A Seasonal’s Greetings
When people ask me where I live, I’ll say Catalina Island for simplicity, but the truth is, I make my home all up and down the stunning West Coast of this country. For 2 years I have shuffled and shifted jobs and houses from the blue waters of Catalina to the dark forests of Alaska and bounced around everywhere in between. I rearrange my life with the turn of each season, chasing salmon, halibut, crab in the summer, and yellowtail, bonito, and lobster in the winter. Our government would classify me as “casually employed”, and while I bristle a bit at that designation, I’ll admit that I’ve essentially been on a paid vacation since college. Brilliant sunsets, breaching whales, shark fins breaking the surface at dawn, leaping dolphins, I have beheld wonders! For all this, the greatest treasures I’ve encountered in my journeys have been the amazing people who cross my path. Students, teachers, tourists, guides, locals, friends and family, I’ve been so privileged to share in their stories. Unfortunately for them, and for me, I’m awfully hard to track down in my life of constantly shifting addresses and cell phone coverage. So today, on Christmas Eve of 2016, I’m writing to a few of you to give a glimpse of my year and my adventures. Prepare to be jealous.
2016 began with a free cruise courtesy of my employers on Catalina to the so-called Mexican Riviera. The highlight was Cabo San Lucas, infamous tourist trap, where some of my co-workers knew a local kid who had worked at our summer camp named Alex. He and his twin brother met us at the dock and transformed Cabo from the spring break swamp I’d expected into an extremely fascinating stop. Breaching whales, dramatic geography, leaping stingrays, and damned fine fish tacos, enough said. Locals have this incredible power to cut through the crap and bring out the magic in a place, whether it be Seattle, Ketchikan, or Malvern, Ohio. My advice to travelers is go where you know! Not a place you know, but where you have friends or family, the kind of people who can truly show you what makes a place special. For those of you who don’t travel as much, save me a spot on your couch!
After the cruise I returned to the Catalina Environmental Leadership Program for a quiet winter that rapidly transformed into a busy spring. The drought withers on in the Channel Islands, even if Northern California has been quenched, and we worked very hard this year to save every drop of water we could. I’ll admit, I became a little pungent. It’s funny, when I first came to the island, I was, for an environmental educator, rather resistant to sustainable practices and environmental science. Over the years though, that place, it's message of building a green future, and so many inspiring people have steadily chipped away at my resolutions against hippiedom. My sister experienced this firsthand this week when she tossed an avocado skin in the garbage rather than the compost. Let no tree go unhugged!
For the summer I returned to Ketchikan, embraced by my seasonal brethren and locals alike. Once more I was guiding zodiacs across the cold green waters of Alaska, praying to Poseidon under my breath for whales, tossing tilapia at eagles, and sipping entirely too much good beer at the Asylum. The summer started quietly, but as I grew closer to my old and new comrades, the weeks began to fly by as each day became filled to the brim with fishing, hiking, paintball, sailing, and some very high quality Dungeons and Dragons. The pinnacle was when we stacked 14 people onto my buddy Devon’s 27 foot sailboat and cruised into the Tongass Narrows for the 4th of July. We bluffed the US Coast Guard, sang sea shanties to the entire city of Ketchikan perched on the cruise berths, and Devon sailed us all directly underneath the finale of the fireworks show, it was like sailing into a cathedral of fire. The summer was once again unusually warm, with sunny days more common than the rainy ones, but after so many months of dry, crackling heat in California, the sound of rain falling on the sea was music to my ears, recalling distant memories of Puget Sound. Convincing tourists of the same thing proved challenging, but I realized the trick to a good tour is to have more fun than your guests could ever dream of having. My first summer was all about learning what Ketchikan was, this one was about enjoying it.
Adjusting to Catalina again after such a vibrant summer in Alaska was a struggle initially, but the season turned into one of the best I’ve had in a long time. I took another step on my road to hippie by finally utilizing my hammock on a regular basis, and spent many an afternoon wrapped up in that thing, reading Shantaram, a book I highly recommend to anyone reading this. As the pelagic fishes lingered into September, I took up my speargun once more and plunged into our crystal waters. As fun as that was, my Alaskan summer had given me a taste for trolling, and we managed to hook quite a few good sized bonito. We had 90% of our lobster pots lost or stolen, so that kind of put the Dentinger Lobster Experience out of business for the year, but stay tuned for future upgrades. I got very excited about Canary Island Garlic Mojo Sauce this season, and you could find a bottle of my custom garlic-laden sauce at the staff table for most every meal. This was a treat, but in a series of unfortunate circumstances that I shall spare you, I discovered that it is in fact possible to eat too much garlic in a day, it is wise to limit yourself to no more than 4 raw cloves!
Left Catalina and began another epic road trip back to Bellingham, Washington. After my family’s thanksgiving in the Bay, I flew out to Malvern Ohio to see my Ketchikan friends at their Friendsgiving. Much like Cabo, with the right guide any place can reveal it's hidden value. At one point a very nice man from Ohio asked me to ‘explain California’ which led to an excellent conversation about politics. A take home lesson for me, and for all of us, is that no matter who you voted for, the vast majority of us are sane and are hoping for a brighter, better future. Whenever we assume the other candidate’s supporters aren’t worth listening to or understanding, we help to reinforce the deep divisions that we saw so loudly demonstrated over the past year in this country. Pardon the nod to the political.
Joined by Grayson and Turtle from Catalina, we meandered North, deeper and deeper into the familiar forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest. When you leave Southern California for Washington State, your autumn occurs at whatever pace you can make it up I-5, the sun and palm trees quickly overtaken by cold winds, towering trees, and snowy mountain passes. Showing my friends around the northwest gave me a new appreciation for this place, as we’d round a corner into a valley I’ve known from childhood and their jaws would drop at the vista. We took out my father’s sailboat into the San Juan islands and overnighted at Friday Harbor, the beauty there was otherworldly, it was as if we had departed Middle Earth and arrived in Valinor. I was only in Washington for 8 days in 2015, and it has been wonderful coming back home and getting lost in the ever-changing streets of Bellingham. The snows have fallen and melted several times since I’ve been back, it’s among the coldest winters I’ve seen here in a long while.
I find my role in the ecosystem of my parents house is to cook as much as possible so as to offset my alien presence. Another trick I picked up this year was the joy of cooking for others, usually a big piece of meat. Nothing says “I’m glad to be your friend” like showing up unannounced at your friend’s place with 2 racks of ribs and a 4 hour plan to make them heavenly. Tonight I’m preparing a crown roast of pork with stuffed with apples, bacon, and shallots. If it works my parents will be satiated for one more night, if not, there’s a lot of beer nestled into the snow on their balcony! Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this, each of you enriches my life every day.
Happy New Year, and May the Force be with You.
-David Dentinger
