The Octopus

So today I led a snorkel/kayak to Indian Rock. Although half of my kids decided to sit it out on the beach (mutiny again!) those who followed me into the depths were glad afterward. It was an awesome dive and I accomplished the following deeds:

1. Spotted and identified Paul Allen's yacht, Octopus at Ship Rock. It was easily the biggest yacht I have ever seen, eclipsing even Diddy's yacht that came out for the Fourth of July my first summer (and that was also a vessel of truly gargantuan proportions).

Octopus

2. While pointing out an abalone to a group of students, I inadvertently disturbed a baby octopus, about six inches in length, which immediately swam out into the open where all the children could see it. This was one of the coolest experiences I've had snorkeling out here.

3. Dodged an incoming ferry by urging all of my students to kick hastily out of its trajectory.

4. The aforementioned ferry-dodging allowed me to locate the 2 largest bat rays I have ever encountered AND show them to kids. Wing span estimate: 4.5 feet

Some quotes from today

This will be short for once...

Following a conversation about the cultural traditions of the Aztec Empire, Andrew remarked on the primitive brutality of such practices.
Me: "Perhaps, but many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view"
Danny: "Wow that was eloquent David"
Me: "Unfortunately I cannot take credit, as these were the words of the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, still, Kenobi has much to teach us, so I quote him often."
Andrew: "See, I prefer to quote Vader, 'I am disturbed by your lack of faith'"
Me: "No doubt you mean, 'I find your lack of faith disturbing...'"
Andrew: "Alright, so I like to paraphrase Vader..."

Catalina Monsoon

Yesterday began as days at CELP often do, with Riptide groaning in the pre-dawn hours about the impending breakfast bell. However on this day our groans were joined by the distant boom of thunder. This seemed an ill omen for the unfolding of the day, but it was 5 AM, so I tabled the dark thoughts summoned forth by the low rumbling and shut my eyes optimistically. A few hours later the breakfast bell clanged out the call for food and consciousness. I arose rapidly (or at least faster than Phillip, so probably at normal speed, but still cheetahesque for Riptide)

I cracked open the front door of Riptide and let the gray light of morning sear through the frame. As pale and dim as it was, Andrew and Phillip both moaned in agony, as if they were vampire spawn. The scene before laid out before the stoop of Riptide was dominated by rain. As a proud product of the finest State in the Union, I'm something of an expert on the whole precipitation issue, and I had long ago dismissed the legends of true rain on Catalina Island as mere superstition, stories told to tourists and visitors to give them the impression that this place is anything other than a desert. In one instant this illusion was stripped away, and I beheld for the first time ever on this arid island, a pure and heavy rain. Every surface seemed thoroughly saturated with it, and as I pulled on my gore-tex footwear, I began to ponder what the day might bring.

Breakfast passed without incident, although several of the tables were soaking wet and the CELP staff found themselves taking their meals in somewhat closer proximity to children than is usually preferred (CELP staff members all dine at one long table at the far end of the dining hall, much like the teachers at Hogwarts). Thunder continued to echo off the hills around camp, and I concluded that whatever I would be doing that morning, it certainly wouldn't involve snorkeling. So much for training Lindy on Dive Coordinating... (oh yeah I'm the dive coordinator sometimes, it means I lifeguard from a kayak and run the whole suiting up process)

I returned to the Tide after breakfast expecting to report for further instructions at 8:00, this however was not to be, as Travis the Indomitable arrived at my door with an urgent quest. He drew forth his sacred Blackberry and charged me with a holy crusade to swim out in the midst of the great maelstrom that raged upon the waters of Howlands Landing and retrieve precious algae for a last-minute microscope lab (the activities at CELP that run well in a downpour are few and far between, and this is one of them). Travis immediately detected my initial apprehension at this request, as my lack of enthusiasm for jumping in the ocean before 9 AM was betrayed by my unruly face. Nonetheless, I agreed to set out on this quest, and so I rapidly donned my wetsuit (mastered the zipper unaided for the first time I might add) and strode across the field, my sandals sinking deeply into the mud as I walked.

About halfway down to the waterfront, as I was passing the sports court, a brilliant bolt of lightning shot down onto the ocean to the southwest, in the direction of Ship Rock. It could not have been more than five miles off, a suspicion that I confirmed by counting out five seconds before the thunder. I froze mid-stride, considering the stories I'd heard of lightning strike victims in Boy Scouts (you'd be surprised how often that happens to scouts...). I concluded my thoughts with the classical Riptide Response; "it'll probably be fine", shook my head, and continued walking toward the dark gray ocean. I later found out that Danny Sudman and Andrew had observed this moment with much mirth.

I reached the Deck of Dives, where Master Marine Biologist Lindy McMorran was waiting for me. She didn't seem particularly enamored of the whole lightning-storm-algae-collection concept, and while I could appreciate that point of view, the idiot in me decided that a bunch of damp children were depending on us for entertainment and education on this rainy morning, and I'd be damned if I was going to let them down. While we were gearing up, Lord Travis (CELP Director) arrived wearing a somewhat anxious expression and asked us if we were comfortable going into the ocean in these conditions, and my bravado-riddled response was apparently convincing enough to get us moving.

Myself and the Lindinator waded out into the water on the right side of the cove, grabbing whatever samples we could reach, not worrying about quality, merely filling our collection bags as rapidly as possible. I managed to slice up my foot pretty good on some rocks, but the cold water quickly numbed the injury. Travis stood on the beach clutching his phone with white-knuckled enthusiasm, looking pale enough to hail from Seattle. We ventured out a bit further, leaving our feet and sticking our masked faces into the water, seeking out more algae for the children. Lightning had struck a few times during this process, at distances that all seemed fairly reasonable to us, but it was at this time when I had my face in the water looking around, that a bolt of lightning came down close enough that I actually saw the flash from underwater (not in the water mind you, merely that it was bright enough on the surface that my mask filled with elemental light for a brief instant). I stuck my head out of the water and noticed Travis frantically yelling and motioning for us to come back, while Lindy remained oblivious of the bolt that probably came within less than 4 or 5 miles of our position. I swam rapidly over to her, got her attention and informed her that algae-collection was now over, and despite her protests involving a need to collect bryozoans (and they call ME nerdy!) managed to convince her to depart the ocean.

The rest of the day unfolded without incident, I spent the morning with the Lindy the Lightning-Defier running a series of microscope labs, and became an expert on the Jean-Michel Cousteau video of deep sea critters off the coast of Australia. (Although somehow the title escapes me...) It's a really cool video with a truly fantastic soundtrack "The Oh of Pleasure" from an album by Ray Lynch called Deep Breakfast. Check it out, tell your friends, it's a winner. (Also according to notorious liar Phil West, the song is featured on one of the plethoric radio stations of Grand Theft Auto IV, wikipedia agrees, but he could have just edited it himself...)

In the afternoon myself and my esteemed colleague Andrew Wright of Oklahoma stamped and checked a great many postcards. The people who set me on this task made the fatal mistake of placing me at a table with about ten thousand rubber bands, and many unsuspecting innocents fell victim to the sting of my missiles (namely Becky and Julie) Also I slung a pen at Andrew's forehead and almost took out his eye. After that I agreed to disarmament and continued working.

At dinner I was informed that although the snorkels during the day had been cancelled due to adverse weather, the chaperones of the school group in question were committed to getting a night dive in. Lindy and I began the necessary preparations, and determined that even though we would be Dive Coordinating from kayaks, it would be worthwhile to wear wetsuits regardless as more rain was forecast for the evening. She didn't wear pants, which later turned out to be a grave error in judgement.

We gave the Night Dive speech to the children, a carefully crafted masterpiece that simultaneously tries to inspire enthusiasm for braving the dark (and sometimes cold) water, provide some light curriculum to let them understand what they'll see (and operate flashlights), and instill just enough fear to make sure they stick together and don't ditch their snorkel buddies. That was an excessively long sentence.

Anyway, having suited up the children and armed them with dive lights bright enough to scar retinas (Phil says he fried an egg on top of one once), we shoved our firetruck-red kayaks out onto the dark water, just as a light rain began to fall gently down from the starless skies. We paddled out and awaited the arrival of the CELP instructors with their squads of students and the drizzle began to thicken and intensify until it became a downpour. Lightning crackled in the distance over Los Angeles, and myself and Lindy became completely absorbed within the power of the storm. It was then, as precipitation literally flooded down upon us from the heavy clouds above, that Lindy lamented not having pants. The CELP instructors got their children into the water, and like geese leading goslings, guided them toward the kelp forest on the left side of the cove. As the rain began to let up, the lights from the Chateau d'Kern, (ancestral home of the Kern family for 2 whole generations) began to reflect off the dark water, and the rain actually let up altogether. Each stroke of my paddle through the water set off subtle green sparkles as tiny plankton were disturbed and began to bioluminesce (yes that really is a verb in some circles). While lightning still shot down over downtown LA, the clouds overhead began to thin, to the point where glow of the moon began to peak through, followed shortly by that most famous of wannabe stars, Jupiter. I suppose in summary, it was very beautiful.

We clambered out of the water, every bit as wet as those who had actually been snorkeling, and set about the business of cleaning and stowing 40 odd wetsuits and other bits of gear. That was the last of the real rain I observed at Howland's Landing this season, and within 24 hours, the puddles and rivers that had formed throughout camp had all dried up, the moisture consumed by the parched and arid earth. The next morning, tiny sprouts of grass emerged, carpeting the whole of camp in a thin but vibrant layer of green, which would stay with us until we departed the cove for winter.

Look, a picture!

"I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies." - Eben Ahbez

"I'd like to be able to use Storm's powers for good, like have it rain more in Southern California. We could do with it." - Halle Berry

The Wind and Waves of Ship Rock

The pace of camp quickens dramatically when children arrive. As any reader of this blog will note, shortly after the appearance of campers my blog entries waned and ultimately ceased. Sometimes it seems as if this camp caters to tiny vampires, and at the end of the day I feel like I've lost a lot of blood, which is a condition that allows minimal extra energy for the subtle science of writing bad comedy. I love it, but those shouting matches with 11 year-old boys on the finer points of first-person-shooter design over dinner really take it out of you. In short, I apologize for my long silent streak, and tip my hat to the illustrious Greg Pierce for consistently pestering me via facebook to update this blog. It is good to know that someone out there is starved for my words of pretentious wisdom. So, moving right along as if there were no interruption in bloggage...

When I awoke, there was only thirst. My throat was as cracked and dry as the parched and endless deserts of Arrakis, but I took comfort in the absence of Shai-Hulud (sandworms). I cracked open my eyelids and stared blearily at my new wristwatch, mailed to me (thanks mom!) after a child broke my old one during second session. The cold, sharp numbers stared pitilessly back at me, informing my dehydrated brain that it was only 6:50, meaning it would be more than an hour before the rest of camp crawled forth from their bunks. I was torn between the options of getting up and quenchifying or staying put and remaining warm. The latter concern won out in the end, and so I lay in my feeling very much like the Man with No Name about halfway through The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for an hour until the breakfast bell rang. At that instant I sprang out of bed, surprising Andrew with my alacrity in the face of a prior late evening. I strode rapidly over to the dining hall, snatching my nalgene out of my ancient (had it since 7th grade) Brenthaven pack on the way. I spun off the lid and smashed the bottle against the water cooler, and the sound of flowing liquid was like music to my ears. I rose the vessel to my lips and essentially drank half of it right there, the clear fluid seeming to penetrate my innards like rain making its way down through the boughs of a great cedar. I instantly felt much better, and went about the business of obtaining breakfast.

Today was one of those rare and cherished days when I have the morning off, so I was able to move through the dining hall first to obtain me vittles. Dominating the menu this morning was french toast, a worthy solution to all the demands of the morning meal. I loaded up my plate and proceeded to the back of the staff lounge where I sat down at a table by myself to read a book. The tome tucked under my arm was a volume entitled Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which I had borrowed from that most infamous of Waterfront Directors, Miah Smith. The book centers around the building of a cathedral during the 12th Century, and does a superb job of making that era come to life. I'm not a religious fish, but I do appreciate large, pretty churches. Gothic architecture is beautiful in the extreme, and this book is really just a monument to that school of construction. I read in silence, ignoring the invitations of other staff members for me to join them at their table (my book is too good to be abandoned in favor of small talk), and was reminded vaguely of something Indy once said to his dad, "What you taught me is that I was less important to you than people who'd been dead for 500 years in another country!" and then I giggled.

After breakfast I retired to my cabin, planning to spend the morning meditating on the composition of the back side of my eyelids, but along the way I noticed the surprising potency of the wind. I felt it threading its way through my hair, and watched as it moved through a curtain of Eucalyptus leaves, casting them aside with ease. Suddenly I realized that the moment I had awaited for over a year had arrived. Finally, on a morning off, the sun was out and the wind was strong, and the expedition I had conceived of long ago was within the realm of possibility.

A mile off the coast of the West End of Catalina, on the Channel side, is a rather impressive rock that rises some 30 feet out of the waves. It looks kind of like a Gibraltar in miniature, and is known as Ship Rock. According to legend, it is a breeding ground for great white sharks during the colder winter months, but I myself have been unable to determine if this is truth or merely the tale-weaving of the old salts from Harbor Patrol. Whether or not the rock is infested with Carcharodon carcharias, it is a fantastic snorkeling location, something about ocean currents makes it awesome. Also sea lions like to swim around out there so you're quite likely to run into them. These factors contribute to make it one of my favorite locations on Catalina (or near Catalina I suppose)

Additionally (and somewhat more importantly) Ship Rock plays a role in my sailing program. Sailing out to Ship Rock and returning is the primary requirement to attain the highest and most prestigious award given during camp badgework (system of achievement in activity areas); the Sailing Gold Star. I feel like I need to re-examine that name, maybe call it the Miah Smith Award, or the Mariner's Trophy. Nomenclature aside, sailing to ship rock is often challenging because of constantly shifting wind conditions in that area. But as noted above, on this particular day, the wind was just right, and I had the morning off. It was time to sail to Ship Rock, anchor, snorkel, and sail back for lunch.

So it was that instead of falling asleep, I gathered up sailing and snorkeling gear, snatched an anchor from the boneyard (do all summer camps have a place called the boneyard?) and asked for volunteers to join me on my voyage. The brave souls who stepped forward were cabin counselors Barbara Radford and Ike Wallace, and within half an hour we had shoved off of the Howland's dock and were making good time toward the Rock.

The wind poured into our sails, filling them up and thrusting our hull forward through the waves, we made our way to Ship Rock, and I brought the boat in close so we could anchor. My anchoring experience is lacking, but the sea nymphs smiled upon my endeavor (which is good, because when they frown upon endeavors it usually means Cetus is inbound) and somehow I managed to lodge the anchor securely. We launched ourselves over the side of the Capri and set about the business of swimming 'round the rock. Along the way we saw massive schools of fish, and a sea lion. A sea lion underwater is truly a stunning sight to behold, as these creatures are every bit as graceful in the water as an eagle in the air, and they soar through the blue with remarkable speed and agility. The one we saw seemed to be checking out Barbara for a while, but then I swam over and scared it off. Whoops!

After the dive we shot around the rock and plotted a course back to camp. It was one hell of a trip.

When Bison Attack

So it turns out that a long time ago in a decade characterized by women's suffrage and prohibition, a certain movie was being filmed on Catalina Island. The motion picture was a Western (as is only fitting on this island dominated by Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystems) called The Vanishing American. The film was based on a novel of the same name by a popular Western author named Zane Grey. Zane Grey actually lived on the island for years, so it makes sense they'd film the movie out here. For a shot in this movie, 14 bison were shipped out to the island to serve as animals in the background. After the movie wrapped, they ended up cutting the scene with the bison, and for one reason or another decided not to remove the bison from the island.

And so, 90 years later, we have about 150 of the inbred creatures on the island. Their population is managed by the Catalina Island Conservancy through a rather ingenious technology, which a cousin of mine once suggested be used on promiscuous humans. The contraceptive dart rifle. Basically they load up darts with some sort of chemical that breaks down the linings of Bison eggs so they cannot be fertilized, thus keeping the population growth at a paltry 3%. Despite their invasive presence and impact on the shrubs and plants of the island, they have become far too much of a tourist attraction to remove, and so they have become a part of the island.

The vast majority of the Catalina Bison herd (which according to Wikipedia isn't really composed of pureblood bison, with 45% of them having cow ancestry) is found on the larger Eastern half of the Island, toward Avalon. However, there is at least one Bison on the West End. We in Riptide have named this solitary and rebellious beast Marc Antony, in honor of our favorite character from the TV show Rome.

From time to time our friend Antony will make an appearance within the borders of camp, and so it was that on a pizza night, shortly after I had scooped up my two slices of steaming pepperoni from the Dining Lodge, the voices of all the children in camp raised into one great scream, and as I looked out across the upper Boys Camp field, I saw that Marc Antony had decided to join us for dinner. I would like to challenge the reader to imagine what it is like to see 150 children witness the arrival of a wild animal renowned for its goring habits. Everyone was on their feet, yelling all sorts of idiotic suggestions about how to deal with the buffalo or merely making high pitched panic noises. I considered with a creeping dread the possibility that one of the younglings might decide to make a run at Antony, thus provoking him into a less than amiable response. It was this same impression that had Rasheed on his feet, urging kids with a somewhat maniacal tone to stay calm and remain seated. The great beast actually ended up ambling by the dining hall, crossed the lower boys camp field and rolled around in the fine sands of the beach volleyball court before deciding to abandon this valley of screaming children and make its way up the deer trail, disappearing around the first curve of the road to Two Harbors.

It certainly made for an interesting evening.

A day worthy of remembrance

So yeah, I haven't said much in two weeks. In the words of Inigo Montoya (envision Spanish accent), "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

The first session of camp went very well, as before, my sailors are all top notch, performing their duties at the highest level of competency. However, I was sad yesterday to see many of the campers depart, Monsoon in particular. I took up my customary position on the middle of the pier with few staff members around to maximize space for farewell hugs. I said something to Maria Horner (aka Benevolent Dictator) as I approached the dock and she pointed out how annoying it is when children stop to hug me on the pier and slow down the boarding process for the entire camp. I replied, "Maria, it's not my fault that the children adore me", she shot back, calling that comment the most narcissistic thing I've ever said. It is also untrue, I work hard to make these kids worship me, and as arrogant and self-absorbed as it might be, I relish the opportunity to build myself up in their eyes. I'm not really sure if this even makes me more effective as a camp staffer, but I am very good at it. Case in point, I convinced about half of the kids at camp this past session that my previous employment had been as an FBI Agent working in the Behavioral Sciences division (it is amazing how effective it is to just rephrase the words of Thomas Harris). Props to Barbara Radford for the idea, and to Becky for refining it.

While the session was a lot of fun, from the perspective of this blog it went almost too well, with no particularly harrowing stories of daring and adventure that screamed out to my hands, "WRITE ME DOWN" (any director reading this has just cursed me for tempting karma) aside from a mutiny in miniature that happened early in the session. Today was entirely different.

This day began slowly, and most mornings in Riptide seem to have unfolded at a sloth's pace over the past few days. We need to get to bed earlier. Last night we checked out one of the new episodes of Futurama, and Phillip and I cried twin oceans of tears as that once great show proved for a second episode that whatever spark that had made it so fun in days of yore had been thoroughly extinguished when Fox canceled it the first time. I suspect that the show will continue to exist, much like Family Guy or a zombie; dead and decaying but still mobile.

We eventually dragged ourselves from our bunks (why Andrew even bothers with his alarms anymore is beyond my comprehension, since he arrived he has literally never successfully arisen from bed due to his alarm sounding), and reported to breakfast. We Riptidelings really need to get more sleep, I personally blame Phillip. In the past few weeks I have taken up the habit of filling out the whiteboard that used to inform campers of the menu at each meal, and this morning I chose to go with a Jedi Knight theme. (unoriginal for me, but I was tired) I inscribed the Code of the Ancient Order and threw in a Master Kenobi quote. Breakfast was pancakes, and Nick Osti ate five of them.

My first responsibility of the day was to assist Kate "McAwesome" Clover with lifeguarding the swim test. This passed quickly and without incident.

First period the sailors had nothing scheduled, so Shahar, Slater, and myself set to work refining a new era of sailing badgework: The Blue and Gold Star Sabots. Basically we were attempting to set up a sabot racing program, and we made a good deal of progress on it. It looks like we are going to split the sailing badgework program into Capri and Sabot sailing, much like Challenge is split between High Ropes and Climbing. We typed up the requirements and handed them over to Grand Admiral Smith.

Second period we discovered that Kate Clover doesn't know how to count, and thus I was called upon to lifeguard. I managed to use my sailor powers to make Zac "Twilight" Birkey (he read all four) take the paddleboard, thus allowing me to theoretically achieve minimal dampness via the use of the kayak. Unfortunately however, my embarkation aboard the kayak was a monumental failure, as a swell swept up and knocked me off my kayak into the frigid water, blue jacket and all. Now I will have to wash it and the inside will be unfuzzy, just like the Jacket of Jae-Zee. It was singularly unpleasant. While I am on the subject, this summer on Catalina has been characterized by distinctly unfavorable weather. It has been consistently cloudy on most days, and this past Sunday (ironically enough) it rained for the whole morning, transforming what might have been a chill three periods of free beach lifeguarding to a hellish nightmare of Bingo games and screaming children. Those lucky few readers who are following this should pray to their favorite God or Power That Be for more sunlight and wind. Nothing is worse than a cloudy day without wind.

Lunch was Make Your Own Wrap, which was awesome because it is like Sandwich Day but with tortillas. Also I was lucky enough to grab a seat next to one of my all-time favorite campers, a kid who shall remain nameless but is into film and film production and we had a great little chat in between bites of a swiss/turkey/tuna/tomato/onion wrap.

After lunch I had the privilege of taking Tommy Kern and Max Genovese out on a Capri. Now these two kids love sailing, are hilarious, and can feed off each other like baking soda and vinegar. What's more, they do their best to appear fearless, especially around each other. I admire this quality immensely, even if it is occasionally an illusion. On this particular adventure, Tommy and Max occupied their traditional positions aboard my mighty Capri; seated as far out on the bow as possible. This is the coveted spot aboard a CIC Capri, where the rider gets the distinct feeling that he is soaring across the waves, an impression supported by the consistent spray shooting over the deck onto exhilarated (or shivering) children. I took the boat Northwest beyond Inspiration Point, as I often do, and for reasons that to this day remain unclear, Max fell overboard. Before I had scarcely registered this event, Tommy fell in right behind him. During the investigation that followed this event, both Mr. Kern and Mr. Genovese asserted repeatedly that they had both fallen overboard purely through accidental causes, suggesting that some sort of smallish rogue wave had struck the boat and sent them tumbling into the sea. It is the opinion of this detective that while it is entirely possible that Max slipped off the deck due to legitimately accidental reasons, the chances that his good friend and partner-in-crime Tommy fell off accidentally a mere 5 seconds later are slim indeed. It is intriguing to note that during this mass exodus from the Bluto Capri (the sailboat I was steering), I had been in the middle of a radio transmission to the Howland's Tower lifeguard, and as the first two men-overboard I had ever experienced slid into the sea, I thoughtlessly spoke into the VHF receiver with the transmit button still depressed, "Oh my God..." I stared dumbly at the radio for a second, realized I had just revealed my mistake to anyone on the West End of Catalina who cared to tune into Channel 71, and set about the business of retrieving lost children from the clutches of Davey Jones.

Now those of you who know sailing will be familiar with the process of the man-overboard retrieval operation, but I shall explain for the laymen. Or laywomen. For some reason laywomen sounds wrong...

Moving right along, the general idea is to come about, sail downwind of aforementioned floating eleven year-olds and then slowly come upwind, ending up in irons (pointed directly upwind) as you come alongside your targets. Now, I personally have never actually had to perform this procedure with live victims, and I don't believe I've ever actually practiced it on the ocean before, so I was somewhat apprehensive, especially as I witnessed the expressions of amusement fade from Max and Tommy's faces as they began to realize that they were two very small boys in a massive body of water. My first two attempts to rescue them failed, as Capris have a very difficult time staying directly in irons, but finally I got close enough and was able to let out my mainsheet and drift onto the now mildly upset children. Once I had hauled them aboard I proceeded to impress upon them the danger of jumping out of a sailboat. Both of them swore on all they held holy that their falls had been accidents, but I remain suspicious. Regardless, it was a true adventure that taught me a great deal about retrieving children from the open ocean, and about keeping a closer eye on the kids in my boat. Some other stuff probably happened that day, but it is lost to the winds of time.

Me: "Can anyone think of a word that describes an organism's role within an ecosystem? It starts with an 'n'..."

Some kid: "Necronomicon?"

Me: "Well I was going for 'niche' but if you want to talk about the Book of the Dead I am totally down with that.

Legos in Riptide

So today as I was walking past the office, I found myself staring into the depth of a large box filled with Legos. Instantly I was transported to my 90s childhood, which featured countless hours spent rifling through various massive containers filled with plastic blocks and pieces of all shapes and sizes imaginable. I used to create elaborate settings, buildings, vehicles, and characters, acting out my own personal dramas for literally weeks at a time. Every time I saw a new movie or read a new book I would find further inspiration for this pursuit, and the beauty of those toys is their ability to be reconfigured infinitely.

So long story short, I rapidly absconded with all of the CIC legos and retreated to Riptide. I proceeded to start playing with them and was thus occupied when Phillip of West returned home. My fascination was undimmed by his laughter.

After a week of complaining about the sound of legos scraped through late into the night, my Riptide brothers conspired with Rasheed to steal the legos back. Treacherous bastards.

Mutiny on the Sabots

This actually happened a while ago...

So yesterday as I prepared to launch my mighty mosquito fleet of sailing vessels out into the Channel, the winds were roaring from Inspiration Point down toward Lionshead (out of the West). The previous period had gone surprisingly well and I was amped for a repeat performance. It was at this point that Barbara Radford, a cabin counselor, arrived with her cabin and informed me that several of her campers were interested in the exceptionally awkward acronym MLOP.

At our camp, this stands for Minimum Level of Participation, and is a concept put in place to coerce campers into at least trying an activity before we allow them to refuse to take part in it. At the climbing wall for example, the MLOP might be that kids have to gear up in harnesses and climb 3 feet up on the wall before they can choose to give up. Now I personally have never had a whole lot of use for this philosophy, as I decided long ago that my area's minimum level of participation was exactly the same as its maximum level: get in a boat and go sailing. If a kid actually gets out on the water and is really freaking out, I am happy to retrieve them via chaseboat and return them to the dock, but that doesn't really happen very often. The Challenge (climbing and ropes) staff are always talking about how leaving your comfort zone is how you grow, and that at CIC we like to do hard things, and these are ideas that I wholeheartedly embrace. I believe that even if a kid goes out and spends the whole period capsizing and recovering, that kid gains something from the experience, so pretty much I expected to have little trouble in convincing a camper or two to get out on the water.

And thus it was that I was quite surprised that while rigging the sailfleet on the beach, each and every camper from Barbara's cabin walked up to me and declared in one voice that they were refusing to go sailing. It was nothing short of mutiny! It was a full-scale rebellion of twelve year-old girls, and I can honestly say that in all my time teaching sailing I have never been met with such resistance. I have sent kids out on the water on days that made yesterday look like sailing in a placid pond, but never before did an entire cabin try to refuse to even get in the water. I asked the girls why they weren't interested in sailing, and they shot out a number of reasons, ranging from fear of the water, sharks, and capsizing to simple disinterest in being cold and wet. Seeing my opportunity, I quickly unleashed my secret weapon: PBA (Power Boat Activities). Now there are a lot of kids out there who will claim they don't want to go sailing for the above reasons, however there are almost no kids out there who will refuse to be dragged behind a powerboat on a tube at 20 knots, for any reason. Interestingly enough, PBA requires you to be just as wet, just as cold, and occurs just as far (actually farther) out to sea as sabot sailing does. Furthermore, this cabin of girls had literally just come from PBA the previous period (thank God), thus giving me a pretty strong argument against their supposed fears. After hitting them with the classic Dentinger motivational tool, "So you're willing to be dragged behind a boat at 30 mph with the potential to be snapped through the air like a rubber band but you're worried about falling six inches out of a boat whose top speed is about 10 mph?", several of the girls grudgingly agreed to get in the water. I knew when the group approached me that probably only 1 or 2 girls was actually committed to avoiding sailing, and the others just saw an opportunity and jumped on the bandwagon, and in short order I had carved away their supporters and only the ringleaders remained. I launched all the other boats first, then I convinced the last two holdouts to get into a fully rigged sabot. I actually was on the verge of backing down and letting them get out, but instead, in my most encouraging tone I said, "Girls, do you seriously think I would have you do this if I didn't think you were going to have fun and be safe at the same time?" they replied, "No, but we don't want to get wet!" I smiled and then I shoved their boat out to sea.

The girls actually ended up doing pretty well on the water, and were sailing fairly well given the wind speed. We ended up pulling the boats in early because they were starting to drift out of sight of the Tower and we wanted to be sure we had enough time to get them in. The mutineering ringleaders were on their way back in at the end of the sail when I saw them capsize, their screams rang out across the water. It was really too bad, they really did almost make it back unaided. I ran my boat over and decided they were too upset (more angry than scared) and took them aboard my boat, leaving Barbara behind to right the sabot and sail it the rest of the way in. For this I am extremely grateful, Barbara was a champ that afternoon.

Interestingly enough, this cabin of girls commanded by Ms. Radford was joined that period by a cabin of boys led by Ike Wallace of Montana, and their attitudes were diametrically opposed. None of those boys really knew how to sail, but they looked out at the wind and the waves and saw nothing but adventure and excitement. Because I had an uneven number of kids, I needed one camper to brave the seas alone, and when I asked the group for volunteers, not only did every single hand among Ike's campers shoot up, but each of them started yelling, begging, and jumping, desperately jockeying for my attention. This is the essential truth of learning to sail, that you need to be passionately interested in going out regardless of the threat of capsize and see if you can find a way to control the boat.

And so I witnessed two groups of kids attempt the same activity under the same conditions, and half of them loved it, while the other half (who interestingly were probably a little more competent at sailing) complained the whole time. As a Jedi Master would have said, "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view"

Campfire Skit

Time to update ye old sailing blog! Leadsailor.blogspot.com, and here we go!

As staff training draws to a close, I take stock of what we have learned, of our trials and tribulations, and since I am now six days behind on my blog, the amusing highlights that will allow me to skip past everything else. Let’s take a look back at the past few weeks.

Old Man Shattuck

Earlier that evening, Nick Shattuck, the Bard of Wisconsin, regaled us with his musical talents as we sat around the campfire. His performance spoke to our very souls with a deep language of notes and rhythm, as he sang about Prohibition and Universal Suffrage. That Shattuck sure has lived a long time! Please remember to join the Facebook Group: Shattuck’s Medical Bills Won’t Pay Themselves, we just need 50,000 dollars more to keep his spine from twisting itself into a double-helix.

Phillip West doesn’t do shit

Now leadership coordinators have long been reviled for their lack of hustle, but this week P-We really kept that tradition alive by doing almost no work whatsoever. He instead became CIC’s own World Cup commentator and kept us all updated on the intricacies of each match as they unfolded. Phillip also spent a great deal of time trying out his new cushy bed in Riptide, as well as viewing the complete filmography of the illustrious artist Kevin Smith. But wait, there’s always more at Catalina Island Camps! Phillip also mastered the exquisite art of ineffective DJing, as he managed to screw up roughly 75% of the songs at the Dancing with the Specialists event!

Andrew and Joe

The much anticipated drug test came and went uneventfully, with all male staff passing with colors ranging from clear to a dark amber. However, during those terrifying moments we spent loitering just outside the Golden Doubloon awaiting our test results, we witnessed a strange and romantic sight. Joe Silver, Her Majesty’s Secret Air Ninja Operative, and Andrew Wright, noted Batman-imitator, chose to engage each other in single combat to the, uh, kiss. While no doubt their wrestling was manly and impressive, and upon reading this either one of them (or both) will likely prove their martial prowess to my soft and sensitive face, there were some rather awkward looking positions they found themselves in along the way. Pictures were taken, check them out here on facebook! Share!

Rasheed Paddleboard

Later in the week, for reasons that remain unknown, the Cabin Crew decided it would be a good idea to take out some paddleboards late in the afternoon. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the weather patterns at CIC, it may be relevant to note that typically our afternoons are characterized by strong westerly winds. These winds typically cause significant disruptions in waterfront programs aside from Capris, and this afternoon was an abnormally windy day. The Cabin Crew however does not include a single former-sailor among its ranks, and thus this fact was unknown to them when they set out upon the water. It quickly became apparent that the conditions were too much for the Cadre of Camp Commanders, and right as they lost Max Genovese to the sandline, I ordered Shahar into action and he solved the problem with his thermal vision. (Thermal vision is an Israeli expression that means, “Tossed Tim Barker over the side and told him to grab the paddleboard.”) And so, the sailors rescued the Cabin Crew from losing the Camp Directors’ nephew, and returned victoriously to the float, heroes in the eyes of all who reside at this wondrous place. Training is now over, and I’m looking forward to an excellent summer, may the Force be with us all.

Quotes

I've decided to get blogging again. Sorry for the long silence but I got distracted. I found a bunch of old drafts so I guess I'll just post them all now.

"But I don't wanna eat dinner with Becky" - Tommy Kern

"You poop, you lose" - Miah Smith to Andrew Wright

"When you complain, it makes an ass of you and me" - Phillip West

"Awww, it makes such cute sounds!" - Ashley Bowen
"That's just what they said about the velociraptors" - David Dentinger

"Do you want ants? Because THAT'S how you get ants." - Mallory Archer

"The theme for Miah's birthday party is 'naughty-cal', dress accordingly" -Julie Baweja

But I don't wanna eat dinner with Becky!

A while back when Staff Training was in its darkest and longest hours, Danny Sudman presented an idea. The idea was to have a staff auction, where the employees of this fantastic facility donate items or services and bid on them, donating the proceeds to ACA scholarship programs. A great array of items were donated, ranging from t-shirts and back massages to shark-chumming trips and spear-fishing lessons. I myself donated an epic story. I offered to interview the winning bidder, turn a story of their exploits into a campfire story of daring and adventure, to be told in front of kids at a closing campfire. Miah (my supervisor) ended up winning it for 20 dollars, I was impressed, and actually kind of honored. Anyway, one of the big prizes that Riptide (me and my cabinmates) attempted to bid on was a dinner for 4 at the Kern's House. Tom Kern is the site manager, and dinner at his house is apparently a famed honor on the island. We REALLY wanted it, but Becky "Angeleyes" Morrow furiously outbid us until our minds overtook our stomachs. And the instant she did so, Tommy Kern, perhaps the cutest and most mischievous child I've ever encountered, calls out, "But I don't wanna eat dinner with Becky! She'll make me eat spinach! We could have played Grand Theft Auto!" I can't really add anything more memorable than that to the experience.

Coriolis Withdrawals

I am now four days behind on this blog and have realized that the only way I will ever catch up is if I just summarize the major events for the past few days and proceed onward.

On June 15th, we hiked back from Shark Harbor via the Eagles route, a trail that I was unfamiliar with. It's a pretty cool hike until you get to Two Harbors, because there is this ridiculous ridgeline trail that shows you how weak you are in the eyes of the world. It skyrockets up out of Two Harbors at an angle comparable to that of a space shuttle launch. That hill is easily the nastiest piece of topography I've attempted to conquer with my boots in years, possibly ever. We dragged ourselves up it, one staggering step at a time, while I cursed the hill loudly at each flat spot. Anyway, several hours later we stumbled into camp and threw ourselves off the dock into the ocean. It was quite nice. While the hike was pretty hard, I was glad to have done it because as Alan Doud (my high school physics teacher) would have said, happiness can only be achieved through hard-work and self-denial. Sumner would have liked that man.

That afternoon we had the good fortune to try out a new training program: the Parent Panel. Several parents came out to talk to us about their expectations, fears, and ideas about summer camp. It was actually a very interesting discussion. I was quite surprised at how laid back the parents were, I always felt like parents were much more uptight about their kids at camp, but these folks seemed not to worry about anything other than tooth brushing and inappropriate comments.

The next day we got to view the film on intentional camps created by Nick Osti and Nick Horner. It turned out rather well.

I have tried to write this like five times now, I'm going to just stop trying to cover this week. I can't catch up, the week is lost to the sands of time. Also Prince of Persia is going to be awful.

The Bite of the Fox

I arose at the horrific hour of 4 AM, brushed my teeth, packed up my graduation loot, and made for the Seattle-Tacoma Airport to make my triumphant return to CIC.

My passage through the airport was uneventful, except I got to walk by this sweet mural that depicts this full-size magic show in various stages. I used to LOVE that wall as a kid, and it calls out to me with mystery and excitement, and I don't know what it is, but even though the magician and his assistant are obviously two dimensional and composed of paint, there is something haunting about them. It really does seem like they are staring at you right out of the paint, silently watching the thousands of air passengers that pass them each day. Moving right along...

Flight went without incident, except for some little kid that screamed for take off and landing, which I'm not really too bothered by, I think the kid's mother was more concerned than anyone else on the aircraft. Maura Schmitz, the famous German philosopher picked me up from the terminal after I checked on the status of Elizabeth's Virgin flight, which was about half an hour early. We proceeded to Panera bread where I purchased a soda for the philosopher-queen and two bacon and egg sandwiches for myself. They were delicious, satisfying a deep hunger that had burned from 4 AM onward. We sat for about two hours chatting about various things at camp, and she regaled me with the madness that was the 2009 CIC Challenge Area. I think they get a little nutty back there because they are so far from the waterfront and they get dried out. There was more than enough drama back there last year to qualify them for their own reality TV show.

We then proceeded to the airport and recovered another staffer, an Elizabeth Brewster of New York. Maura whisked us over to the boat terminal and we waded into a sea of Boy Scouts to await our boat to Two Harbors. While there, Elizabeth asked a number of questions about camp, which I was happy to answer, and I tried to talk to a couple of the scouts about Emerald Bay. Usually they'd respond to my questions respectfully and then leave the area. I miss my patch-laden khaki shirt and my worn green Scout pants...

Anyway, boat ride over was uneventful, we shared the vessel with some staff from Emerald, one of whom I congratulated on being an Eco (Ecology/Conservation or Nature) staffer and exhorted him to make Scoutcraft (the arch-nemesis of all things green, living, and intellectual) look stupid. As if that needed doing...

We were met at the dock by none other than the legendary Tom Horner, who saved my bacon two blog entries back. He welcomed us both warmly, and transported us to the interior of the island in some sort of SUV (Land Cruiser? Land Rover? Landmobile? Landmonster?). Before reaching the destination of the staff overnight (Shark Harbor), we ran into Becky the Administrative Director and Master of the Internet, along with several other staff members. Tom stopped to say hi, there was a brilliant flash of light, and suddenly he and his car were gone and Elizabeth and I were walking on the road with everyone else. It was disconcerting to say the least. I suspect Emi G might have used her 80s magicks on me.

We walked about the last fifth of the Sharks hike, and arrived in Little Harbor to many congratulations and singing of pomp and circumstance (a song that while I appreciated, I have little interest in hearing ever again). Shortly after our arrival, we proceeded to the beach and learned the ways of the overnight and daytrip from Miah, Julie, and Heather. Miah taught us that waves are curvy, Julie taught us that Nick Shattuck can harmonize, and Heather was awesome in some vague way that escapes my memory.

While normally on a staff training expedition to Shark Harbor, there would be swimming, sunbathing, and some misguided but hilarious attempts at surfing, on that particular day the waves were small, the clouds were thick, the wind was strong, and the air was cold, thus only a few insane individuals entered the water, and it saddens me that their names have been lost to the mists of bad memory. However, on the way back, Chris Orosz, Abigail Johnston, and myself ventured up onto some rock formation that Chris called, "The Whale's Tail", which afforded an excellent view of Shark Harbor. While we were up there, Nature Detective Chris located the skeleton of an eel atop one of the cliffs, and theorized that a bird had carried it up there to murder it and feed on its flesh. It was very cool looking, and I believe he got some excellent pictures, investigate (stalk through) his facebook page sometime if you get the chance.

When we returned to our campsite, Nick discovered that his backpack had been destroyed. Blaming Eoin for the damage (not sure why) he nearly carried out his revenge through painful and lethal means, but his hand was stayed when he noticed a squirrel carrying part of his bag in its mouth. The vandal cackled in the high-pitched laughter of insane men and malevolent rodents, and ran into the bushes. Eoin was emotionally scarred but survived the ordeal.

At this point, dinner was served, and we gorged ourselves on a fantastic meal of bean burritos and probably some other stuff. I helped by warming up the tortillas over the fire because Danny "Announcements" Sudman had to run off and wrestle a Bison. After dinner, the camp staff who would be living with kids were split up into Boys and Girls camps and engaged in that most aptly named of CIC training programs: Speed Dating. Basically the idea is to let counselors and specialists rapidly interview each other so they can figure out who they want as a co-counselor for the first session. This process actually was somewhat more involved this year than I recall from my previous seasons, and ended up taking over an hour.

In the meantime, Leadership busied itself with cleaning up after dinner. We finished these tasks relatively quickly, and found ourselves with nothing to do, and I'm unsure how it started, but someone shot a foam dart at Phillip, and this action evolved into an hour long game that was probably the most fun I've ever had with the leadership team. We started rolling hula-hoops on the grass and attempting to dive, duck, or slip through them before they fell over. Only at camp could such an activity hold the attention of so many adults for so long, but we stood in a circle for a good long while as each of us attempted to run the proverbial gauntlet time and time again. Miah Smith and Chris Orosz (aforementioned Nature Detective) seemed to be the most taken with this activity, but all of the LT was involved. For a long time I did not participate, but a part of my mind was summoned back to the damp shores of Silver Lake, where a Waterfront Director once taught me the subtle science of the running somersault after he had tossed me through the air onto some gravel and wounded my hand. I pondered for a long time whether or not this skill would be applicable in the pursuit of passing through a rolling hula-hoop, and finally decided to practice the maneuver off to the side, much to the amusement of Phillip West. After everyone finished laughing at my reluctance to attempt the roll in the middle of the group, I decided to give it a shot. It was a decided failure, but ended up looking cool and generating more chuckles. Something about my legs coming up always catches the top of the hoop.

I got a little heated talking about the failings of the movie Avatar with Tom Horner, and was disgusted when Andrew "Rope Burn" Wright called that most excellent of TV shows, The X-Files, merely "okay". A less true statement has never been made. Phillip also exported some confusion over the difference between television and film.

As the light fled from the skies, the staff gathered around the campfire, as some primordial imperative seems to consistently drive us into doing. Guitars were unsheathed, songs were sung, and smores were immolated. Tom Horner slipped off into the shadows in his snowy-white Landsmasher, and a number of directors approached me and leaned on me until I agreed to tell a campfire story. The story was the same one previously posted on this blog, and it went perfectly, until I screwed up the very last stanza and then swore quietly. Laughs were had, which were okay, but I still would have liked to get it right. Oh well, this is why we have training, so I can screw up and make things better for the kids.

The staff slept in a huge blob of loud comments and chatter, while Nick Osti and Phillip West retired to the camp van, like the pathetic excuses for outdoorsmen that they are. They encouraged me to join them in their automotive cowering but I retained my dignity and chose to sleep on the ground, as it should be. I am unsure where the Directors went to sleep, but they invisibled themselves quite effectively. After indulging Phillip's ravings on secret code names for roughly twenty minutes, I laid out the sleeping bag that Nick Osti had lovingly packed for me while I was commencing, and put my own sleeping bag on top of it. I laid down, resting my tired head on my right arm, looking forward to harassing Phillip in the morning for his weaknesses. As I lay there, my eyes shut, my mind dim, on the very cusp of sleep, I felt a pair of tiny teeth indenting on my index finger. I was so utterly shocked by this sensation that I jolted awake, my eyes flying open to discover the identity of my toothed attacker. And there, sitting about two feet in front of my face, was my formidable arch-nemesis, glaring at me with all the evil and malice born of a thousand cold and moonless nights spent wandering the hills and vales of this godforsaken rock: a Catalina Island Fox. Weighing in at what looked five pounds, the Nameless Foe regarded me with surprise, I suspect it assumed that I was dead or incapacitated, and had failed to take into account my wiles. I swore loudly in surprise, and smacked my fist against the earth, sending tremors out across the campsite. The Enemy recoiled in fear and disappointment, and scampered off into the bushes. I swear on the United States Constitution that this last paragraph is 100% true.

I was somewhat disturbed by this event, and so I decided to move my gobstopper-containing pack into the van with Nick and Phillip in case of another assault by the evil fox armies. I then moved my sleeping arrangements over near the staff blob, but was soon driven away by the volume. And so I braved the empty field alone, I clutched my heavy flashlight close, and listened to the calls of the foxes in the distance, eventually drifting off into an uneasy slumber.

Hades' Commencement

Now some people are not fans of large research universities, they don't like the feeling of being lost within a sea of undergraduates, regarded by a cold, uncaring administration, as a number rather than a unique and beautiful snowflake. Personally, the 40,000-strong undergraduate population never bothered me all that much, I had my own circle of friends, and when I'd hang out with them it made the place seem as intimate as anywhere else. The 2010 UW Commencement shattered that illusion entirely. It is extremely difficult to feel proud, significant, or satisfied with an achievement when you find yourself surrounded by 4,000 people who have achieved exactly the same honor (or the 169 doctorates who make your own success look pathetic by comparison). It reminds you quite effectively that you are small, average, and insignificant.

Add to this mixture the fact that this was perhaps the hottest day I've ever spent in Seattle, and all of us students are wearing black robes, not to mention the fact that we have to shuffle 4000 pairs of feet across that stage. It was a rough way to spend the afternoon.

Bill H. Gates spoke, and gave a pretty good talk, but the other speakers were mediocre. The student speaker stood out with his fantastically bad performance. I suspect I could have come up with a better speech given ten minutes and a crayon.

However, there was light at the end of the tunnel, and afterward my parents and grandparents took me out to a fantastic dinner at probably the best restaurant in Seattle. I ate me a mighty fine chunk of dead cow, that will probably live in my memory as one of the greatest meals of my life. Kudos to the folks and grandfolks, and many thanks.

I went to bed happy and extremely excited about returning to Catalina the following morning.

Tom Horner is my hero

Yesterday began as days at CIC often do, with a lot of alarms going off and a lot of groans. I have been pretty cold in the mornings lately, I must sneak into Trips like a ninja snake mutant and carry another sleeping bag off into the night, like that time in Jurassic Park when the little dinosaurs carried off that Costa Rican infant and the midwife claimed it was SIDS!

Breakfast was pancakes, but THIS time they had blueberries in them, buried within the dough like juicy berry goldmines. Alright I'll ease up on the extreme analogies. I always like blueberry pancakes, because they remind me of sailing. Those readers out there who are more informed may be shaking their heads and thinking, but David, EVERYTHING reminds you of sailing, (which is amusing since such a thought ignores Star Trek) but seriously, the first time I recall ever having blueberry pancakes was on my parents' 30-foot Ericsson they used to take me out on in the San Juan Islands. Those were awesome trips as a kid.

The morning was dominated by chaseboats. We focused on towing practice, and Claire of Oregon bravely volunteered to sail a sabot while we performed these exercises. After Slater and Owen gave towing a shot (and performed admirably I might add) I switched places with Claire so she could tow a Sabot. I then tested a theory of Slater's that we might be able to empty a large portion of the water out of a righted post-capsize Sabot (for those of you who are unfamiliar, immediately after a Sabot is righted after a capsize, it shares many characteristics with a bathtub full of seawater). This was also nice for my sailors because I had forced them to practice capsizing the day before while I watched from a chaseboat, so now they got to watch me capsize while they stayed dry. Revenge is a dish best served wet? Slater's plan was to pull the bow of the Sabot up out of the water, onto the gunwale of a chaseboat, thus spilling forth the majority of the water from the Sabot hull. As Jae-Zee might have put it, it was a bloody smashing success! We shall see how well the plan works in swells, but for now I am extremely hopeful about our ability to help kids get back into their boats after a capsize with far greater alacrity.

For reasons that remain unclear, Slater chose to go through the whole day affecting an Irish accent. I suspect the Challenge Staff may be responsible. My vengeance will be subtle and terrifying, like an invisible hippopotamus.

After testing the Slater Theorem, I let my peeps go try out the chaseboats beyond D-row for a while, and I sailed over to the skin-divers and harassed them. I managed to catch them at a vulnerable moment, as Kate "McAwesome" Clover had her crew out on the water practicing with camp's brand new fleet of paddleboards. The Paddleboards are colored an orange so extreme it calls to mind the convective layer of the sun, and they look a lot like thin sea kayaks. The idea is you stand up on top of them and paddle them with a longish canoesque paddle. As a result, your center of gravity is quite high, and any wind or waves can be quite harrowing. Just as I approached, the wind kicked up (which was cool because I could sail circles around them) and I started trying to knock Birkey off his paddleboard. I decided it would be a little too malicious to go all the way through with it, and Kate told me to knock it off because she wanted her people to stay warm. I relented, remembering that time in 1812 when the British got upset with us and burned down the White House. Obama is stressed enough already without having to face a flamethrower-wielding Kate Clover.

Lunch was chili cheese fries. I passed and ate a salad. I feel like I'm turning into a whole different person. Also I need to cut down on the dressing, there was a bit too much Caesar on mine. Why is Caesar dressing so-named? I always think about the show Rome when I'm using it and wonder if that most beloved of dictators had anything to do with the dressing that faithfully bears his name two millennia later.

After lunch, I packed up my gear for the overnight and for my trip back to Seattle for UW commencement. Nick "Frodo" Osti and Nick Horner were in Riptide working furiously on the previously mentioned Intentional Camp video for staff training. I heard back from Nosti late last night and apparently the video has turned out great. Way to go Nicks! I finished packing and proceeded to the dock.

This is where my afternoon gets exciting. And ridiculous. And illustrates the truth of this entry's title. So I was set to depart Catalinaland aboard the good ship Island Express, captained by the notoriously evil -and Dutch- Captain Van Der Decken (see proof of his existence), which was to depart out of Twin Harbors at the hour of 2 PM. The legendary pilot Brandon "Scrimshaw" Coble gave me a ride out of CIC to Two Harbors and we left at 1:40. We arrived at the dock without incident, and I proceeded to the ticket counter, where I had to wait to pick up my tickets. I obtained them, turned around, and walked down the dock, only to see that the cruel Van Der Decken had pulled Island Express away from the dock and was reversing toward the channel. I called out to one of his deckhands, inquiring if I could still climb aboard, as Brandon stood ready to shuttle me out to the vessel -a manuever that would have wasted mere seconds-, and the hands all looked up to their mighty and formiddable leader, and he stared down at me from his high perch on the bridge of the Express. I could see the disgust in his eyes, and without hesitating he shook his head, annihilating my dreams of passage across the channel with a slight gesture. I dropped to my knees and screamed out my exasperation to the heavens! Then I called Rasheed "Sugar Frenzy" Anthony.

As I explained to SheedRo what had gone down, a cool thing happened. A great big sea lion flopped up on the Two Harbors beach and started hanging around, right in front of me, so while I explained to Rasheed how I had managed to completely miss the boat (granted it left several minutes early), I got a real good look at the seabeast. It boasted several scars from what might have been sharkteeth, but may have been something more mundane.

I heard Rasheed announce my monumental failure to Tom Horner over the phone, and winced as the entirety of my mishap was laid bare before the boss of bosses, who then leaped into action. Within moments a plan to get me back to Seattle had been outlined and relayed to me. Tom had Brandon Coble whisk me back to CIC, where Tom himself came down to the dock to drive me to Avalon in a Parker so I could catch the 3:45 boat to Long Beach. I called Kevin West (my original ride to the airport) and discovered that he could not deal with the schedule and location switch, and had to back out. Upon hearing this, Tom contacted his sister-in-law by way of Maria and arranged a ride for me to the airport, saving me probably fifty bucks in cab fare. On the way, we got to see all these awesome rock formations that make up the coast of Catalina, and Tom handed over a pass that allowed me to upgrade my ticket and get into the commodore lounge on the Island Express, AND get a free beverage. What an awesome boss I have, I somehow manage to miss the boat and he hooks me up. Thank you so much Tom Horner. You rock.

I ended up catching an earlier flight and got into Seattle at 930 PM instead of midnight, which was a much appreciated reprieve from staying up to unholy hours. I talked briefly with my
grandparents and hit the sack, dreading the endless day of commencement that lay before me.

How Becky stole the internet

So it may have occurred to those of you who follow my demented ravings that I didn't update my blog last night. This was mostly due to the lockdown of the camp interweb by Becky the Administrative Director. I used my charisma to re-establish an internet connection, and will endeavor to continue making entries.

Yesterday, approximately six separate alarms sounded in the halls of Riptide, including P-We's who didn't even sleep here last night. He merely stopped in to play his part in the cacophony. Also no one woke up and went running. We've got to be careful or we're going to build up resistances to our own alarms.

Breakfast was waffles. Someone complimented the symmetrical arrangement of food (bagel, waffles with strawberries, and bacon) on my plate. I blushed.

Knowing that the return of Rasheed was imminent, my associates Emi G and Nick endeavored to make it seem as if they completed a great deal of work in his absence. I busied myself with driver training, which was very laid back as Phil, Jill, and I had been drivers at CIC in the past and were fairly familiar with the procedures. Pretty much we drove around camp in a series of wide turns for several hours. Phil of West failed to back up properly due to an extremely exciting story I was telling but cannot remember the details of.

Lunch was chili dogs. Nick did not approve. I didn't put chili on mine.

After lunch, Becky summoned the driving triumvirate (Phil, Jill, Vid) to pilot the mighty and venerable camp vans down the long, winding road that leads to Two Harbors and the semblance of civilization. The ride out with Phil was a lot of fun, we chewed the fat and he said a lot of things about his personality that I didn't understand. We arrived in the TH without incident (you will never find a greater hive of scum and villainy) and met the Catalina Express, which had borne its precious cargo of 20-something CIC staff across the channel and unloaded them in town. We met them, hugged the precious few returning staff members, (curse you Stephen!) and awkwardly pretended like we were meeting the new staff for the first time, even though we all had stalked each other mercilessly via facebook for weeks beforehand. We loaded up their gear and took off for camp. On the way back I nearly drove the van off a cliff, which spiced up the journey for all involved.

The afternoon consisted of waterfront orientation. Miah taught us all the ways of the waterfront. This ensemble was concluded with a brief swim test. It was somewhat cold in the waters of the Catalina that day.

Dinner was tacos, and my roommates all concur, they were delicious.

The evening marked the beginning of Specialist Training. I assembled the Sailfleet for the very first time, and we discussed the basics of the sailing program. I feel much more confident and prepared this year, it seems as if everything has changed about my outlook toward leadership and the sailing program, and for the better.

"The sea hates a coward." Eugene O'Neil

Today began with another glorious alarm chorus, but at least this time Andrew got up and lifted some weights. He apparently fucked it up and managed to give himself a massive blood blister. Which he later popped on camera in a grisly display of manliness. I'd upload the video but it was overly disgusting for me to view.

Breakfast was breakfast burritos. Could have used a meat component. Or beans. Still, I ate well.

This morning we enjoyed an epic training session led by the infamous Tom Kern on the intricacies of chaseboating. Tom employed his celebrated wisdom and quirky style to train us on the various boats in the CIC navy. My staff performed admirably, in particularly their docking abilities were impressive. After Tom Kern's dissertation we took the Zane Gray (a boston whaler named for a prolific writer of westerns) out to Ship Rock, and showed my staff around the general area around Howland's Landing (cove where camp is located). This was a lot of fun, everyone got a chance to drive, we chilled with some sea lions, it was a great morning.

Lunch was sandwich day, AGAIN. I love it. Sandwich day is like the best day of the YEAR. I could compose epic poems to the glory that is making my own sandwich at this camp. Perhaps with vikings.

After lunch we had an afternoon packed with sailing. We rigged up a Capri and took it out, and practiced a complex Jack Sparrow-esque maneuver that involved me leaping off of a moving sailboat as it passed the dock at full speed. My sailors indulgently allowed me to practice this trick several times. After this we took out sabots and practiced capsizing. All in all, an excellent afternoon of strong winds and hulls slicing through the waves.

Dinner was meatloaf.

After dinner I met with my sailors, discussed some stuff. Then I attempted to edit the footage produced by the Cabin Crew using the Apple-produced nightmare that is iMovie. Now I am a man who believes that people should be able to choose to buy computers that are designed to be used by idiots, it just infuriates me when I am reduced to utilizing them as well. The complete lack of customization on that program is so aggravating that I want to turn into the Hulk and go on a doomspree through downtown Cupertino. Anyway, the attempt failed, as did my attempts to install Adobe Premiere Elements on Rasheed's laptop, so pretty much the movie has not been edited. Hopefully Nick and the Cabin Crew will be able to figure it out over the weekend while I am off graduating. Adios.

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" - Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

Cetaceans of Catalina

I awoke this morning to the sound of Nick Osti's missile-launch style alarm from his iPhone, only to hear him groan and veto his own prior decision to run before breakfast. It apparently rained last night, and while I was initially mortified at the possibility my sailing manuals which I had left out last night would be utterly destroyed, fortunately the Force was with me, someone had placed a big plastic box on top of them and inadvertently safeguarded them from utter annihilation. It actually drizzled all day today, I pity the lifeguards immensely.

Breakfast was the traditional meal of specialist meetings, The egg McHowland's sandwich.

Today started off pretty mellow, finished up planning my staff training days, then worked on the movie some more. I hope it isn't too complex for Rasheed to decipher. Becky the Administrative Director became annoyed with my presence in the office around 11 AM, and diplomatically suggested I take a Capri out on the water in the afternoon. I required minimal convincing.

Lunch was melted cheese and bacon sandwiches. I approved heartily.

After lunch I rigged up a Capri and took it out along with Andrew and Jill, which was immensely enjoyable. I spent a few minutes teaching Andrew to operate the boat and he actually manned the helm for the rest of the voyage. Instead of yelling 'helm's a-lee' to let us know he was tacking, he chose to yell 'Helm's Deep'. I was okay with that mistake. We tacked up into Emerald Bay, waved at the Scout Camp, then saw a bunch of seagulls clustered over a spot out beyond Arrow Point. In the interest of spotting a shark, I ordered Andrew to reach out toward the area. When we got close we realized that actually it was a pod of dolphins that had corralled a school of fish together and were devouring them. We were able to get pretty close (unfortunately couldn't get any good pictures) but it was an amazing sail. Dolphins swam right up to the boat to check us out, there must have been a couple dozen of them.

Dinner was chicken and mashed potatoes. I keep eating salad too. What is happening to me?

Now I'm in the office answering Star Wars trivia with the leadership team. More money more problems!

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way." - John Paul Jones, Father of the American Navy