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My Kind of Town: Chincoteague VA

8/13/2009

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Smithsonian Magazine runs a series called "My Kind of Town" where you (briefly) sum up what a certain place means to you and why. It didn't take me long to realize my certain place was an ever-shape-shifting island at the edge of the world...

When I sat in my first sea kayak, I realized how much it was like the horses I had grown up on: both carry me on The Journey, respond to the rolling shape of land or water and the tilt of my body. Both have their own quirks and require some skill to ride.

There's a place at the edge of the world (or at least, the continental US) where horses and the sea meet: a set of sandy barrier islands, shapeshifting in wind and tide, just off the east coasts of Maryland and Virginia. Assateague is a long, protective dragon shape, the place of the wild things: National Seashore, state park, wildlife refuge. Chincoteague, a small round egg tucked inside Assateague's southern tail tip (the Virginia end), is home to watermen, craftsmen, artists, "saltwater cowboys", and the only wild horse roundup on the east coast.

Local legend claims the ponies swam ashore from a Spanish galleon loaded with treasure. Surely Spanish galleons, and hundreds of other ships wrecked on the shifting sandbars of these shores (a chart I saw marked sixty of the known ones; the beach is about forty miles long). Science and history say the ponies came from a more prosaic place: colonial livestock turned loose on a pasture fenced by the sea.

I've lugged a fifty pound backpack barefoot up Assateague's beaches, stood in Chincoteague's muddy marshes (shrimp bite nearly as hard as the infamous saltmarsh mosquitoes) to watch the annual swim of the ponies across the narrow channel between the islands. I've stood eye to eye with Misty and Stormy, of Marguerite Henry's famous kids' books; "Misty of Chincoteague", and "Stormy, Misty's Foal". But it was the kayak, galloping over the waves, that showed me the real islands; the little blue heron feeding yards from beach houses, the stingray the size of a stall door inches below my fins, the low-flying skimmer unzipping the dawn lagoon for tiny fish.

Here, you can chill on the beach, leap the waves, or dive below the "undertow" searching for that perfect whelk shell. Or, empty-handed, search the back streets for shell stands, where you plop your quarters into a can for the Perfect Whelk, collected by a local kid after winter storms. You can eat real oyster sandwiches, buy a handcarved canvasback decoy, or a signed print of a great egret. Or take your own photo of one, right from your car. You can buy a T-shirt from The Purple Pony that says (upside down) "if you can read this, please put me back on my horse". You can paddle up the channel at twilight in the company of dolphins, or shove your boat off the beach and wonder if there are sharks down there bigger than you (the fins turn out to be more dolphins). Here you can still climb a working lighthouse, or follow its flashing beacon at night, where you might hear the snort of a wild pony in, where else, Horse Marsh.
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Weekend Soundtrack

8/12/2009

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National Public Radio has a feature they call Weekend Soundtrack. They invite us, the listeners, to send in our inspiring soundtracks. This was mine...
 

It varies, depending on the expedition brainfart of the week, but, right now... yeah, it's Pirates. The Soundtrack, you know, from those Disney flicks. Ok, before you send me by the boards to be marooned forever in some mosquito infested salt marsh (one of my favorite environments, by the way), let me explain.

I grew up on horseback, a total landlubber in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.The Susquehanna flows down through our farm hills into that great inland sea called the Chesapeake Bay, and then into the sea. I remained blissfully unaware of it through my childhood and youth, though I grew up on the likes of Sea Hunt and Flipper and Cousteau specials. I eventually learned to swim, and even SCUBA dive: but floatin' boats were to get you to the sunken one, and the floatin' ones were usually stinky noisy diesel affairs. I did living history from the Viking age to the Renaissance, mostly bopping big guys upside the head with broadswords and galloping picturesquely about on my horse. Sometimes I would join my friends in The Longship Company on one of their Viking longships. I was certainly no sailor; mostly we rowed around the marina and creeks at Solomon's Island, MD, once in awhile, we'd put up the big square thingie and blow downwind for awhile.

Then came a year when tall ships sailed the silver screen; Peter Pan, Master and Commander, and the first Pirates film brought us adventure on the high seas, and it looked awesome. Still, it was a film fantasy, something I knew a bit about as an artist and writer specializing in the young adult fantasy genre.

Then a friend took me to a tall ship festival in Baltimore. I rounded the corner in the water taxi and fell in love.

She lay there, sleek cutlass blade hull hugging the water, her two masts raked as if she was going warp eleven, even at the dock.

Which is how I found myself on a pirate ship on Halloween. Ok, not technically a "pirate" ship, a privateer. The Chesapeake Bay, and Baltimore in particular, were famed for their swift, agile "sharp-built schooners", used in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. They were privateering vessels with government issued letters of marque and reprisal; "Flyers" who would run blockades and carry goods, and carry off any enemy merchants who happened to get in their way; "Sea Wolves" who would prey on enemy merchants, capturing "prizes" for a struggling young nation (and themselves, in the bargain). The Pride of Baltimore II is a recreation of the famed Baltimore Clippers of 1812, and for a wee bit of gold (or your Gold Card) she'll let you sign on as Guest Crew for a few days before the mast, no experience required.

Some sailor once compared the experience to riding a wild black mare through the wild woods in the dark of night. I understand the Black Mare imagery: I had my own wild black mare; a mustang adopted through the Bureau of Land Management's Adopt-A-Horse program. Not the Lone Ranger White Knight, not the Roy Rogers Golden Hero. Batman, Bagheera, Arnold's black-leather Harley-riding Terminator, the night-black steed of Zorro, dangerous power, the one riding the thin line between light and dark, good and evil.

The Chesapeake Bay privateers made their mark on history, and faded from it as the great Bay grew crowded, silted, full of phosphorus and nitrogen and algae blooms and dead zones, deficient in shad and crab and oyster and striper and skipjack.

Roaring on a reach, under slatey skies in early November, with a full press of canvas over my head, I caught a glimpse of the Bay that was.

That might yet be. I catch more glimpses, later, as I paddle my sea kayak on parts of the Captain John Smith Water Trail. As I feel the shape of waves reflecting off the marshes' mudwalls, as I watch an eagle sail out of the woods to snatch a fish from a fleeing osprey.

I want others to see this too. To feel it. To experience it.

Pride is not the only ship that still sails that vast inland sea. There are others; a small fleet made of the things of Earth; wood and canvas and line, others who creak and sing and gallop over the waves, flying on the wind; schooners, colonial ships, skipjacks and others. The 1769 era topsail schooner Sultana carries more than 4,600 students each year on educational adventures. I met one of those kids, on Chincoteague Island; his mom said he hadn't stopped talking about it for weeks. I manned her helm (tiller and steering tackle, not a wheel) in a cold May rain for forty minutes (and wished for more) while she balooshed cheerfully through the Bay chop from Annapolis to St. Michaels. Upon our arrival (under slightly sunnier skies than we had set out) a group of kids on the lighthouse yelled "Arrrr, hey pirates! Yo! Pirate ship!" The original Sultana was a pre-Revolution revenue cutter for the British Navy, we didn't bother to correct them.

Wouldn't you want to sail on a pirate ship?

The Chesapeake Bay Program (a multigovernmental interstate partnership along with the Environmental Protection Agency) has as one of its goals to give 100 percent of students a meangingful watershed educational experience by their high school graduation.

An experience: not a list of facts and names and dates which will sail in one ear and out the other.

An experience: spending even a few hours unplugged from the I-pod and the Game Boy, in a world where you pay attention to the direction of the wind and tide, to the shape of the swells rolling under your feet, to the color of the clouds on the far horizon, where a mysterious fin flashes out of the depths and then vanishes, where travel means hauling on a line with six other people, standing out in the rain, or the sun, where air conditioning is your hat, and central heating is a wool sweater... an experience of connecting to the real world, and maybe caring enough about it to make sure the Bay will have oyster reefs and grass beds and clear water for the next generation.

If it starts with a cheesy Hollywood image, or a book, or a soundtrack, arrrr, so be it! Captain Jack, and Captain John, would be grinning.







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the Hero Journey According to Campbell and Obi-Wan

8/12/2009

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a long time ago, in a sketchbook far, far away...

some friends and I visited the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, in Washington D.C. for an exhibit of props, costumes and other goodies from the Star Wars films. (We had already been to the one they devoted to Star Trek). In the displays, the museum outlined George Lucas' interpretation of the Hero Journey through the three first films. Lucas had studied the works of Joseph Campbell, a guy who studied myth, legend and faerie tale and made it comprehensible to the rest of us. Then Lucas brought it to the masses with Luke and Han and the rest. Here are my notes from the exhibit, with an eye to writing my own tales. Perhaps they'll be useful for yours... 
  
1999.01.16
Remember Space 1999? It was SF then, now it's ancient history.

George Lucas based his mythic tale on the concepts of Joseph Campbell , who studied the worlds mythologies and folk tales. Mythologizing mythology; taking an overview of all the world's spiritual ideas. PBS did The Power of Myth as a series, I own Hero With A Thousand Faces (the Hero Journey Cycle), Primitive Mythology and Myths to Live By, all by Campbell. I cant find Hero, I am in the middle of writing several Hero Journey tales. I did find my Star Wars notes.

Forthwith, here they are:(with some nods to other Hero Journeys I have loved)

Star Wars is driven by character, story. You don't have to explain what everything is. We figure out hyperdrive and lightsabers without the scientific treatise.

The Hero is obscure, ordinary; a farm boy, a Hobbit, a Gelfling, a girl from Kansas, a fat panda working in a noodle shop, a beat-up trash compactor robot named WALL-E.

The Mentor is Jedi, wizard, wiz, wise man. Gandalf, Obi-Wan.

The call to adventure:

Begins with The Herald: usually small, unassuming. Talking frogs. Gollum with a ring. Droid with a message. The guy pasting the sign on he wall about choosing the Dragon Warrior (Kung-Fu Panda). Starship landing (Wall-E). Ok, that one wasn't small and unassuming. In Pan's Labyrinth, the messenger is a bug-fairy. The Hand of Fate oftens plays a role here: the apparent Bad Thing drives the tale forward, involves the Hero, becomes part of the Journey.

The threshold:

Mos Eisley spaceport. Rivendell. Train stations (Narnia: Prince Caspian & Harry Potter). The Stairway to Heaven in Kung-fu Panda: the Place of Enlightenment is at the top. Note that he falls down that stairway a lot.

The Hero must leave familiar life behind and begin journey from childhood to adulthood, and to a life transformation. The threshold contains dangers, but also helpers. In SW, Han and Chewie are Dark Hero? Trickster? Beast Prince (Chewie) Animal Companion (the power of the Hero's instinctive nature). The ship has an animal name as well. Maybe it should have been the Millenium Raven. Or Chasseur. Han is a privateer (complete with wicked swift agile Baltimore Clipper); out for his own gain at first, but always fighting the tyrannical empire.

I do a lot of Elves, shapeshifters and folk with animal totems. They are plugged into their instinctive natures, one with Nature.

A dive is a Hero Journey. You cross the Threshold of the Surface into an alien world where all the rules are changed. A journey by ship is similar: the Dock is the threshold. You leave this last attachment to land and set out into the Unknown.

Into the labyrinth:

Difficult journey into the Unknown. Death Star. The Old Forest. Moria. Heroes don armour to rescue princess. Pan's Labrynth has a very literal labyrinth.

The dark road of trials:

Midway through the hero journey comes the long and perilous path of trials and ordeals bringing important moments of illumination and understanding. The decent into darkness. Moria again. One of Lewis' entire tales (the Silver Chair) is a Journey in the Dark. Monsters to be slain. Obstacles to be passed.

Into the belly of the beast:

The Millenium Falcon flies into the asteroid cave which turns out to be the maw of a huge beast. Jonah and the whale. Pinochio and the same whale. Leviathan. Is there an equivalent in Middle Earth? In Pan's Labyrinth, there is the beast-frog under the tree, who spits out the key (rather grossly). Vader undergoes transformation in egg-like chamber. You are eaten, you are spat out again, transformed.

The sacred grove:

Enclosure where the Hero is changed. Trees infused with creative energy. Forests symbolize mystery and transformation (the forest world of Dagobah). Forests are also the unconcious mind; secrets, dark emotions to confront (Luke's battle with the Vader-image under the tree). Water is also the Unconcious Mind. The Dive Beneath, to the scary dark place.

Sacrifices:

Opening of mind and heart to spiritual knowledge requires sacrifice from Hero. Cloud City: Han and Luke both reaffirm the meaning and importance of their lives by willingness to sacrifice themselves for the greater cause.

Hero deeds:

The princess rescue, the Death Star attack, lightsaber battles, firefights. The blowing up of the Death Star in film one is the beginning of the next stage: the Road of Trials.

The path to atonement:

Hero Journey sometimes includes a Fatherquest. After trials, the Hero finds the Father and becomes At-One with him. A spiritual symbol of oneness with God. Luke is following in his father's footsteps: pilot, Jedi...

...but Luke is ready to sacrifice himself rather than follow his father's path to evil. Luke falls (from the underside of Cloud City), is rescued (by sister: one with the same father), acknowledges Vader as Father, they move toward reconciliation, Vader moves toward his own transformation.

The hero's return:

End of the Road of Trials. Hero returns across the threshold to his society with the means to benefit it. In SW, each character has undergone their own Hero Journey. In LOTR, the Hobbits return to the Shire and cleanse and heal it. Aragorn takes on the Kingship. Legolas and Gimli rebuild Gondor. WALL-E and EVE bring people back to Earth and spark renewal. Po the Panda defeats the Villain as no one else can, and restores order to his world.

The shadow rises:

The forces of evil can also undergo change and rebirth, recoup power, gain new strength. Tolkien actually had a thought to write something after LOTR, in which this happens. If you start at the beginning of his world, the Silmarillion, and read through, you see the dark rising again and again: Morgoth the Vala is replaced by Sauron the Maia (a lesser evil), whose understudy was a wizard: Saruman. Presumeably by the time you get to the Age of Men, the Evil would have degenerated to mere human tyrants and dictators; reality.

The hero twins:

Luke and Leia are yin-yang, two sides of the same person, in a way. Anima and animé, or animus, or whatever. One of my favorite images in tales, is this Hero Twin thing: often two guys, opposites: Starsky and Hutch, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, Red and Blue in Hellboy, and last but definitely not least: Legolas and Gimli. By their contrast, they show us a complete picture. And they're usually very funny.

The enchanted forest:

The inhabitants can be helpful, dangerous, or both. The Hero must know the right magic to invoke the protective powers. Luke wins the help of the Ewoks (these faerie folk are small, have primitve tech, and a lush environment compared to the cold hard tech of the Empire). The Fellowship enters Lothlorien, but not easily and with great welcome. Boromir shows the attitude of the mainstream culture: fear of the now unknown powers of the Elves, and distance from them.

The heart of darkness;

The Fortress of Evil. Destroying it. Tolkien has several, in varying stages of evil power: Moria, Cirith Ungol, Mordor, the Cracks of Doom. Mount Doom self-destructs at the end. Dark Crystal has one of the more unique Dark Tower images: the castle which peels off its layer of darkness as the skeksis are reunited with the uru and become, again, whole urskeks. The castle casts off its dark skin and glows once more with light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Changing Tack

8/12/2009

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2009.05.27
I wrote this in May, after a long-awaited voyage got blown out, and half a dozen of us had to figure out what we were going to do with a Saturday off. Sometimes, you change course, and strange things happen... 

I like tall ships for the same reasons I like sled dogs and wild horses; they are inextricably tied to the rhythms of the natural world.

Round eared dogs, like Golden Retrievers, will wait at your feet with great eager brown eyes, "give me a command, come on, what do you want me to do?" Northern dogs will take a message and get back to you. Maybe.

If you point the nose of a normal domestic horse in any direction, he goes there without complaint. Wild horses must be whispered to, connected with. And they'll tell you when they think your human knowledge is too narrow and limited.

Most of our technology is 'push a button and go there'. Hop in the car, turn a key and point its nose north.

Tall ships are more like living things; they creak and groan, moving according to the shape of the water under them, spreading thousands of square feet of wings on the wind. And if the wind is blowing the wrong way, or not at all, you wait. If you run aground, you wait for high tide. If it's already high tide, you wait for a spring tide. The wind shapes the evolution of their wings, the way it does the wings of birds. Water shapes their hulls, the way it shapes fish or dolphin or whale. Their very nature is to migrate, to follow the wind. They take us out of our clock time world and into another one, a world of the rhythms of sun and tide and the clouds taking shape on the far edge of the world.

Last year, about this time, (May 10) two friends and I spent a day crossing the Chesapeake Bay in style: 18th century style. Rain, sog and ripping good wind, the 1768 Schooner Sultana balooshing through the waves like a sturdy Shetland pony on a rocky trail, sailing from Annapolis to St. Michael’s.

We decided to recreate the adventure this year, on the run from Annapolis to Chestertown.

With a few more crew. I rounded up Connie (a cousin) who had sailed last year, another cousin, Josh, one of the Longship Company guys (a captain on longship Sae Hrafn), my buddy Rainey, paddling buddy Sandy. I juggled packing lists, a campsite, who was driving what where (no return transport is provided, except the cars you shuttle yourself). I have a certain amount of trip anxiety, I guess, fretting over what goes in which pack and did I get enough stuff at Giant and is the food box too full or not enough and do I really need two bags of marshmallows, and where did I put the tie-down straps for stuff like packs and bedrolls (I swear they were in the kayak gear box), and will the van break down and what do we do if it does (AAA is my friend).

The week before the trip sucked. Insanity at work (stress and coupons, I hate you Corporate Subway Boys in the Ivory Tower). A horse that suddenly founders, with us floundering to find a new vet because the other one has apparently developed a case of insanity or overwhelming ego.

Then the well-trained sled dogs, who always wait when I open the gate, give me a heart attack. Legolas blows past me out the gate, runs to the kennel to inspect the food bucket, which is out of his reach, blows on by, runs around the back forty, finds a dessicated dead thing, blasts into the front yard and toward the Davidsburd Deathway (I grew up with a large population of flat cats). Screaming "target, target" (his signal to come and press his nose to my hand for a bikkie) I struggle after him. I can’t run (knees, arthritic feet, winter flab). Gasping I get to the front yard to see him trotting off with the big dead thing in his mouth. "TARGET!" I shriek, waving the food bowl. Somehow he decides the familiar (boring) shiny metal thing is more interesting than properly aged rabbit corpse. I grab him, stuff his nose in the food dish, and haul him back to the kennel.

The horse also survives, so far, with an admonition from the vet that she’s too bloody fat (I knew that, you wire her teeth shut or something).

I’m totally stressed and need a vacation.

And the weather sucks.

The weather report continues to suck. I find my Frogg Toggs, they worked fine last year in the drizzle. And the sun eventually came out.

Friday, May 15, Drew McMullen from Sultana Projects calls and says the weather is looking very iffy: 70/30 in favor of not going. The problem is not only random thunderstorms, or potential rain (the Bay is known for its sudden and fierce squalls), but the north wind blowing from the direction we are going to.

We are used to clock time. To pushing a button and getting light, heat, ground coffee. To jumping in a car and turning a key, pointing our bow north and going there.

Sultana hails from a time when your world was sixty feet of deck. And the whole limitless horizon. When you studied the clouds and knew their language. When where the wind was coming from was important. Sultana runs on the rhythms of wind and tide and weather. She has a backup engine, a fairly strong one, but her hull is designed to sail, her bluff bow designed to ride the waves, and her canvas wings designed to catch the wind from abaft the beam.

If you point her nose into the wind and turn on her alien engine, she bucks and snorts like a recalcitrant pony, or just stands there.

The last time they tried to sail in those conditions, the guest crew were cowering on the quarterdeck, three of them barfing the whole way across the Bay.

Saturday morning, Drew calls to tell us we’ve been blown out. The crew will likely wait till Monday to sail the ship north to Chestertown.

Damn.

Sultana’s crew is professional, experienced. They know sailing, the Bay, their ship, what to expect from certain weather patterns. I know, from years messing with the Longship Company, with kayaks, horses camping and sled dogs, that there are parts of the world that yet run on the rhythms of wind and tide and weather. Things that don’t work because you push a button.

There are two more sails in September and October.

I’m still disappointed.

Now what? I’ve pried two days off, on a weekend, and I want to do something other than sit at home. I call everybody, we look like those vultures in the old Disney "Jungle Book" film: "so...whadday wanna do? I dunno, whadda YOU wanna do? I dunno..."

Connie bails till Sunday. Fred is in Bowie and probably goes to the longship work session. I can’t raise him on the cell. I get Josh and Sandy and Rainey. Josh shows early (9:30) and pokes around on his Blackberry.

Wait, there’s a tall ship in Wilmington I’d like to sail on, "Try the Kalmar Nyckel site." I suggest.

Kalmar sails between 10 and 3, and it’s already nearly noon. We’d never get there in time.

Plan C.

Baltimore. Close, and we can still get in a few hours at the aquarium.

We load up in Josh’s car and head down 83. Josh navigates Baltimore more easuily than York. Thank the gods of travel; I loathe interstates, I detest going over 55, I really really hate 695, the insanity loop around Baltimore. We’ve pared our Sultana daypacks down to simpler packs for a shorter mission. I’ve got granola bars, V8, Frogg Toggs, water bottles, two cameras and a shipload of batteries. I pause in the parking garage, reading the manual on my new camera, to figure out how to tell it that it has now devoured lithium batteries not alkaline.

We walk toward the aquarium.

Masts loom on the waterfront; the Constellation, most of it the original ship from before the Civil War (1854). In between her three stately masts rise two other masts, raked hard, as if she is going warp eleven.

Pride’s here!

The Pride of Baltimore II is the first tall ship I fell in love with. A few years ago, on the heels of the first Pirates movie, some friends and I went to Inner Harbor for a tall ship festival. We rounded the corner in the water taxi and there she was, cutlass blade hull hugging the water and those warp eleven masts. She's a "schooner, pilot boat-built" as they said in the old days. Now they call them Baltimore Clippers; the jet fighters of 1812. Fliers and sea-wolves with government issued letters of marque and reprisal; they ran blockades (fliers), like Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon, or took enemy ships as "prizes".

I sailed on Pride II a few times since; on the Chester River at Downrigging weekend, on a two day guest crew passage from Baltimore to Chestertown. I walked on her decks every time I saw her open for tourists. Sent pictures to the Pride office (one appears on their Privateer Society brochure). She is, with Sultana and Kalmar and Sae Hrafn, one of my favorite ships.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of checking her site that Saturday morning. I guess I assumed she was busy. Or on her way to ports more exotic. Out of reach. I forgot that she too, does simpler things like two hour tours and groups of school kids.

"Hey, let’s go over and take a look." I drag the other three after me, past Constellation’s looming stern.

There’s life aboard, a crew. And a gangway to the waterfront walkway. Tourists are wandering aboard, eyeing the new varnish and the antique technology that was the cutting edge of its time.

"Let’s go aboard." I wander up, camera in hand, as full of wonder as when I first saw her. Form follows function, and her form is beautiful. "Like a fine Arabian steed", one British observer in the War of 1812 years wrote. "Like a wild black mare galloping through the woods at night," observed several sailors of the first Pride. Even sitting still, her canvas wings folded she is full of rich details: the perfectly straight lines of standing rigging, the sweeping curves of running rigging, the sculpture formed by carefully belayed and coiled line, the textures of varnished cabin trunks and rails, of weathered deck, of layered mast hoops and sail edges like the feathers of a giant bird.

She’s leaving tomorrow on her summer tour which will take her to the Caribbean, up the coast to the Canadian Maritimes, Baltimore’s icon doesn’t stay in Baltimore much of the year.

They’re doing a public sail at 3. One last public sail till fall.

It doesn’t take much convincing to ditch the aquarium in favor of a sail on Pride.

Her mighty engines (bright yellow, about the size of refrigerators, and one, in 2007, was guarded by a foot tall pink plastic Jesus) fire up. Over the side I can see the murky harbor water churn under Pride's screws. We chug backwards, through the green and purple dragon boats peddalled by tourists, past the docked sailboats.

Then Pride begins to spread her wings. The foresail, fore-staysail, and the square topsail. There are too many people on deck (though the original Baltimore Clippers had crews of more than a hundred), and the space between Fort McHenry and the Francis Scott Key Bridge is too small for her 10,000 square feet of full canvas. We tack back and forth, often with the wind nearly in front of us (on a tack, you change course across the eye of the wind, so it is in front of us as we change course). I try to watch the frantic coordinated dance of lines loosed and belayed somewhere else, of the vast wing of the foresail (which reaches past the mainmast) slipped past lines and mainmast, of half a dozen hearty sailors (including several strong young women) hauling on a line to crank the topsail around to catch the wind.

I shoot hundreds of pictures, and remember why horsemen and sailors have calluses.

We pass Fort McHenry, and one of the four remaining screwpile lighthouses in the Bay (Seven Foot Knoll, a round red one at Inner Harbor). The Lasy Maryland, the only pungy schooner reproduction, is docked at the foot of the lighthouse.

Pride flies on the wind, demanding effort and attention to detail from the crew handling her lines. Finally she fold her wings and drifts back past Seven Foot Knoll, the dragon boats, the aquarium. We hold cannon fire until we’re past the aquarium, then let loose with a shout that echoes off the skyscrapers.

Pride is here, carrying the memories of her ancestors.

The wind changes. The carefully coordinated adventure takes a left turn. The spontaneous action produces a startling result, and a new, unexpected adventure.

I always thought someone should do a movie about the privateers. A woman aboard is writing a screenplay about privateers in her family. I have her card. She has some good books to recommend on privateers. Maybe there’s a story in here for me as well.
We pass a street performer, Unicycle Lady (she has a website under that name). She’s in slightly cheesy pirate garb, doing a wonderful performance, part of which is done to the old Styx song, "Come Sail Away", one of my favorite songs of all time (I sang along with a live performance of it once, ten feet from the lead guitarist, Tommy Shaw). Unicycle Lady reminds me of the Motley Folk, the travelling entertainers, in the Inkheart trilogy, which I just read, nay, devoured. An excellent example of YA fantasy, an example to emulate.

Privateers, firedancers, fliers and sea wolves. There’s a story to be told. Many of them. And sometimes, you have to take a different tack to find them.

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Storms and Shipwrecks

8/9/2009

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“To the sea, to the sea, the white gulls are crying
the wind is blowing, the white foam is flying...”

That's from my favorite song in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (Legolas' Song of the Sea, in which he  contracts a bad case of Sea Longing and waxes eloquent about sailing west to the land of his people). That's what paddling is about. What sailing is about. What walking along the shore is about. That feeling in that song, that ache for the feel of the waves and the cry of the gulls..

“west, west away! The round sun is falling,
grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling?”

Friday night, at work, I heard Credence Clearwater Revival's “Proud Mary” on the radio...
“Left a good job in the city,
Working for The Man every night and day,
And I never lost one minute of sleeping,
Worrying 'bout the way things might have been....
rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river...”

I had a rare two days, on a weekend, off in a row. I had planned to do a Longship Company voyage. Longship Sae Hrafn isn't quite docked on a fjord; it sits in a marina, on a creek, off the Patuxent River, off the Chesapeake Bay. It's a long row to the sea. Still, it's big enough water to assuage a bit of the Sea Longing.

I'd decided I didn't have enough funds to make the longship trip, much as I wanted to, and lacking funds to fill the Mighty Van Fearaf's dual fuel tanks, I opted for closer waters. I prefer big water, the open reaches of the Bay, Assateague Island, even chasing the longship around in my kayak is preferable to dodging rocks in a local creek. Saturday night, I had shown a kid the wonders of Pinchot Lake (and she had shown me a few critters I'd never paid attention to before). Sunday I wrote, I fed dogs, I helped a friend with a story. Late afternoon I freed myself and answered the call of the sea. Or, at least, the mighty river flowing to it.The Susquehanna River was designed for canoes and kayaks (or they were designed for it). It's shallow, rocky, unavigable by larger craft. Last century, a canal ran from Wrightsville to the top of the Bay at Havre deGrace. This century dams turn parts of the river into recreational lakes full of jet-skis, small sailboats, fishermen, and those floating party platforms called pontoon boats.

I called a few friends, but the spare boat, Finrod, remained lashed to the top of the van when I drove down to the river.

Just as well.
“Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.”

I drove down to Long Level, popped into Shank's Mare, looking for a dry box that would actually fit my new camera. No dry boxes big enough, so I ended up with a deck bag. Between that and the food storage box (kind of a high tech ziplock) the camera should be safe, unless I wrecked or sank the 'yak.

I shoved out into warm water, a silver haze to the north, a WSW wind blowing off the western shore, but not very hard. Not hard enough to raise enough waves to warrant wearing a spray skirt. Not hard enough to put the rudder down (Makenuk's Fin has a flat bottom and weathercocks, broadside into the wind). I had nearly shoved the boat off the stony beach when I turned around and got the sprayskirt out of the van and stuffed it behind Makenuk's seat. I thought about the compass that I had left in the gear box, but didn't bother going back for it. I had already left an iconic bit of gear behind, at home; the Maori hook a kayaker buddy had given me. "Good luck for kayakers" or "protection while traveling over water" they will tell you. The Maoris are the native people of New Zealand (a favorite place for me, which, in film at least, has been Middle Earth, Narnia, and the setting for Whale Rider), part of the group of tribes called Polynesians, some of the world's best sailors and oceanic explorers. The hook (a small carving made of greenstone) symbolizes their connection with the sea. Mine has been to the bottom of the sea with me (on dives) and on many kayaking expeditions. It would have quite a story to tell.  

I think the river's about a mile across here, in the depths of Lake Clarke. On both sides are wooded hills, creeks trickling down over rocky beds. The far side has a stretch of treed islands and a long sandbar called Conejehola Flats. There you can spot waterfowl, eagles come to eat their fish, gulls hang out in the shallows, boaters pull up and wade, dogs and all. In the winter, it becomes a snow goose resort, the far shore white with thousands of birds.


“Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.....”

I paddled across over boat wakes, fresh rough ones as the boats passed, and the smoother echoes of wakes falling back into the rhythm of the river. Two boats hove into view, coming north; after pausing and waving them by in front of me, I saw the lead boat was a Coast Guard boat towing the second on a long line. Out of gas, or engine failure. “Hey!” I shouted cheerfully, waving my paddle, “get a paddle!”

“They don't make one big enough!”

I laughed. Kayaks never run out of gas. Unless I do. And I have a nice collection of granola bars in my gear.

“But I never saw the good side of the city,
Until I hitched a ride on a river boat queen. Rollin', rollin....”

I paddled across, rudder up, making slight corrections as Makenuk's Fin seemed to have a mind of its own about the current and slight hint of moving air. Gulls floated in the shallows near the islands, I pulled out a camera and shot gulls floating, gulls taking off, gulls in flight, blur gulls, gulls-who-flew-out-of-the-shot gulls, gulls not in focus at all because the camera had gone into Stupid Mode...

“If you come down to the river,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.”

A boat floated in the shallows. I knew it was shallow, that I had found the flats, because my paddle made a sudden and disconcerting noise as it hit bottom. I pulled up, got out and sank into the cool water. Which involved lying flat in two feet of water, trying not to let the boat drift off, because I'd forgotten the anchor. The boat dog swam in my direction; a cheerful black lab shape panting through the water until her owners called her back.

North the haze seemed to have gotten darker. I had checked the newspaper weather report, sunny, hot, humid, sticky, sunny, Augustish. No mention of afternoon showers or thunderstorms, not even a shadow of them.

The shadow in the north was darkening. Something rumbled there. My river sense is not as honed as the people who fish it, duck hunt it, or have summer cabins on the islands. The people who live on their pontoon boats in summer, who decorate their piece of riverfront property with tacky tiki torches and fake Polynesian huts. And lighthouses and mermaids and pelicans (the one bird that doesn't come to the river).

To paraphrase Spiderman; my river sense is tingling...

The sky had definitely grown a darker shade of silver, and I was hearing rumblings that weren't at all like the fireworks that had startled us on the lake the night before.

I glanced at the boat nearby, full of boys and dog and fishing poles. They weren't revving their engine and fleeing. I glanced north.

Rumble rumble rumble.

I turned and fled. I passed the fishing boat with the dog and called out something like, “hey, you hear that thunder?” I don't know if I was seeking a second opinion, or warning them that they should get off the river before all hell broke loose. I had been caught out a couple of times in storms; once, paddling through the Rock Garden in driving rain (thankfully no lightning, yet), and once, with a handful of other paddlers, cowered under a high bank and overhanging trees as a brief storm passed through Wrightsville. Once, on Chincoteague Bay, I watched as a huge thunderhead sailed up from Arkansas or Kansas or some other western place that spawns storms that require heroines to find Tin Men and ruby slippers to get back home. There was no place to go there; only salt marsh in all directions. Flat, muddy, wet salt marsh. Fortunately, a bit earlier, I had passed something that looked, disconcertingly like Polynesian huts in the middle of Chincoteague Bay. (What IS it with the thatched huts?). Peering through the modern spyglass of binoculars had revealed the duck blind to end all duck blinds; telephone pole sized pilings sunk into the bay floor, and a veritable palace built on top of it. I fled back to the Duck Blind of the Polynesian King, pulled my boat into the boat parking garage under it, climbed the ladder and watched through the custom plexiglass window as the storm swashed across the bay.

There are duck blinds on the Susquehanna, though not so elaborate. There just weren't any between me and either shore. I eyed the north, I eyed the distant blit that was Shank's Mare's parking lot (where Fearaf waited) on the far side of the world.

I paddled.

Hard. I slammed down the rudder and paddled, one eye checking the ever darkening north. I watched boats with engines speed by, headed upriver to marinas, or to more sheltered spots. I began to wish kayaks came with a backup engine, like the tall ships I know. I really began to wish I'd brought the compass. If the visibility went to zero, and I was struggling across a wind and rain lashed river, the only way to know what direction you are going is that compass. Going the wrong way might take you upriver, or back to the islands, or over the dam to the south. On big water you could end up five miles offshore. And the sprayskirt, I should have put that on before I started across the river; caught in a gale, the cockpit would soon be awash without the skirt, and a boat with only a few inches of water in it is ridiculously unstable.

Rumble, rumble rumble.

I inched my way across an endless river. One hand went numb, then the other. I thought about pausing to shake it out. I paddled. Then paused, shook the offending hand, paddled on.

Shank's Mare got larger, I could see the parking lot, the van, Finrod on top, a bright yellow lighthouse beacon. I heaved up onto a stony beach between rocks. A guy was folding an inflatable raft right where I needed to beach. I paused, suppressed any antisocial thoughts. He packed up his boat and I pulled in. I heaved the 'yak, heavy with gear for an extended paddle, over the stones and up the bank onto the grass.

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE. Flash. Zotz!

I fled into the van, just as a guy on a jet ski pulled up. He bailed out, left the 'ski floating in a foot of water, tossed out a mushroom anchor on a string. Fled to the van nearby where a female significant other was waiting.

All hell broke loose. Wind roared down the river, bringing with it a wall of dark silver rain. Of air and water so intertwined you couldn't tell where one finished and the other began. The wild water horses tossed their manes, ran rampant and crashed on the stony beach. Makenuk's Fin sat safe on the grassy bank by the van. The little yellow jet ski tossed in the breaking waves. Beyond the 'ski, I could see a half dozen small boats still on the water, riding it out.

I'd had my longship trip short circuited, and the earlier one had been blown out by a storm. The Schooner Sultana voyage in May had been blown out. This was not my year for sunny voyages.

Grrrrrr. I was stuck in a stifling hot van with the windows closed and steaming up. What else was there to do but put the camera on the tripod and take some shots through the rain-splotted window, wiping the fog off with a towel. I watched the boats maneuvering for a safe position, the jet ski bobbing in the waves, the whitecaps on the river, the storm turning the air to a pewter maelstrom.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Jet-ski Guy ran out and tried to heave his boat farther up the beach.

I don't much like jet skis. I think they're a noisy, fossil fuel sucking affront to Nature and the Peace and Quiet I want when I paddle out here. They stir up silt and choke living things and all guys seem to do is scream around in mindless circles.

And I really really hate lightning. My mom's mom used to get all eight kids out of bed and make them sit up in the living room, during storms, just in case the house blew away or caught fire or something. I'm not much happier about large amounts of wild electricity anywhere near me.

“If you come down to the river,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.
You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give.”

We're all sailors here, even if it's only the river, and our boats don't have sails. I ran out and grabbed hold of something and heaved. Slowly we inched it up the beach onto ground covered by less water. Then we fled to our respective vans.

It blew over. Flashing lights of Lake Clarke River Rescue went down the road behind us, then more flashing lights. They converged a few hundred yards downriver. I helped Jet-ski Guy heave his boat back into the water (“Be careful, don't hurt yourself.”), neither of us found the mushroom anchor; the anchor line had broken. He headed for his marina upriver. I shoved Makenuk's Fin back in the water, and ran into a guy fishing out of an Old Town recreational kayak; a short, tanklike kayak with a cockpit large enough to comfortably fish out of, and large enough to swallow half the sea. He'd holed up under a bridge downriver. The flashing lights, he said, were for a small boat that had capsized with six people aboard. Apparently they had flotation, PFDs and floating seat cushions, so hopefully they were ok. The boat had to be rescued with a barge with a crane.

I thought about what I'd have done if I'd had someone in the spare boat. Rainey could have powered Finrod across the river nearly as fast as my boat. Any other adults I would have invited would have been struggling. I had a tow line, which would speed them up, and me down. I could get in Finrod's other seat and two of us could paddle while we towed Makenuk's Fin. Or we could have left the Fin tied on one of the islands. Or we might have cowered under the trees on the islands. Caught in the middle of the river with a newbie in the spare boat would have been hairy. A compass in the spare boat would be good.

I paddled down a serene river, the storm vanishing into the deep blue south, occasional flashes of lightning still visible. A rainbow faded in, like a ghostly vision, then faded out. The sun turned the water to gold. I found the bridge Fish Guy had sheltered under, and the creek that flowed under it. I paddled up a clear, cold rocky creek till I ran out of water. I took pictures of the riffles where the navigable creek ended; the water made music, steam rose above the dark wooded hills like a tropical rainforest, leftover rain dripped off the trees, a big silver carp with golden fins flashed away from my paddle.


I turned and paddled upstream in the growing twilight. Pulled out near a couple sitting on the rocks by the river, watching the sunset paint the water different colors. We talked about kayaking;

“I can't swim.”

“Wear a PFD. Rent a sit-on at Shank's Mare, it's really great. Stay near shore." Know what direction the wind is blowing. Know where you can seek sanctuary. Read the weather reports, but be prepared.

Look for eagles, for three kinds of gulls, even if you can't catch them in focus. For green herons, night herons, blue herons, great egrets. For kingfishers making their ratchetbird call. For swallows swooping after bugs. For mayflies and dragonflies emerging from their childhood underwater. For cormorants with their beaks tiltes skyward. For the ever-changing light.

And don't forget your compass.


“Big wheel keep on turning,
Proud Mary keep on burning,
Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.”
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Beer, Bikers and Vikings

8/8/2009

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Sometime ago, a noted paper in the southern Maryland area did an article on the Longship Company which made us sound a bit, well, less than serious about history and archaeological sailing (by aquiring blisters, snapping oars and varous rigging, and occasionally sinking, we aim to rediscover how the Vikings actually did it).

They should have been on this one.

End of July, it's hot, muggy, and threatening thunderstorms. I drove down myself in the Mighty Van Fearaf, sucking enough fossil fuels to fuel a small country. I braved the horrors of 695 ( I loathe 695, I detest urban areas, Fearaf refuses to do more than 55 and Marylanders near urban areas refuse to do less than 90). The Longship Company assembles at the crack of noon (it's Sunday, some Vikings actually have to appear in church). We have nine crew (it worked for Frodo); Captain Atli Who Started It All (tall, lean, brilliant, plays with superheated iron), Captain Leonard The Silent (looks, perhaps, a bit like Captain Jack, minus the dreads; and is far more on an even keel), Son of Bork the Mighty (who causes the ship to list mightily), Son of Atli, two Friends of Son of Atli: a Brawny Biker Guy (replete with tatoos and helmet bumper stickers best not repeated in PG company), and The Dashing Young Man in the Captain Jack Headscarf. With Son of Bork are a slender, intellectual Vegetarian Anarchist and a cheerful, adventurous Hobbit Girl.

And me. I once spent six days on the other Viking ship, (Fyrdraca) on the Potomac, running out of water, being buzzed by jet fighters (Quantico was practicing blowing things up at the time), and freaking the tourists as our black, dragon-prowed ship materialized out of black night backed by lightning and green bioluminescence. I spent a lot of time in living history knocking guys upside the head with broadswords, which may explain why I'm still single. You could not have cast a movie better if you'd tried. I don't even think Gilligan's Island had such a motely crew. Or is that motley?

We set out (the Three Who Came On Bikes had commandeered a great deal of beer, which they were willing to share. Wisely, the captain limited the amount consumed.) We filled two-litre soda bottles with water from the marina's spigot (avoiding the bird poo) and stuffed them into Bork Bags arrayed upon the gunnels. We stowed gear under thwarts, stashed a sufficient number of life vests and floaty cushions (all stamped with the warning: "do not wear on back"... yes this would cause you to float face down when you fall overboard, unconcious). We set forth, under oars (we spend a lot of time under oars, which explains why I can row better than I can sail), headed for the Patuxent. We toiled south against wind and current, inched past Molly's Leg (no longer leg-shaped, due to Global Climate Change and the nature of the sandy Chesapeake, which is to erode). The idea was to crawl out into the Patuxent, raise the sail and blow magnificently back downwind into the marina. We have discovered that Viking ships do not sail close to the wind; they like the wind abaft the beam. In other words, on our butts.

Hard-a-starboard a great black cloud of doom loomed over the bar. As all good sailors do, we pay great attention to things looming on the far horizon; they usually arrive on top of us much faster, and much fiercer than we expect.

"Is that lightning?"

Indeed it was. On captain's orders, we heaved the boat around. Heaving a forty foot Viking longship around is much different from spinning the wheel and revving the engine of a yacht. We have, occasionally, turned around on the thwarts (rowing benches) and rowed backwards, the other pointy end going forward. Coming about involves things like...

"Port side, hold water!"
"Starboard side, give way!"
"Port side, backwater!"
"Starboard side, frontwater!"
"Port side, stop looking like an epileptic centipede!" (ok, I know that's not PC)
"Starboard side, do something else, do it really fast..."

I took a few minutes. We finally got the other other pointy end pointed at land. The nearest land was not our dock, a good twenty minute row up the creek, with or without paddles. And since we had a large lightning rod in the middle of the boat, it seemed like a good idea to head for something closer than our slip. We aimed for the nearest public place with a dock, the bar. They're used to us, to having a wooden Viking ship tied up alongside the shining white day sailers and fishing boats. We straggled in, heaving gear bags, an armful of charts, PFDs, and one Viking axe. Biker Guy stood at the bar wielding the axe. It didn't help us get faster service.

There was a shift change coming up, and rain pouring down. We were eventually shuttled upstairs where we watched our giant canoe fill up with water and ordered lots more beer and stuff. The Vegetarian managed to aquire two hefty plates of actual vegetables (smashed potatoes sort of count) while the rest of us ate crab soup and burgers. I (Flexitarian that I am) tried to find something resembling a vegetable too, and was nearly successful. Atli maintains that Omnivores have the best chance of success and survival in any new environment, because they can eat anything. A discussion began about how bacon counted as a vegetable. Other discussions of an intellectual nature ensued. Probably not much like the actual discussions Vikings would have had. I burned some memory card trying to shoot the soggy ship past a nifty tattered flag blowing from the deck of the bar, and watching it fill up with water.

After a couple of hours, the clouds lightened enough for us to make a run for it. We bailed the boat and manned the oars. I manned the tiller, and upon Captain Atli's request, tried to remember the commands to get us away from the dock without running over any other boats, or leaving our figurehead on someone's trawler. We passed a boat tied up at the dock, a nice sort of boat, one you could wander from port to port in; across its stern was the name Millennium Falcon.  Having had a beat up Ford Falcon of that name once, I was amused, though this boat was far shinier and newer than Han Solo's ship, and probably couldn't make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

Confronted with the maze that is the marina and the channel (filled with people driving things with engines) I repeated the ancient bit of sea wisdom: "red-right-returning" and succesfully steered Sae Hrafn in a straight line back to the dock, despite Brawny Biker Guy being on one side of the ship, and Veggie Guy (half his size) on the other.

It was successful voyage, nobody drowned. The sky remained calm. Thor had given up and gone home.
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Carp of the Living Dead

8/8/2009

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I've been reading a book (Carol Adrienne's "The Purpose of Your Life"), in which serendipity is discussed: those moments of wonderful "coincidence" which lead you farther along on the Journey.

I had two, rare, days in a row off. I shopped for dog biscuits, a portable hard drive (the desktop is making weird noises: I envision its guts imploding like a second Big Bang). I think about throwing a boat into the water. I think about a kid who wanted to go out on an adventure. I call.

"Hey, we were just thinking about you, in fact, Danielle mentioned that we should call you..."

 I heaved the spare boat out of the backyard and onto the roof of the mighty van Fearaf ("Wolf Spirit" in one of the Elvish languages of J.R.R. Tolkien). I heaved Finrod's (the spare boat: it's a blond and user friendly) gear boxes out of the basement where I had stowed them that morning (after sitting on the porch for a week). I got lost six times before I found Danielle's house (really really getting one of those dashboard GPS thingies).

She climbed in armed with a swimsuit (contrary to Inuit belief, kayaking is not a dry sport), a Tinkerbell fleece (works when wet), and shoes that weren't flip-flops. We set forth, took two wrong turns and finally found Pinchot Lake.

We launched into a grey lake, pockmarked with drizzle. In the opinion of the fishermen launching bass boats and jon boats, it would remain drizzle, not a thunderstorm or a mighty downpour. We set off up Beaver Creek in deepening twilight. No beavers appeared (they're crepuscular, so it was their time), perhaps the random splashing and zigzag course Danielle was setting scared them off. I'd put her in Makenuk's Fin, a seventeen and a half foot blue plastic Perception Sea Lion; a long, narrow sea kayak with a flat bottom and a rudder, sleek, efficient, fast. It turns like a tank. Finrod is a Mainstream Tango; a bright yellow sit-on-top, a bluff bowed beamy raft Huck Finn would have been proud of. You can load in kids, dogs, and dance on the gunnels. 

 Finrod vs Turtle; turtle wins.

Danielle glided alongside, then slightly ahead, then slightly behind, then into my side, bounced off, slid the other way, lurched, splashed...

She was doing pretty good for her first time in a real kayak. We threaded our way up Beaver Creek, searching for wood ducks, owls, beavers, deer coming down to the water. The geese and wood ducks would no longer be guarding nests. Wood duck nest boxes stood empty. Turtle rocks were devoid of turtles. "Where did they go?" She asked. I don't know where turtles go at night.

A kingfisher flashed out of the trees and fluttered down the bank, a flash of sky blue. The owls were silent. Often you can hear the barred owls calling from these woods: "whooo! Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you aaaaalllllll!" With my other headlamp in red LED mode, the eyes of fishing spiders glow like red gems from the banks, where they skate on the water's surface. Now I catch a few glimpses of faint green glows, like faerie fire.

We straggle back out of the Eurasian milfoil. Danielle has noted a sign at our put-in which shows a few spots along the lakeshore where we should "not fish or boat". A weevil has been introduced there to eat the invasive milfoil. We dutifully paddle around the spot in the dark, under the bridge, where we howl like wolves, the echoes bouncing off the concrete. Geese fly over, sounding like distant hounds. 

Out on the lake a big bird lifts off of the water, trailing long legs.

"Look, a heron." Danielle says.

I watch it lift, circle. It seems pale for a Great Blue Heron. It tilts and a wing reflects sky. A white wing. "Wow, that's a Great Egret!" I say. Not as common as the blues. I've forgotten my glasses, so the white flash of egret becomes a blur and vanishes. I think I see two, standing along the shoreline, flashes of white in the growing dark.

"Those are posts."

We drift down the night lake, Danielle discovering the zen of kayaking, and that it's much harder to paddle in a straight line than it looks. A flash of sparkly red appears over the treeline; fireworks (I learn later that the local stadium is having a celebration). We nearly trip over a Great Blue Heron, fishing on a rock. He and the rock are grey against grey, only Danielle's dive light illuminates him at the last minute. He lifts off with a startled graaaack!

We drift past the campground, and it smells like summer and hot dogs and marshmallows. Mysterious light glint through the trees; fires? Lanterns? Cars? Martians?

We poke along the edges of the lake. Bats perform an air show around us and we turn on our lights which attracts even more bugs for them. We find more fishing spiders. At least one becomes an unwelcome guest in Danielle's boat. I expound on the virtues of bats and spiders (they eat bugs). We pass along the wooded shore and another bird flies out. Danielle sees this one, I only hear the distinctive craack! of a Green Heron, higher pitched than the Great Blue's.

The water is perfectly still, our boats' bows wrinkle it in perfect V-shapes. The treelines are darkest black, the water pewter to match the sky. A flash lights the sky to the south.

"Is that lightning?"

"I think so."

"Maybe it's only more fireworks." I ponder the sky for a minute, then turn around. We drift back, in no hurry, but with one eye on the sky, and a couple of ears too. Past the campground smokefires, Danielle wobbling into me as she tries to navigate in the dark. She turns on the Mighty Ikelite Mini C dive light (a mini spotlight with an intense beam) and stabs the shrubbery with it, then the underwater realm of the weedbeds below us. We wander back to the dock, lit by a single pole light in that pinkie-orange sodium vapor color. We pull the boats up on the boat ramp, Danielle bails out and notices things under her feet. She shines the dive light into the few inches of water that still floats half the kayaks.

I come over and shine my tiny headlamp into the water beside her. There are crayfish, scuttling away. The flash of tiny minnows. The darker wriggle of something decidedly creepy.

"Baby catfish." She says with authority. I watch and find another wriggler. It pauses; sure enough, I can see the bright small eyes, the whiskers. She makes several attempts and finally catches one in her hand; it's golden, not like the very tiny catfish in the baby ball at the diving quarry, guarded by two parents. This is golden with dark edged fins and those miniature whiskers. She releases it and it wriggles away, bonelessly, totally unlike a normal minnow. We poke farther along the shore; find tiny water bugs, and bugs that don't belong in the water; walking sticks. We pull a bunch out of the lake, scooping them up on our hands, depositing them back on the grass. At least a few of them weren't even on the surface, they were swimming underwater!

Crayfish, large and small and smaller abound. More tiny catfish, minnows, snails. No frogs, I can never find frogs. I head downbeach, peer with my light into the grassier edges. A big grey shape comes into sight, lurking in a few inches of water, a branch behind it, its nose pointed toward shore. A footlong fish, motionless.

"It looks dead." I say.

"It's sleeping." Danielle asserts. She goes fishing with her aunt a lot. My experience with fish is from the other side of a dive mask.

"Dead." I'm really sure. "You can't see the eyes."

"They're closed."

"I don't think they can close their eyes." I say uncertainly.

"Sleeping." Danielle says, "poke it."

At this point the ick factor creeps in. Dead fish, bleargh. I pick up a twig, twiddle the water experimentally in front of the fish.

"See..." The fish explodes upward, outward and is gone.

"Told ya'"

We pack up the boats, her aunt shows up, wondering if we've drowned or something. No, you know how these things go. In a kayak, there is no cell phone. No Gameboy. No time. Just the zen of being in the moment, of taking notice of the flash of white of an egret's wing, of the voices of geese overhead, of what's in the drain holes under the bridge (spiders, and something that looks like bird nests), and of walking sticks who swim and carp who play dead.

Postscript: the "walking sticks who swim" turn out to be water scorpions, harmless water bugs (no relation to actual scorpions) whose pointy rear end (actually a breathing snorkel) suggests the desert bug.
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    about: Teanna

    This is the first blog I perpetrated, then I found tumblr and facebook and twitter and wordpress. So, if you want to "follow" my derailed train of thought, check my wordpress blog: https://swordwhale.wordpress.com/

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