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.
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