Doing the Math

It started with the four adversities of surfski paddling: wind, cold, rain, dark, all nasty little four-letter words. Ostensibly two together were not enough to keep a paddler from going out, but you throw in a third and the coffee shop begins to look real cozy.

Zero of the four adversities exist over most of November in San Diego, so out we go, no excuses. Dawn patrol is especially spectacular under coastal clouds.

On a planet with more than seven billion humans, 2.2 million of whom live in this city, I am often alone out here. Or a half dozen of us on SUPs, surfskis, OC-1s or OC-2s, on the ocean, two or three or four miles offshore, while a mile inland, the 71,295 seat Qualcomm Stadium is overflowing with fans for the Chargers game.

We live by the numbers.

The evening news programs tell us two window washers dangled for one hour from the 69^th floor of One World Trade Center. And though they say there is no “I” in team, one man from Seal Team 6 can claim he was the guy who shot Public Enemy #1, Osama bin Laden. There are 8,500 homeless individuals in San Diego.

America has 80 million people age 55 and older. And there are three times more chickens on the planet than there are humans.

A 220-lb landing craft spent 10 years in flight to land 316 million miles away on Comet 67P, a 2.5-mile wide ball of rock and ice moving more than 40,000 mph, to look for clues about the creation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

Really? I would have put it at 6.5 billion. But what do I know? Does anyone really know enough to dispute that 4.5 billion figure? Let's try the age of Kennewick Man, the most complete ancient skeleton ever found, supposedly from 7,300 to 7,600 BC. To me he doesn't look a day over 4,000.

 Most of us can’t do the math, so it's a blind trust. Time and space, unfathomable fathoms, the data continually updates the intangible universe of the tangible environment that has a primal impact on our well-being.

The Nature Conservancy tells us that between years 2000 and 2012, some 2.3 million square kilometers of the world’s forests, appx. the area of all U.S. states east of the Mississippi, were cut down. Unfortunately for organizations looking to rally support for opposition (is that an oxymoron?) maybe only farmers can grasp the size ratio here. And they’re too busy trying to keep Monsanto seeds out of their fields to do much protesting.

Consider that a four-square-mile patch of rainforest contains 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds and 150 species of butterflies. Imagine telling those butterflies to just hold still a moment while you finish counting that swath of tangled vines, snakes and loamy soil. Glad someone else got that job. I'll take their word for it.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified to have cancer-fighting properties. Less than one percent of the plants in that shrinking forest have been analyzed for their medical values. So while these forests represent limitless healing potential, we continue at  breakneck speed in their destruction. Of six million square miles of tropical rainforest originally on the planet, only 2.4 million square miles remain. When the collective hum of bulldozers leveling trees in the forest go silent because there is no longer a forest, will anyone hear it?

Most people agree that three is three and five is five, so this helps humans communicate important tenets like the amount of fat or carbohydrate calories we need in our diets. Now if only those scientists could agree on the number. It's still a moving target.

Academics are kind of like nutritionists this way. They've devised tests to monitor the learning accomplishments of our children each year, not so we can devise better ways to allow teachers to teach, necessarily, but so we can better categorize students. Because that's important.

These tests supply voracious data crunchers plenty of raw material to play with, while serving up stress cocktails to children who aren't of drinking age yet. Beyond the critical analysis of whether it’s one fish or two fish that are either red or blue fish, we seem to have veered off the path of mighty adventure in the classroom.

Don't get me wrong, numbers matter. Indeed, my age (big number) came in handy yesterday for a senior discount at a thrift store.

And it helps when the numbers are relevant. Like how many 8-oz blocks of cream cheese you need to make a cheesecake (3) and how many hours it takes to make one (4). I know the effect of two degrees increase in temperature of D-76 at 7.5 minutes with minimal agitation and a looming deadline on a microscopic sheet of silver alloy. Ok, that's not really relevant since we've gone digital. I know. I know. But some numbers just stick. I remember the phone number our family had when I was six. And the address. And the license plate of our mud brown Chevy Nova station wagon.

I studied works by the f/64 gang of Edward Weston, Consuelo Kanaga, Imogen Cunningham and eight others, and memorized Ansel Adams’ Zone System which made it relevant to assign numbers to shades of grey from black to white.

Socially we attach great importance to implied numbers like first or last: the first state in the nation, first woman to swim the English Channel, first athlete to admit to doping, implying that, for a while at least, there is only one.

Clearly we use numbers to pass judgment: She’s one of a kind, more is better, it doesn’t count, the evidence doesn’t add up.

If your lucky number is three, then is nine three times as lucky? Are there still buildings without a 13th floor, and do people really believe going from 12 to 14 means there's no 13? If an Oreo is awewsome, then shouldn’t double-stuffed be more better?

Some numbers define entire generations like those who lived through WWI and WWII.  Millenials wonder if we are looking down the throat of a WWIII in the Middle East. Will it be the last one? Can wars ever face extinction, like so many butterflies or First Nation Peoples? Am I a better person if I have more followers on Twitter? Even though Taylor Swift's new song about pretending to not care she was dumped has been number one on the pop charts for three weeks, I still can't listen to more than three seconds of it.

Aside from those senior discounts, age represents nothing important. This summer when my 84-year-old mother visited, she helped a 75-year-old man with a cane get on the plane. Some of my friends are five or ten years older than I am, some are five years younger.

They're all twice as fast as I am. Ok, it's a personal problem. I admit that. Some have two dozen triathlons, Molokai and Ironman races to their credit as well as three more decades of intense fun on the ocean. I'm loving trying to catch up.

It was the young 49-year-old who had a heart attack while we were paddling, revealing a 90% blockage in one artery, quickly repaired with a stent. Two weeks later he won his age division in the La Jolla Shores 9.2 mile surfski race.

From South Africa and Spain, to California and Maine, two weeks later, the paddling community came together as one body holding its collective breath, then letting it out again in a frozen sigh as one of six paddlers missing during the Pete Marlin Surf-ski Race was missing too long. With winds at 47-its, swells at 6.5 meters, the six went unaccounted for. Five were found safe on the beach, but as winds increased to 60 kts in the afternoon, the search intensified on land, sea and by air. The race from Orient Beach to Yellowsands, East London was supposed to take appx three hours. For his family and friends and those who searched it was an eternity until he was found 40 km north of the race finish site, sadly, two days later, having succumbed to the conditions.

Symbolically, when a great athlete leaves the field for good, we retire their number.

We hope in numbers, as though a definitive numerical response will close a chapter when we reach that number. Like, how many more Black youths will be shot by White police officers before it stops? How many more patriotic, dedicated soldiers, sailors and Marines will be raped by fellow military personnel before it ends?

If campaign finance reform were to actually eliminate PAC money would politicians be forced to answer to the will of the people who voted for them?  Is there a limit to the carnage one wildman on PCP can inflict in one alley at 3 a.m.? (you should have seen it).

But we wonder most deliciously without numbers. We use the unfathomable as permission to enter the ether of Wonder itself: stars in the sky, times we can fall in love, masterpieces Michelangelo created in one lifetime, how long a Twinkie can sit outside the package before it shows signs of aging. We are better off not trying to do the math on some things. I could be wrong, but I’m not.

Yakkin Friendship Tour

Beginning a 3,000-mile drive, I was the consummate water sport commercial, breezing through OC and LA, with a bright yellow Avocet sea kayak and red Fanatic SUP strapped to the roof. Thankfully, I breezed through LA where KRTH was resuscitating Supertramp. Further fortified by coffee in Oxnard with uber-paddler Kim Hayashi, the Fanatic found a new family amidst her many ocean toys. I was off again while Kim went in search of a new SUP paddle.

North of Santa Barbara the coastline becomes more intricately carved. Wind waves at El Refugio and Avila Beach were torched white by the low sun. Still in radio static zone, I was saved from pretending I'd found some interesting thoughts in my head, when forced to concentrate on the tight curves on Hwy 101 snaking inland. Massive oaks dotted the dry hillsides, a magnificent arboreal buffalo herd of indigenous California trees, sadly fragile and stressed by consecutive years of drought.

Finally, I was in the lands of the PIG: radio worth listening to. Democracy Now, Lucinda Williams, Johnny Winter. The PIG stayed with me through Salinas and the coastal mountains, through the cool Impressionistic fog: a grey-green landscape accented by bright red, blue, yellow jackets and scarves bent over cabbage and onions. In Hillsborough I lost the PIG. In Prunedale I hoped the residents had a good sense of humor.

The Avocet was relinquished temporarily into Judy Walgren's garage while I stretched my legs for about 7 miles through hilltop community gardens, the SFSU campus, around Lake Merced and up Ocean Avenue. I passed one beauty salon called Pretty Lady. Two blocks later was another salon called Grace and Mercy, likely for those that couldn't be saved at Pretty Lady.

They say SF has the lowest density of trees per urban mile. Hard to fathom, considering Golden Gate Park. But who would care? Everyone I passed on Market Street was urgently buried in a cell phone.

Two nights with Judy Walgren, son Theo and Stella the Burmese Mountain dog, were a much-needed infusion of visual storytelling righteousness and puppy love. Even the publisher stopped in to pet Stella while I waited in Judy's office at the Chronicle.

The Yak Friendship Tour had to bypass Ft. Bragg since the Liquid Fusion crew was kayaking on the Lost Coast. Next time Jefe & Cate! Instead I was swept up by tractor-trailer rigs into the mountains towards Medford. I found myself in a nightmare of environmental fragility. The red clay walls of Shasta Lake uncloaked by drought screamed “forever… from now on…  the new normal”. In Talent, Oregon a man emerged from a dusty trailer to inspect my Avocet for Quagga mussels and hand me a certificate of clean. "Excellent choice," he said of my next destination: Oceanside.
The Oregon coastal pine forest smelled like mushrooms. A strong Southerly wind tried to unpeel the fingers of a dense, low fog clinging to tree tops. The forest spit me out at a tall sea cliff in fading light above people and dogs wandering across a vast sand spit.

Randy Olson helped me unload his Avocet into the mountain of construction materials that will be a warm, welcome den of creativity on a mountainside for he and Melissa Farlow when it’s completed. It was hard to leave the Olson family compound after a night of local produce and conversation. They chose wisely, and I can’t wait to go back there.

SUP-ers from Portland passed me, heading for the coast as I sped towards the city to see my brother working a convention, then up to Seattle for breakfast with Alan Berner, with tales of his most recent exhibit and new book Gone West, his extensive collection of images, in collaboration with a German poet.

 

A violinist serenaded ferry passengers with Celtic tunes as we pushed off from Anacortes, Mt. Hood looming off to the east. I studied the swirling currents below, wondering which ones would trip us up in a few days. But in the meantime, my mission in Friday Harbor was feeding the chickens, pulling weeds in my potato patch and shopping for wine in a grocery store where the check-out line single-word magazine titles are Bacon, Chickens, Tricycle, Community.

Conversations on the LeBlanc patio beneath the giant sunflowers revolve around the latest Sarah Palin family bar brawl, of course, and recipes for ratatouille and currant cordials. Peggy and Jim have built Shangri-la on a quiet inlet, complete with island foxes and talented friends.

So when Barb Tomita and Ken Fry joined us, to live in the LeBlanc’s elegant Shaqteau cottage, the party included more hikes and a shakedown paddle. Crabs walked up from the beach to bathe in the LeBlancs’ stovetop bathtubs while Ken and I reviewed the charts for our island excursion.

I was the lucky one who had just dropped a log on the Saturday night bonfire, looking up just in time to see a falling star explode. A handful of people heard me yell in time to see its last burst. I considered the meteor a good omen.

 Peggy saw us off at dawn: Friday Harbor Gothic with paddles not pitchforks, skirts not suspenders. We followed the morning wave of squawking Canadian geese out around the freckled sea lions lounging on Danger Rocks before crossing the channel with a dolphin escort to Shaw Island, where Ken spotted the lone eagle sentry on a bare snag waiting for breakfast.

Barb masterfully picked the least turbulent line across the strong eddylines in the channel. We took a casual beach break on Shaw before landing 12 miles later at Obstruction Park on the southeast arm of Orcas. This glorious sandy beach and shaded campgrounds on the cliff above are accessible to day hikers after a mile walk from a parking lot in the woods, so we were not completely alone. Indeed, a pack of 20-somethings arrived soon after dark with unknown quantities of alcohol and a loud German shepherd that gave me nightmares about rude people.

Since we were not scheduled to launch until 1 pm according to shifting currents, we took our time rolling up tents, eating breakfast, getting into neoprene clothing. The air temp was 68, but the water was 48, so we needed to dress somewhat thoughtfully. I made no apologies for tying our kayaks to roots and logs the night before, even though the tide didn’t quite reach our boats. Better safe than sorry. We shared our morning beach with three young people: a woman in a skirt and sandals quietly folding blankets, a blond man with a Fitz (and the Tantrums) haircut in yoga pants shyly shifting through asanas in the smooth stones, and a second man with a round babyface framed by a dark beard reading from a book heavy with neon green plastic page tabs.

Then began our tango with ferries. Catching a downwind swell on the west side of Blakely Island, we rolled along at 6.5 mph in loaded sea kayaks across Thatcher Pass. Not bad! We waited for ferry traffic to pass before crossing the opening to Decatur Island. Both islands had steep cliffs, difficult even for deer to navigate. And despite the push from current, it felt long before we rested in a cove. Decatur has long spits of sand, small forested hills, tiny beach communities well protected. This is a nice island to escape to. Baby cormorants serenaded us on the open water making us smile before pushing the last mile to James Island.

We had our choice: camp with a view of the sunset, the sunrise, or both. The island is so small, anything was possible. We opted for the sunset, but in the morning brought our wet clothing and coffee mugs to the east side, welcoming the warmth of day and warily watching freighters heading north towards Canadian waters. Lodgepole pines masqueraded as redwood saplings. Kingfishers swooped down on us, diving and rolling. This was my favorite island. Beautiful trails into the woods, sheltered beaches, excellent views, even newly constructed bathrooms.

Thankfully, Barb and Ken had paddled this route to Anacortes before, so between them we navigated the shipping channel and found our way to Washington Park on the mainland successfully evading collision with tugs or ferries or freighters. Retrieving my car from the long-term lot up the hill, we loaded the kayaks and gear, arriving at the rental house in Anacortes at happy hour. At sea for three days without a fresh water shower is about max for most people. ‘nuff said.

Our well-coordinated shuttle involved Peggy driving Ken’s car over from San Juan Island in the morning on her weekly foray to Anacortes, loading my kayak on said car, unloading it onto rollers at the Anacortes ferry and walking on, walking off in Friday Harbor where Jim and I loaded it onto his truck so it could return to his woodshop rafters. I walked back on to the ferry after a quick cup of Joe. Ken and Barb picked me up in Anacortes. We had dinner in town, getting one meal to-go before picking up Peggy at work and dropping her at the 8 pm ferry back to San Juan Island, hot food in hand. Phew. Are we good or what? And then it rained ever so slightly.