Blog Detour

We created and named this blog 2 ½ years ago (is that all?!) when we lived in a house in a borough of Seattle with day jobs, a truck, and three seemingly insurmountable goals. In our “free” time, when we weren’t racing, we were inspecting sailboats, engulfed in an eternal search for our first boat- our first home. I meant to wait until we owned a boat to create the blog, but I got impatient. We wanted a name that was vague enough to encompass whatever was to come, but one that held us to our dream of a sailboat. Something clever, easy to remember, and still available.

How did we do? As I look back over the last year of blog posts, a sad minority of them incorporate sailing. That is an accurate portrayal, though; as I look back over the last year of our lives, a sad minority of it includes sailing. But don’t misunderstand me, I am not complaining.

We surmounted our first and second “insurmountable” goals, along with a few we didn’t know we had. We did, finally, find the boat. And we bought her, moved aboard, adjusted to our new aquatic life, and timidly began drilling holes, painting shelves, replacing wires. Number one: check. Then, with a weeks’ notice, we untied the lines and headed north, freshly printed Canadian work visas in hand. Number two: check.

There, we taught ourselves how to replace alternators, dis- and re-assemble head (toilet) pumps, re-bed stanchions (poorly), wire batteries, and work with fiberglass.  All while living remotely, without the knowledgeable sailing community in Seattle on which we had so quickly come to depend. Simultaneously, we taught ourselves all we could about hydrophones, fuel cells, radio transmitters, and remote cameras. Those were the goals we didn’t know we had.

Our move to Ketchikan did little to improve our sailing percentage; in the last month we have slept only 3 nights on Halcyon, sneaking in a few hours of boat maintenance when possible. Two days ago, we closed her up and hopped on a ferry to BC. For the next month or so, we will be land- and air-based, driving and flying through British Columbia and Alberta. It is hard to leave Halcyon, completely unattended, between an anchor and a mooring ball, in a secluded bay outside Ketchikan. But as doors open, goals change.

That third one, though, that one hasn’t changed. Halcyon was built to cross oceans, and we’re getting her ready to do just that. We are putting away our pennies, searching for the best deals on wind vanes and life rafts, and day dreaming about a life at sea. There is, in my opinion, no better way to see the world. That’s when this blog will find its true identity, when we are just Strait Sailing. 

In the meantime, I will continue to share our upgrades and preparations, among the bear sightings and cultural experiences, if you’ll forgive the temporarily unsuitable blog name.

Better Quality Video

http://youtu.be/L4nS27_jXjM

Let's see if that works-- should be a slightly higher quality video of my black bear friend. 

Bear Creek

There’s a small creek on the other side of the river. It’s only a six minute canoe paddle from the cabin. Salmon use this creek to spawn (much like just about every creek in this area), and black bears use this creek to chase salmon, eat berries, romp, and wander.

I have spent the last four days sitting at this creek, documenting this activity. I’ve tried a variety of techniques to capture the perfect bear footage- close up video of them catching fish, crossing logs, and playing in the stream. One day consisted of 7 hours, hunched in a tuft of grass, swatting masses of mosquitoes, waiting and watching, and manually recording from afar. Another day included six roundtrips in the canoe, setting and leaving small video cameras, and returning to swap out batteries and memory cards every 2 hours. Some days saw 5 or 6 bears, active and feisty, others saw just one, wandering casually down the stream.

Sitting at this creek demands a remarkable disparity of emotions and responses. It is peaceful and chaotic, boring and exhilarating, tense and tranquil, frustrating and rewarding. One morning I crouched in a patch of thorny raspberry bushes for two hours with not even the sound of a far off branch break to indicate a bear. That afternoon it was 45 minutes before I could access the camera traps to replace batteries; a juvenile was practicing his fishing skills, pouncing and splashing in the stream in front of me, completely unaware of my presence.

I am on high alert from the moment I step out of the canoe until I am rowing away again. It is a heart-thumping experience to watch this elegant predator just 15 feet from you, and it can give you quite a start if you don’t notice the approach. Don’t faint, grandma, these bears are not looking for trouble. They are fat on salmon and leery of humans. This vigilance has roots more often in seeking great footage than in my personal safety. Their eyesight is poor, but if they catch my movement, in an instant they are running for cover. But more often I stay hidden from view and the bear goes about living with no knowledge of my existence, except to sniff, pick up, and play with one of the cameras, curious and intrigued by the appearance of such a strange item in his home.

One moment, particularly, will stay vivid in my memory. I was standing, knee deep in the frigid glacial runoff, partially concealed by a few outstretched branches of an overhanging tree, placing a camera for a beautiful wide angle view upstream. The waterproof housing latch was giving me trouble, and I allowed too much of my attention to consolidate on the problem. When I looked up again, there was a large female black bear on the opposite bank, less than 20 feet away, staring intently into the eddy below her. I froze, holding three dead camera batteries (oh how I wish I had a charged camera in hand!), as she deftly dropped both paws and her snout under water and pulled up a flailing fish. With her flapping feast held proudly in her jaws, she ambled under a large cedar tree to dine. A few bites in, she either heard me or simply decided she was too exposed and, again with her dinner clenched tight in her teeth, she expertly scaled the cedar and settled comfortably in the nook of a branch 40 feet in the air. I watch for a few more minutes, then snuck quietly around the bend and out of sight. While I sincerely wish I had a long lens camera with me and regret that I couldn’t film the great catch, one of the preset cameras did capture her proud jaunt and graceful climb. You can see her silhouette come into the frame on the left side. (sorry for the poor quality, blogspot will not let me upload the original HD video. I will try to post a better one in youtube and link to it later). 

When I’m not busy and/or bored at Bear Creek, I’m maintaining the plane’s camera rigs, dumping and organizing data, charging batteries, talking to the camera, filming salmon, and helping Trip, the primary videographer, set up shots. We are now wrapping up our west-of-the-mountains segment of the expedition, and will be heading east, onto the mainland, over the coastal mountain range, and into BC, for the next set.

Maintaining Routine Amid the Chaos

Before the racecar even pulls off the speedway, the pit crew is already poised- arranged precisely and equipped with exactly the right tools. While the pit stop looks chaotic to the viewer, every movement is closely calculated, practiced, perfected. Being able to efficiently complete the necessary maintenance and get the racecar back on the track is as crucial to success as the driver driving fast.

This is the image in my mind this morning, as the three of us stand on the dock, watching the plane taxi in from its morning flight. Trevor has the video camera rolling, John and I each hold a selection of wrenches and screwdrivers. We guide the plane to a stop, tie down the floats, and immediately begin expertly separating boxes from plane, cameras from boxes. Before Trip can collect his belongings and unfold himself from the backseat, we have the go pros down and turned off, the wing mount camera out of the box and back in its case, and the vertical DSLR box unmounted and inside.

When the pit crew propels the racecar down the runway and back onto the track, the tv cameras follow the vehicle- the star- as it continues its fight for gold. What the spectators never see is the unbroken routine the pit crew maintains off camera.

Back inside, we follow acute protocol on data organization and task distribution. Each camera is stripped of its memory card and battery. The used batteries stack on the desk, behind and to the right of the computer. The labels, taped in a row to the right of the computer, classify each card that is deliberately added to the collection. I attach the depleted batteries to their corresponding chargers, then begin the arduous task of “dumping data”. I connect a single card to the computer and preview the footage, tagging anything spectacular. The data is organized on a series of industrial harddrives, by date, camera, and event. Each folder receives a text document providing an overall description of the shoot. Using a USB 3.0 cardreader doubles the speed of the upload, but each card can still take up to 20 minutes.

When the crew has completed the pit stop routine, replaced tools, and discarded oil cans, the members seamlessly begin preparing for the next round, restocking tires, organizing spare parts, cleaning workspace. While the racecar is racing, with fresh tires and a full tank of gas, the pit crew is not lounging, but still working away, behind the scenes.

Once the footage from each card is uploaded, categorized, tagged, and noted, the card resides on the left side of the computer, joined by any other “dumped” cards, ready to be redeployed. These cards are distributed to each of the cameras, along with a fresh battery, then cleared and formatted for that camera. We then repack the equipment in pelican cases, padded bags, and waterproof housing, along with lenses, extra batteries, gps attachments, tripod mounts, lens cloths, intervelometers, silica gel.

A pit crew is made up of 6 individuals working feverishly in a space not much larger than a single-car garage, a potentially disastrous formula. Instead, like an intricate ballet routine, these practiced individuals dance around each other with skill and finesse.

Our team of five lives and works full time in a 500 square foot cabin, which mathematically offers us each a 10x10 patch of shelter. Realistically, though we personally retain less than that; the camera equipment alone demands more than its own 10x10.

As we find our routine among the chaos of an expedition, we compose our own clumsy ballet. There is constant chatter, providing the melody over the rhythm of clanging, typing, munching, scraping. “The 5D Mark 3 is reloaded and ready to go”, “I need an extra card for the C300”, “we need to load the 5D into the waterproof casing”, “I pulled the rest of the go pros out of the cockpit”, “oh man check out this footage!” With five people moving, packing, and requiring camera equipment this is the way to ensure we spend more time shooting than searching for misplaced gear.

While this must seem chaotic to an outsider, like a pit crew scrambling around a racecar, our movements are calculated and purposeful; we maintain routine amid the chaos.  

Holly's Haida Trick

Mike’s friend Holly was at the cabin for dinner. Holly is Haida and her family has been here, living on and with the land, for thousands of years. To contribute to our project, Holly is teaching us about her family’s relationship with the earth- how they cultivate their sustenance, which roots are medicinal, where to find the best bark for weaving, and how to cook some fantastic meals.

Holly was doing just that- cooking us a fantastic meal. She wrapped a fresh-caught wild sockeye salmon in young skunk cabbage leaves with lard and salt, and put it in the oven. She made a relish to go with the salmon from canned octopus (which she harvested and canned last year), onions, tomatoes, and spices. She boiled a pot of pickled sea asparagus (some of this year’s harvest), and opened a can of jalapeno-pickled bull kelp for us to munch while she cooked.

At 9:00pm the 6 of us sit down, hungry and chatty, to this amazing feast. John, never the shy one, cuts himself off a sizable slab of salmon and asks if it’s skunk cabbage wrapping is edible. Holly’s answer is, innocently, “I like it, but you probably won’t”. Of course what John hears is, “I double dog dare you to try it”. So John boldly rips off a chunk of skunk cabbage and starts munching away, masticating the cabbage thoroughly before gulping it down. Holly chuckles, and rips herself off a piece.

Just as John remarks that it isn’t so bad, Trip wonders aloud, “I heard you weren’t supposed to eat that stuff—isn’t it called skunk cabbage for a reason?” John shrugs, Mike grins, and we keep eating.

Three bites later, John calmly sets his fork down, gets up, and pours himself a glass of water. We watch him, curious, as he sits down with his water, until he admits his mouth is burning. Not a spicy food burn, he says, but an actual pain that he likens to what it might feel like to drink a cup of fiberglass dust. Holly takes another bite of her own cabbage, and swears her people have eaten the cooked skunk cabbage leaves forever. Must be a white person ailment, she teases.

We ensure John’s throat is not swelling and that he has no other red-flag symptoms, and John adds baking soda to his water, much to the amusement of the rest of the table. I know he is not exaggerating; only serious pain would keep him from eating the feast on the table. The scene is comical- John, sipping on baking soda water, his untouched salmon in front of him; Holly, perplexed but amused by his reaction; Mike, grinning furtively; the rest of us stifling our laughter only long enough to eat our dinner.

When Mike has taken his last bite, he stands up, wanders over to his bookshelf, and returns with “Food Plants of the Coastal First Peoples,” a comprehensive guide to plants on the northwest coast. He looks up skunk cabbage in the index, and calmly recites its entry.

“From the Arum family. Skunk cabbage was rarely eaten by the coastal First Peoples in British Columbia”

He has to pause there and wait for us- even John- to stop laughing. Then he continues,

“But in western Washington, the Quinault roasted and ate the leaf-stalks, the Cowlitz steamed and ate the flower-stalks sparingly, the Twana ate the young leaves, and the Quileute and Lower Chinook ate the roots. None of these groups prized any part of the skunk cabbage highly.”

Holly, with a look of satisfaction, points out that indeed the plant was eaten, and the Haida must be among those that eat it. Mike skips down the page and comes in, with impeccable comic timing,

“The Haida considered the plants to be poisonous and recalled instances of children dying after eating the leaves”

And we lost control, all of us. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, Trip almost spewed his drink, and even John was laughing so hard I think he forgot about the pain for a moment.

Mike then read aloud what, as an ecologist, he knew all along. “Skunk cabbage, like many members of the Arum family, contains long sharp crystals of calcium oxalate. If any part of the skunk cabbage is put into the mouth, the crystals can become imbedded in the mucous membranes and provoke intense irritation and burning.”

His ailment sufficiently diagnosed, John endlessly torments Holly for tricking him. Eventually the pain subsides enough to eat his salmon, now cold on his plate. He stresses that it does not matter, as he has lost the ability to taste. “What a shame”, holly prods, “it was delicious”.

If John had not already cemented his reputation as audacious and good-humored, he has certainly done so now. And we can thank him, both for the tear-inducing comedy hour, and because, at the cost of his sensitive taste buds, we all got to learn something new about local plants and native customs.