Swordwhale Walking: Illustration, stories, photojourneys, videos

My vacation this year included; an earthquake, a pirate voyage, a hurricane (and forced evacuation from a barrier island), pipefish, sandburrs, wild horses, spaceships and cowboys, and a lot of duct tape.

Each year (or more often if I can make it) I make a sort of pilgrimage to a set of barrier islands off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. Assateague is a long, low dragon shape, stretched across the MD/VA border. Chincoteague lies like a tiny egg inside the curve of Assateague's "tail" (The Hook). Assateague is home to wild horses, waterfowl, and sea life. Chincoteague is home to watermen, saltwater cowboys, art galleries and nifty shops, and the only wild horse roundup on the east coast.

First, the pirate ship. Lewes DE lies on the edge of DelMarVa. Occasionally, during the summer, it is the home port of a "pirate ship", the Kalmar Nyckel, a glorious big blue wedding cake of a vessel, carved and decorated and square rigged and cannoned, with a leaping lion on the bow and merrows on the stern and fighting tops aloft (so the crew can go, literally, "over the top"). A reproduction of the 1638 ship that brought the first settlers to Wilmington DE (New Sweden then), she does "pirate sails" out of Lewes, out into the open waters of the Delaware Bay. The guests are invited to help haul on lines, to sing sea shanties, to perch on windlass or cannon, to take ridiculously cool pictures of themselves with a set of 1630's rigging or deck carvings as the set. The crew is in period garb. They climb picturesquely aloft... with a purpose; to set the 17th century windmachine that will haul us out into the High Seas without fossil fuels (mostly, they do have backup engines). One young man tells a fun tale  of a kid who becomes a pirate for a day. Another talks about the real history (and misconceptions) of the Golden Age of Piracy. We learn Captain Lauren's last name is Morgan... we think she's a lot cooler than the guy on the rum bottle. We form a line and help set a tops'l. It's a lot harder than jumping in the car and turning a key. The Helmsman steers from a cubbyhole about the size of Harry Potter's closet. There is a huge stick (the whipstaff) attached to a tiller below the deck he's standing on, (the tiller attaches to the rudder, the whipstaff gives some mechanical advantage to the mere human attempting to heave the 100 foot ship on a new course). From HP's closet, the helmsman can see masts, yards, deck stuff, tourists, more tourists, rigging, and a tiny bit of water to port and another tiny bit to starboard. He mostly listens to the orders coming from the Captain, above. We set only the tops'ls (the big square bits above the bigger square bits on the masts... masts = levers that the wind pushes on... a light wind pushing on sails higher up... topsails... is more efficient)  as the wind is very light, and the deck is very full (of tourists). We also set the sprit tops'l.

The wha??? you say. Pay attention, this is significant. The boat has a big pointy thing in front: the bowsprit. It helps hold the whole thing together (standing rigging runs through the bowsprit and the masts, like a big string puzzle). The bowsprit on a 17th century Dutch vessel of this type has a sprits'l (a square sail slung low on the bowsprit like a baby's bib) and a sprit topsail, hung a bit higher. Kalmar is the only ship in the western hemisphere to have a sprit tops'l, and she doesn't usually set it. There's a guy from some museum ( in, I believe it was Sweden) who is sailing the next day to study how this works (they have an original vessel of this time period, raised from where it sank in a harbor on its maiden voyage; it was preserved by freshwater in the port... and the sewage... all of which created an anaerobic environment which preserved the ship). 

Not quite as ordinary as boarding a comuter flight to Miami.

Somewhere in the midst of the voyage, over the ship's radio, comes the earthquake report.

Back in PA, my uncle is sitting in the car, in a parking lot, waiting for my aunt. He feels someone "shaking the car"...turns around to see no-one.

Kalmar sails back to port with no rumbles felt, no tsunamis seen. We get some pirate booty (T-shirt, a cool line drawing of Kalmar) and I head south by land.

Chincoteague VA, island of the wild ponies, made famous by a 1940s book, Misty of Chincoteague (and 60s film) by Marguerite Henry. I saw it first in 1972, the last year Misty (the pony in the story) was alive. I toured her stable, saw her snoozing in the back corner of her stall (she was old, and her palomino gold color was faded to sand), and didn't take a picture (the flash would have disturbed her). She died a few months later. I never got the picture.

I park, find my buddies, we eat dinner, and someone produces a set of DVDs of a short run TV series called Firefly. It's a sort of post-apocalyptic sci-fi/western with a crew of pirate-smuggler-privateer types flying under the radar of the Evil Totalitarian Government that controls the galaxy. Sort of the opposite of Star Trek. The last image in the opening credits pretty much sums it up: a herd of thundering horses with a spaceship (firefly class, the ship of the title) zooming overhead. Over the next few nights, I find the need to stay up way too late, have too many beers (two, which leads to a headache, and a need to drink lots of water and find the porta-bucket in the middle of the night), and absorb the entire series at once.

I get up early for the Marine Explorers program done by the Park Service, we launch a couple of kayaks into Chincoteague Bay, I test the underwater housing from the Dark Ages given to me by a buddy (anybody remember the old Jaques Cousteau specials? Yeah, it's like that stuff), I use the giant sized kitchen strainer to sift out eelgrass, algae, sea-lettuce and a pipefush from the grass beds in the Bay,  climb the lighthouse in winds that led the lighthouse interpretive guide to suggest I batten down my hat, I try leaping the waves like I did when I first came to Assateague...

My knees reminded me that leaping like a dolphin is for 20 year olds.

Chris finds the first sandburr. I am aware of this by the sudden shrieks reminiscent of a torture scene in Firefly when the Captain is kidnapped by a psychopathic mobster. I find sandburrs (for the record, Teva sandals, the hiking/river/kayaking sort, are immune...the flipflops are like wearing marshmallows where sandburrs are concerned), Heather's bare feet find more sanburrs. She, always barefoot, resorts to the dreaded Shoe. I find more: on the edges of my longish shorts, stuck to the webbing of my sandals, under my toes...

The islands are full of vampires: several kinds of bloodsucking flies, several dozen kinds of bloodsucking mosquitoes, 3 kinds of ticks, and sandburrs. Perhaps if the Twilight series had been written here, it would actually be scary.

Then we got wind of the weather...

To quote the guy at the beginning of The Little Mermaid..."hurricane a'comin'!!!"

The skies remained sunny, the wind too brisk now for kayaks. The birds went about their business as usual; egrets and blue herons, tricolored herons and sandpipers fishing the shallows, beaks pumping like sewing machines in the sand at the sea's edge. Pelicans soared over the waves like pteradactyls. A mysterious fin surfaced near my kayak (maybe a dolphin).

Oh, we'll just have some rain the last two days of my vacation...I'll drive home Monday, as planned.

Went to the museum that used to be called The Oyster Museum. It's grown in scope from its days as an ode to the local industry. There are exhibits on local culture, waterfowl, the oyster industry, history, the fire company, watermen, the pony roundup...and Misty.

Really, Misty herself, in all her stuffed, taxidermied glory (along with her daughter, Stormy, who I once sketched alive). Taxidermy done by a well-meaning local craftsman with a rather random knowledge of horse anatomy. I take pictures, mostly video, anyway, an experiment in filmaking (shooting around the bad bits, trying to make the stuffed horses look more... unstuffed).

I burn some memory card, abosorb Vast Knowledge until my brain is full, and my eyes glassy.

The guys at the front desk are packing their bags, their boxes...the entire museum, in fact, is being battened down. Back on the beach, the Park Service is using some interesting large Tonka toys to move the changing rooms and porta-pottis off the beach. The girl at the Kite Koop advises me to leave Thursday night, before the causeway (the only way on and off the island that doesn't require a boat) is closed, and we are actually stranded on a desert island. And before the traffic to the north becomes a dreaded crawl through gale force winds and closed bridges and torrential rain.

At the rental house we hover around the weather channel, watching the worst storm since 1962 (the nor'easter that inspired Stormy; Misty's Foal) form and advance toward the Outer Banks. We learn the beach will close at ten tonight, and not reopen until the storm has passed.

We opt for food, beer, and more episodes of Firefly. But first, three of us pile into Janet's car and head for one last look at the beach. The sky sputters. Pours. We drive in the dark out the causeway to Assateague, headlights of other cars occasionally shining through the downpour. Water pools on the road; rain? or rising seas??  Heather rumbles from the backseat as if she is driving a dogsled; "...gee, gee, no haw...stay out of the lagoon!" I remember my dive instructor said to never drive through standing water.... I can't remember how much it takes to sweep you off the road and into the lagoon.

The road becomes packed sand with beach parking lot signs. 

The rain peters out into a fine drizzle.

We step out, headlamp shining on rolling surf. I turn the light out. Dim light, the continual roar of surf on sloping sand. The flash of the distant lighthouse on the white breakers; blink-blink....blink-blink....

Friday am, we aquire tarps, plastic, plywood, and copious amounts of duct tape, battening down our buddy Heather's houses, and treasured old books. Chincoteague issues an evacuation notice, rental houses are called; non-residents must be off-island by 6pm... residents by the next day.

We pack, reluctantly, under skies that morph from rain to sun to cloud to sun to drizzle to sun.

Vultures perch on the roof of the condo. The lighthouse is visible across the marsh, sentinel from the Civil War, on the highest piece of ground for miles around, double walled brick tower still flashing its light through the rain Thursday night.

I drive north Friday under sunny skies, calm hot windless skies. The mighty landship Fearaf (my 1983 Ford Econoline van) is loaded with gas, food, water, blankets. I only fear getting out too late and sinking the van.

And the Traffic Jams of Doom.

Chincoteague's Main street is being boarded up (the bay is only a few yards away, and most of Chincoteague is actually below sea level). I take some last pictures, throw good wishes at some guys boarding up a store front. They grin, keep working. They've been through it all before. No big deal.

One of them says; "Everybody gets all excited when God starts rearranging the furniture..."

The Traffic of Doom does not materialize, only some Friday evening rush hour traffic in Dover and Smyrna. Gale force winds do not materialize. The kayaks remain lashed to the roof of the van. Neither I or they blow to Oz. Torrential rains do not materialize. Nor do bridge closings (I still have to get off DelMarVa, which was a penninsula, and now, due to the C&D Canal, is actually a rather large island). I drive north in weather that can't decide what outfit to wear; rain, sun, cloud, rain, drizzle, sun, setting sun.

Somewhere in the middle of the rain, my driver side windshield wiper goes "kraat!" and lurches hard aport.

"That doesn't look right..."

I pull over and inspect this small, and ridiculously important piece of technology I just had replaced a month ago. There's a greebly that turns and a thingie that pops and something that holds it all on the windshield washer arm thingie...

I twist it and poke it and sort of get it back together.

It pops loose.

"@%$&^%$!!!!!?!!!"

I delve into the Mighty Landship Fearaf, laden with Hurricane Survival Gear, searching for....

Duct tape, the Force that holds the universe together.

I drive north through rain, the wipers slapping a happy, and slightly offbeat rhythm...

About thirty lightyears ago, I heard about a new film with starships and aliens and wicked cool new effects. There was no internet, only the SF mags and word of mouth and the odd movie trailer and TV ad. I heard about it after it had already exploded onscreen with a Death Star sized bigbang. SF/fantasy fan that I am, I went. I went out of the theater going, "hmmmm, that was cool." I thought about it for a few days. Went back with more friends.

I went back something like 25 times. Star Wars was one of those nifty turning points that introduced me to a whole new world: friends of like mind, SF cons, fantasy illustration, real world adventures that sprang out of all that.

That is the point of well told stories. They connect us. They inspire us. They teach us. They say something about our past. Our future. Our choices.

I like James Cameron films. Terminator 2 and Titanic are on my ten best list (although I think that may include several dozen by now). He understands Joseph Campbell's concept of The Hero Journey (see my earlier blog or look it up on Wikipedia). He talks about the relationship between humans and technology; the use and abuse of it. The dangers we face if we blow it. Our relationship with each other and Nature. He's a Leo, born two days after me and one year earlier. He's definitely from the same planet.

And now here's our planet.

I heard about Avatar much the way I heard about Star Wars; after everybody else knew about it. Yeah, I have internet access now. I even check my email once a week or so. I blog or twiddle the website when I can. This week I was running sleddogs, hacking my way through Suckway (unlike my Disney princess namesake, I hate food service), eating fattening PA Dutch food with relatives over Christmas, wrangling my friend's young, enthusiastic Malenois, ducks, free range chickens, horses, goats and other critters while Mona and Joe escaped to the great white north. I watched the great white north melt into mud before Mona could break a sled dog trail around her farm. I hashed out the rest of my Christmas presents ( I don't Mall anymore, mall, that's a verb, a four letter verb).

"I should probably see this." I said. "After all, it's James Cameron, how bad could it be."

I bought a black leather jacket at a yard sale and learned to play the Terminator theme on a Native American flute. I bought the action figures (uh, it's for my nephew). I asked Bob Ballard (the guy who found the Titanic) a more or less intelligent question at a program at the Baltimore Aquarium. I leapt off of several perfectly good floatin' boats in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean (well, we were out of sight of land) to look at the sunken boats. One of my dive buddies did that 'soaring on the bow/king of the world' move on the bow of one of those sunken boats. I went to the Titanic exhibit at the local museum, stood with my nose inches from things that had lain two and a half miles down in 375 atmospheres of pressure (that's how geeky this gets).

Yep, I'm a fan.

I considered that fact that this could be one more of those grand heartless fx extravaganzas. Blow lots of stuff up and nobody will notice there isn't a plot or character development.

Ok, I'll go watch stuff blow up for three hours, at least once.

The James Horner soundtrack hooked me from the beginning. After looking him up on Wikipedia (easier than going through my CD collection or my own memory banks) I realized he's scored a bunch of my favorite films. I love "Echoes" on National Public Radio; that sort of soundtracky, epic stuff with spacey electronics and indigenous instruments and voices. This soundtrack captures that quality; epic, emotion, eerie, otherworldy. Horner's a Leo too, born on the same day and two years earlier.

I could analyze the film for hours; it's a place you can get lost in. "Haven't got lost in the woods?" the badaxx Colonel says to Our Hero. Of course I have, I know those woods.

This is the archetypal Garden. This is the place we all remember (well, some of us do). This is the place Richard Louv talked about in "Last Child in the Woods". In his book he shows how this generation has become plugged into their 'avatars'; Game Boys and cell phones and computers. How they've lost the ability to run soundlessly through the forest, to read the trail, to bond with other living things, to just sit and look and feel and experience. Louv tells us the cure for ADD and a thousand other modern afflictions is to just go outside and play.

He's right. When the SAD felt like a space marine's backpack, I hitched up two dogs and slogged through a foot of snow on half a trail in a sunlit wood. I felt like I might keel over a few times. The dogs hadn't run more than in the dogyard all fall. I had sleazed off the rider and the stationary bike for weeks.

It was good! Ooooraahh!

The plot was described by someone as "trite". No, not trite, not stereotypal, archetypal. The Hero Journey. Sure, I knew how certain scenes, certain situations had to play out. I knew how I'd write them. Same way I know that stuff in a good Disney flick. I know the pattern, I've been over this trail before. But every time you go over the trail, it's different. Different animals have walked there, leaving different signs. Different weather, different seasons, different things blooming, fading, dying, rebirthing.

This is a rebirth of the Hero Journey.

Tolkien gave the old archetypes back their power. Rescued the Elves and Dwarves and Wizards and dark things from the nursery and made them tall and strong; a Force of Nature to be reckoned with. Lucas sent them to the far far away edges of the universe, and showed us that those tales are, well, universal. J.K. Rowling showed kids that they too had power, and must learn how to wield it.

Cameron has shown us the place we come from and that there is still time to change our course. Change our relationship with Nature, with technology, with other living things. Much of the film has already happened in real life: we know that, not from our history books, which always tell the tale from the viewpoint of the winners, but from listening to Native American, African, Australian Aboriginal, Polynesian and other indigenous authors/storytellers/bards/artists/teachers. (The excellent Wes Studi, a Native American actor, is the voice of Neytiri's father). The concept of communicating with animals (on levels beyond verbal) is not new to anyone who's ever worked with them. The concept of trees communicating chemically or electrically is not new to science. The idea of a world organism, the Earth as one big biosphere is not new either. What is new is putting it all into an action-packed, thrilling adventure that twelve year olds will absorb.

And maybe they'll go home and think about it.

Maybe they'll pick up a bow, because Neytiri made it look so cool. Maybe they'll try riding an earth horse. Or flight. Or diving into the clear waters that are still left. Or saving the rest.