I missed what was important.

And now I'm pissed. The fallout from the "non-holiday" I had doesn't wash off in the shower, isn't erased by new positive experiences I've had since. It just added another layer of scar tissue that keeps me awake at night. I've already decided that I'm never putting myself in that situation again, even if it means some painful distancing in the future. Like spending next Christmas enjoying the splendors of New Zealand or something.

Now that I've written some of this down, maybe I can fall asleep.

Yeah, right.

I Like Drawing in Blue...

I don't know why I like this drawing... I did it a few days ago, and I'm not sure what I would do differently. I guess I like it just the way it is.

Oaks and Sugar

We visited a plantation on the Mississippi today. Took us an hour to get there, where we saw the beautiful 28 oak lane leading up to the antebellum mansion. I've been there before, back in 1993, and our tour of the mansion was cut short then because they were filming Interview With A Vampire there. This time we were able to see the whole house, which was very beautiful.

It was cold and rainy today, and walking around the grounds of the plantation made me feel a little depressed. When I came to the plaque commemorating the slaves who worked on the plantation, I had to stop and think. After a while I started walking away, feeling even more depressed. But then I stopped, as an amazing thought struck me. Has anyone at this plantation bothered to tell the ghosts of the slaves the news? I looked back at the site where the slave houses had once been and whispered "Guess what! A black man is about to become President of the United States!" I smiled and walked away, feeling much better.

There Is A Bird In The Terminal

I keep trying to come up with some kind of metaphor for the bird I see flitting about by my gate. I'm sitting here, waiting for my plane after an hour delay, two terminal and three gate changes. I'm exhausted and still unsure about the benefits of this trip. Yet my predicament is nothing next to the one this tiny little brown sparrow is in. There is nowhere for him to go, and he's surrounded by fast moving giants, loud noises, vehicles buzzing around and not a bush or tree in sight. All I want to do is help him, but how? What can I do? I know there are metaphors here, but my tired brain can't pick them out. Help.

Why?

I just finished reading an article in the NY Times about what's going on in Zimbabwe, and I can't help wondering why we aren't doing anything about it. By "we" mean America. How is it that the Bush administration justifies invading Iraq on suspicion (meaning Not Verified, Not CONCRETE evidence) of weapons of mass destruction, and we can't be bothered to do anything about Mugabe? The man has torn down to the ground a proud, successful, wealthy country, replacing it with a country with one of the worst economies in the world, and a rapidly mounting death rate of the cholera epidemic, because of a collapse of basic services. Even when members of Mugabe's insane military (insane because they still support him) riot because they have no money to feed their families and aid workers taking on the daunting task of cleaning up the cities' water supply to contain the cholera epidemic mysteriously go missing...still nobody does anything to step in.

After the botched elections earlier this year, I really thought the international community would step in to stop that power-hungry madman. I guess I was wrong. And I shouldn't be surprised, considering the present state of Somalia, the Congo and the unforgivable genocide in Darfur. I can't help but wonder, if the people in Darfur were Jews or Whites, would the rest of the world have stood idly by and let millions of people be slaughtered?

Christmas is rapidly approaching, which normally is a season of hope and family and gifts any togetherness, but what about the 60,000 dead in Zimbabwe? What about their families and all those who are at risk of dying an excrutiatingly painful death from cholera? Where is their Christmas miracle? Why can't we do something to help them? Our economy may be tanking and people are losing jobs and homes left and right, but it is nothing compared to living under the control of a government that could give a rat's ass where or not you live or die. Just as long as people like Mugabe stay in power. Right. He's nothing but a terrorist in President's clothes and yet we allow him to continue killing off his people.

If anyone needs prayer this Christmas season, it's the people who are being oppressed and murdered by corrupt governments. It's especially the people who are suffering through the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. Pray for them.

Hidden Memories

When I was a kid, there were a number of movies that I watched so many times they became a part of the fabric of my imagination. Last night I turned on the tv just in time to catch the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. That reminded me of another movie, Bon Voyage Charlie Brown, that I had on a tape. The tape had been a recording from tv, including commercials from the late 80s, and at the end of the Charlie Brown movie was The Flight Of Dragons.

After watching tv last night I decided to look up both films on YouTube, and sure enough they were there. I went to sleep after having watched the begining of Bon Voyage. The music, the sounds, the scenes were so deeply ingrained in my mind that I could remember what it was like to watch them when I was a kid. I could even remember the commercials scattered throughout the tape. Especially that Jiff peanut butter ad where this mom is talking about it and drawing a perfect heart with her knife in the smooth new surface in the jar. For years I did that to new jars of peanut butter.

What memories do you have associated to something you watched or did as a kid? Are you able to remember those vague feelings from when you were young? It's hard to describe...

Well, back to my old movies. Cheers!

21 Years

I'm writing this post from my brand new iPhone, my birthday gift. Now that my 27th birthday has come and gone, however, I must take note of a much more important gift. 21 years ago, my mother and her boyfriend walked into a mall in Nice, France, and they stopped in a shop that sold toys. After looking over the wide selection of stuffed animals, they settled on a small black panther with bright green eyes. They delivered him to an extatic 6 year old, who named him Moonlight, because his eyes seemed to glow in the light of the moon at night.

21 years later, he still has some of his original silky hair under his legs and in his ears, but the rest of him bears the marks of 21 years of love. He only has two wiskers left, and there are a couple of little bare spots here and there, but he is in great shape and his eyes still glow in the light of the moon. He's been to every country, every state, every place I've ever been, even out to sea.

I'm sure people think I'm nuts for the devotion I show this little kitty, considering that he's a stuffed animal, but I've never thought of him as anything less than real, anything less than the best, most loving friend I have. So here is a very Happy 21st Birthday to my Moonlight.

depths

I don't know why I think about these things, but sometimes random contemplation comes to me in random places. I was thinking about how some people are really shallow, transparent, and others are really deep. I eventually decided that people are like the ocean.

Some people are like the Keys. Some are murky from the wave action churning up the sand till you can hardly see anything and there isn't much to them. Others are clear and bright and you can see long distances underwater. They are colorful and full of life, just like the reefs you find in the Keys.

Others are like the deep ocean. Their personalities may stay near the surface, where the light filters in, or they are very dark and unfathomable as they go deeper. Where the ocean looses all light is a forbidding, pitiless place, where life must struggle to survive.

I think I'm like the part of the ocean where the continent drops away into the abyss. I can see long distances around me, and there is a lot of life and color there, on the continental shelf. There is also darkness, if only I step off the edge. But I choose to stay near the surface, loving the light and color and life that flourishes there.

Cheers!

The Things My Hands Do...

This is the final outcome of a very long running project. I was shocked when I saw it for the first time, in stone... I've been staring at it for weeks in clay on a piece of plywood.