On Desire

To Wisconsin!

Trash, Throw away, toss
Until the whole world is lost
But wait! There’s no such thing as junk
Only magical sustainable funk

There’s an anonymous invisible army
Finding rubber, glass and metal
For creating amazing creatures
That bark, buzz and pedal

Ritch, Ellery, Anna and Goober
Do the making schtick
In a well worn fixit station
Not far from Schaawe crick

Just as the leaves grow go and grow again
And water falls, flys and falls
Adhoc animals come to life
And sound thier secret calls
They speak to us of future
They remind us of the past
They help us pay attention
And of course, they makes us laugh

It’s 9:00 am at Rapid River, Michigan on the Stonington Penninsula. There’s a big wind ready to blow me south to Green Bay and beyond. Robot weather reports are out of commission as my little radio got wet on the trip across the Big Bay Du Noc. I’m relying on windfinder.com which predicted windspeeds falling to 17 mph by 10:00am. That’s my tentative launch time. Theoretically running with the wind matches boat speed to wind speed, so if I can handle the boat in this blow then I’ll make Wisconsin in an hour or two.

Launch canceled. Ritch and I drove up to the boat and it’s blowing 20 mph steady with gusts to 25-30. Chilly too. I’ll be here another day looks like. Good for a blog update!

Ritch and I discovered several additional artifacts of sustainable civilizations in our interviews.

I spent the night at Dune Buggy Blowouts, my name for the sandy beach  I detoured to after yesterdays intense push to Summer Island. From a mile or two away, it looked very inviting. Upon landing, I found tire tracks everywhere. I thought I might just take a rest for an hour or so and continue sailing, but after taking inventory I decided to make camp and get a fresh start the next day. I was pretty sure Summer was just around the next point and could easily reach Stonington the next day if the steady south wind showed up as predicted.

The problem was finding a place to throw down a sleeping bag – there wasn’t 6 feet of flat sand that wasn’t covered with tracks. There were no motors whining at the moment so maybe they showed up at night. I found an little bowl overlooking the boat and the bay, windblown to be sure but free of tire sign. As I sat preparing dinner, the robot radio warned of rain, so I figured a tent would be in order. Yes the wind would kick it about a little, no big deal. Early evening found me well fed and inside the tent, practically paralyzed with fatigue. It was all I could do to take off my pants.

Around 11:30 pm I awoke to the stacatto slap of tent fabric, the wind had come up. I felt sand settling on my face as the tent was contorted and deformed in the blow. After lamely yearning for a lazy alternative, I resigned myself to retreat. Dressing and sorting out the explosion of gear around me, I moved everything about 50 feet away, behind a big dune.  Just as I finished, zipped up the tent and lay down, it started to rain. Timing!

I was back up at 7:00 am and on the boat by 10:00 am. The wind was wrong for getting out of the bay, but I was able to pull in some cell reception and call Ritch Branstrom on the Stonington Penninsula, just around the corner and across the Big Bay Du Noc. Eventually I tacked out of the hole, turned the corner and glided over to Stonington on steady south winds. The sun even broke through as I rounded Stonington and spotted Escanaba.

An ominous sky as I approach the Summer Islands and the crossing of the BIg Bay du Noc

I called Ritch all giddy at arriving with the sun still up and asked him how to spot his brother’s house, just two miles from the mouth of the bay. Oops! Ritch explained that mouth meant where the bay starts, still 18 miles more to go. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind coming to pick me up, I just wasn’t prepared to sail another 18 miles in twilight. I beached her Hello World limestone cliffs on private property (after getting permission from the owners) and proceeded to unpack the boat and stow the sails. Ritch, Anna and Ellery arrived in time to help me roll the boat up to the cliffs and we set off for their house in the Astrovan.

Home for Hello World during our stay on the Stonington Peninsula

I jettisoned the sludge around 9:00 am and headed southwest, with the intention of hyper jumping 40 miles across the UP and camping just past the Garden Peninsula on summer island. It was to be a short and very intense day.

The wind was blowing from the NE at a solid 15 – 20 mph and the swells were 10+ feet from trough to crest. The first 2 hours were some of the most exhilarating and awe inspiring I’ve ever lived.

For those of you who ski or snowboard, think about moguls. Approaching a field of moguls at speed, the mind slips into a space where evaluation and reaction blend together, we observe our decisions rather than make them. Now imagine the moguls moving, rising up and collapsing all around, rushing at you, pulling away.

A Hobie 16 has two basic controls, the tiller by which the rudders turn the boat and the sheet lines that control the tension on the main sail and the jib, which determines how fast the boat moves. When running with the wind, the jib may not be so important as it is often blocked by the main sail. On this day only the tiller (direction) and main sheet line (speed) are relevant.

Technical explanation starts…

Airplanes are sucked up into the air, not thrust up into it. Airfoils (wings) are so shaped that air traveling over the wing is moving faster than air traveling under the wing, lowering the air pressure at the top because the fast moving air thins out. Lower pressure (vacuum) at the top sucks the wing up.

A fabric sail can take a wing shaped profile too and that’s the most efficient kind of sailing, enabling boats to go faster than the wind. Instead of going up, the sailing ‘wing’ is pulled forward. When the wind is coming from directly behind the sailboat and the sheet is at right angles to the hull, the wing shape isn’t possible because the wind only has access to one side of the sail. In this situation the sail is pushed by the wind so the speed of the boat is about the same as the speed of the wind.

Loosening the sheet lines allows the sail to swing towards 90 degrees, decreasing speed. Tightening the sheet with a corresponding change of direction enables the wind to travel past both sides of the sail, increasing speed. Keep in mind that going slower doesn’t mean stopping. Running with a 15 mph wind, the boat will be traveling about 15 mph. The only way to apply brakes is to get out of the wind. Imagine a car that could only slow down only if it turned 180 degrees. Might be tough to u-turn if you are going 50 mph.

Wait a minute, 15 mph isn’t very fast! Going 15-20 mph on a 16 ft Hobie cat on big water feels like going 50 mph on a motorcycle or 90 mph in a car.  Screwing up in any case could be bad. There’s loose ropes to get tangled up in, big hunks of aluminum and fiberglass flying through the air if the hobie flips and of course plenty of water for drowning. Trust me, 15-20 mph on a Hobie cat is intense.

Technical explanation ends…

Esoteric explaination begins…

Sailing is a collaboration between the crew, the boat and the local manifestation of the universe. Think about this – the sailboat and sailor are a synergy, alone they can do nothing but together they form a unique entity, a sailing being. The sailor senses and acts with her entire body, the face and hands read the direction and speed of the invisible wind, the eyes take in sail telltales and shape, what the water is up to and where the hell she is going. The body feels the swell and drop of the boat on the water, the pitch and roll of the hulls. The ears hear how the boat frame is twisting, the song of the rudders, how the water is rushing past the hulls and the bluster of the air as it interacts with the boat. In intense wind complete body presence is required, an absolute activation of sense and ability. It’s an ecstatic state, an excellent terror.

Can a boat be conscious? I give my consciousness to the boat and integrate myself (submerge or release) into the aluminum, dacron and steel. I can think, but it’s SO not needed – and can even be a dangerous. I give my mentation to the synergy and it spreads out over the whole being, into every rope and wire. What I am has fuzzy edges, my edges don’t stop at my skin or even the hulls and sails. I am the surging water, the moving air, the warming sun or the ominous clouds – it’s all relevant. Effective action in the center of a synergy is thought free, I am not because I think, I am because I am. Once I let it out and open it up, consciousness is clearly everywhere. Getting in that space is to tap into true power.

Esoteric explaination ends…

Ok so, enough exposition, back to the story. I am on a 16 foot Hobie Cat with about 500 lbs of cargo. That’s the equivalent of 3 medium sized sailors, close to the maximum crew capacity for the Hobie 16. 330 lbs of that is dead weight, backpacks that need to be shifted and secured for proper balance. Live crew would supposedly go where they were told without pushing and prodding. I am wearing a harness hooked into a long wire attached to the mast, this let’s me shift my weight to where it’s needed to balance the boat. Left hand ready on the sheet line and right hand grabs the tiller. There’s a 15-20 mph wind behind the boat and 15 foot waves rising and collapsing all around, moving approximately in the same direction as the wind.

Here’s a taste of what inner dialog might sound like if there was time to have it. The following paragraph would take about 3 seconds in realtime and my reactions would be automatic, without deliberation.

We (me and Hello World) tighten the sheet (sheet in) and turn slightly to the left (port) to rush up the sloping back of a big wave, lining up with the wave with a slight starboard turn as we reach the tippy top.  As the wave crest white caps and curls, we teeter over the brink and hurtle down the wave’s face, dropping 15 feet over 20 feet of forward travel, immediately loosening the sheet (sheet out) and sliding over to port to keep the forward tips of our hulls from digging into the bottom of the wave’s trough. As the hulls glide into the trough we sheet in to accelerate up the next wave… but wait, the next wave is already collapsing, we’re in a wind shadow from the wave we just rode. Hard to port, sheet in and accelerate! Racing parallel to the waves, we find another wave to climb – faster! Don’t let a big wave hit us broadside and roll us over, here it comes – too late! Hard turn to starboard, ass to the wave and surf it for all it’s worth, sheet out! Turn to port, sheet in and up out of the new trough, quick!

Sheet in, sheet out, weave back and forth, climb and surf – for two hours! I felt fluid, automatic, intuitive. All the endless hours as a kid on the Hobie 14 came back to me, the tai chi like slow motion sailing in hardly a puff of wind, the hold on for dear life crazy ass blowing shouting for survival. All that time I was just playing around, thrills and fun – of no consequence, no importance… or so I thought. That experience came bubbling up to serve me in the moment. I didn’t know I knew how to sail like that. It was sublime.

After two hours the wind let up a bit and I could come off of DEFCON 5 – high alert. Though it never felt like stress or unpleasant, just scary and wonderful.

With all this heavy manuevering, Zilliax’s bike began to eat through it’s ropes. One bungie stood between me and total disaster, I had to stop for an emergency fix.  To have a frigging bicycle dragging under the boat in these conditions would be unthinkable and horrific. So it was that I crash landed on the next available spit of land. Coming in at a moderately high speed, we hit the shallow stony bottom and skidded over 50 feet with much crunching and grinding. I jumped off and secured the bike while Hello World was rocked back and forth on it’s hard perch. Getting her out of the shallows was an epic feat, but at last we were back in open water.

I knew that Summer Island was just beyond the last point on the Garden Peninsula, but point after point passed without any sign of an island. After another hour or so of hard sailing, I started thinking about taking a break. To the north, a tempting blowout beckoned. I decided to turn right and give it a rest…

1:00 pm when we landed, 4 hours total transit time, with an hour spent fixing bike ropes and sidetracking to a rest stop. 40 miles in an intense 3 hours. A personal, phew, record.

I saw the Upper Penninsula of Michigan pretty quick but my vector brought the coast up gradually. As the shore came into view, I could not see the rosy beige colors of friendly quartz sand beaches, but rather blue water breaking on gray shelves of stone. Not ideal for landing, but the wind was moderate. Simultaneously drawing closer and moving up the coast, the gray broke suddenly and familiar dunes and blowouts appeared. I swooped in for a landing, avoiding a cabin further north. Just as I landed I saw a flash of blue through the trees to the south – another cottage? I’d have to check this out before making camp.

Hello World was awash in thick algae as I tugged her up. It was a sort of organic sludge that I’d never seen before. I quickly bopped down the beach to check out that blue flash and found tire tracks in the sand heading that way. Turned out to be a chemical toilet at a turnaround with fire pits. I’d stumbled upon a public access – and not a soul in sight. Workable.

I trudged back to the boat and warily observed the muck, it was mostly green so how bad could that be? I dropped sail and made camp, deciding to sleep on the boat in case there was any sudden activity or vehicles from the public access. I would use the tarp rather than the tent to expedite my morning departure. I pumped the muck water and made stew which turned out to be pretty yummy.

Back in the woods behind the dunes there were signs that the property was being carved up for sale. Why does everything have to be for sale?

Seemed like I’d stayed for days and days, but it was only four days. Easy to get in the groove on Beaver with so many friendly folks around.  I’m off to pack the boat and launch. With luck, Naubenway today.

I bought gear and parts at Power Hardware – washers to make a new pulley to replace the one I lost on the main sheet traveler, a new compass, anchor bag… so many things vanish on the water, securing gear is an important discipline that comes from hard experience. The list of things lost is long. Not to mention things ruined – iPhone from trusting untested equipment. I mostly mourn the lost things because now they are in the lake where they just don’t belong, it’s a double badness, I loose useful stuff and the lake accumulates more crap.

I also sent rent for my Brooklyn crib to Phil Charles in Brooklyn. The post office lady gave me a free postage paid envelope ’cause I only had my ATM card and there was a minimum $10 charge. Is this a groovy place or what?

I didn’t make it off Beaver until 5:00 pm, so I popped over to Garden Island and camped, ready for an early morning depature between Whisky and Squaw Islands.

Monday morning, while waiting to interview Dick Burris the stonemason,  I chatted with Doug Tilley, manager at the CMU research station over breakfast at the Dalwhinnie Bakery. Dick and I connected later, two interviews in one day! We ended up riding out to the Award winning Transfer Station for yet another interview and then taking a mask and snorkle excursion to the sunken car graveyard in Beaver Bay. “They just dragged them out on the ice and waited for them to fall through”, says Dick.

Dick decided to stay in the Rubber Duck  while I dove. At 10-12 feet of depth, there were about 20 ancient-ish autos in various states of decay – even one with wooden spokes on the wheels! I spotted what appeared to be a lead acid battery at 10 feet of depth. I suggested to Dick that it shouldn’t be down there and he said let’s get it. After struggling to secure a rope to it, Dick tied me a decent slip knot and I got it around the bulky zebra muscle encrusted monster, slashing myself in three places. We hauled it up and brought it back – environmental remediation Kelly and Burris style.

I made the mistake of taking my new iPhone down in it’s little waterproof bag, supposedly rated for 10 feet underwater. I shot pictures and movies, but a few tiny drops of water inside the bag afterwards boded poorly – the iPhone died about 20 minutes after returning to the dock. Fortunately I had kept my older model and was able to activate it that evening. Pictures and local blog postings – gone. Reliable GPS – gone.

It’s all good. the next day Dick and I went back out with his underwater ready Sony camera and dove an honest to goodness shipwreck from the 1800s and returned to the car graveyard.

There are disasters, problems and blessings. Any life worth living is an admixture of these. So much life in a couple of days.

First my current position. At a power enabled table in Danny Donegals Pub, Beaver Island, sipping a Oberon Beaver style, with a slice of orange. Short on paper money I am trying to stretch my $10 minimum so I can sit here for a couple of hours to charge batteries and copy memory cards. Started with an O’Hara’s Stout so I really don’t need another beer, but it’s a sacrifice I’ve got to make for the good of the project. Pam the bartender has got to be here until midnight so I coaxed her to switch off the hokey dance contest on TV and put on some music she likes – Tom Petty. She’s cleaning up and I’m making this movie.

I busted out of the anchor at Charlevoix at 8:30 am. The skipper of Pool Party yelled out as I passed,

“Where ya headed?”

“The U… P…” I shouted back.

He put his hand to his ear and I shouted again, but then one of his fishing lines tugged and he was no longer interested in my answer. The reason he didn’t hear me was because my answer was silly, I wasn’t headed for the the UP that morning, I was going for Beaver Island. I left him and grumbling cement plant behind me. It’s owned by the Brazilians I’ve since found out.

A cement plant that looks and sounds like what I imagine a nuclear reactor would.

Looking back at the compass, I noticed the needle had fallen off it’s pivot and the entire bezel was gone. This is the same bezel that had been frozen in place at the start of the trip. It would have taken some serious force to pop that bezel off, so there must have been a minor explosion from internal pressure, perhaps due to the dramatic temperature changes – from this morning’s 40 degree chill to the warmth of direct sunlight. There was a strong chemical smell from whatever liquid had been in there. I stuffed the remains into the pack. I’d have to rely on the new GPS enabled iPhone now.

Silva compass features handy exploding bezel

I skated north on southish winds for the better part of the day, coming in site of Beaver and watching her resolve from dark blobs into an actual island. The wind reports called for the blow to fade around 1:00 pm, so rather than take a lazy northerly course straight to the island, I decided to make faster vectors to the NE and NW to get close quickly. If I could get within a couple of miles of the island before the wind puttered out, I was probably good.

I made it to the southern tip and proceeded up the east coast by about 2:00 pm. The wind was indeed changing but I was within 1000 ft of shore, so I decided to anchor and take a swim. It was a perfect sandy bottom at about 30 feet of depth. The sun was shining and the water brisk, lovely. There were a couple of cottages visible on the beach with long stretches of sand between them. Why not land and reconnoiter?

The shore was unusual – polished gravel shoals or jettys running parallel to shore, sheltering deeper pools that lapped sandy beaches. The ducks and gulls watched with increasing annoyance as I approached their spots.

I pulled up Hello World and explored.  There were many signs of thriving wildlife and bright orange ribbons tied to trees as if marking a trail – the juxtaposition was kinda depressing.  I followed the ribbons and came to Donna’s Place, an empty cottage often rented, judging by the sign on the door. I headed back to the boat and made ready to launch, firing up the poopinator and debating my next move. Farther north was St James Bay and likely a decent cell signal. That seemed the best course of action.

I pushed off and moved north on an easy south wind. Sure enough, a big cell tower showed up just before St James Bay. I surprised Gretchen and then my parents by calling and reporting my location. I could imagine Gretchen telling her husband James – “Dan Kelly’s on Beaver Island!” This is the same James who bet me a dollar I couldn’t start an engine with the power of my mind. He also scared the dickens out of my dad by ranting on about how dangerous the big lake was just before I launched. Of course it’s dangerous, but my dad is already shitting bricks, he doesn’t need the husband of my producer getting him even more wound up. Actually, maybe it was good for him. It certainly made for a sweet moment – lightly tossing off my arrival at Beaver to my parents and thinking about how that might further open James to the possibilities of the universe. Gotta pay him back for all the awesome saunas he hosts!

At around 5:00pm I nosed into the bay and found the public beach just where Gretchen said it would be. My approach felt like some kind of necromancy, a perfect curving course right up to the beach that required no tacking. I was greeted by Jim, local grocery store owner. We chatted for a bit and he handed me a beer. My kind of place, Beaver Island. I asked the locals about camping under Hello World. “It’s probably illegal but no one will bother you,” was the response. Awesome.

Public beach on Beaver Island

That evening I called Gretchen’s people to schedule interviews. I ate a greasy double dinner at the Shamrock and told the Hungarian waitress that I loved her – in her native tongue. I was just kidding, I didn’t really love her but that’s the only phrase my grandmother was able to pass on to me. She was startled, the waitress that is. Afterwards we both fell back into our respective roles and nothing much else happened. I had friendly conversations with my table neighbors, charged batteries and copied files.

My iPhone had a mishap, so I am recalling events from a future perspective, having lost several posts in process. Having left Barnes Park around 10:30 am with it’s sparkling toilets, I made the dash for the end of Grand Traverse Bay and then with a little luck – Beaver Island. I got an encouraging start, then stalled out coming up to Fisherman’s Island Park. The wind was so lame I started for shore, then got encouraged by robot reports of decent south wind of 6 knots or so off Traverse light. I persisted and sure enough got a good few miles under me, getting within site of the cement plant in Charlevoix. It was big and slow to pass by, in hindsight a dark omen. With the wind blowing and my new night lights installed, I thought I could make Beaver even if I sailed into the evening hours. The forecasts were for a wind shift but then steady strong breezes that I could ride north – west or east, I can’t remember.

I started toward Beaver, putting the cement plant on my stern. It dwindled over the next few hours and off in the distance I could make out the weird shimmering phantasms that islands manifest when viewed from 15 miles away. I could see Beaver and so could use both the compass and a visual fix to navigate. Airplanes from Charlevoix flew back and forth on the Beaver run every hour or so, helping to point the way. Then 5 miles or so from Charlevoix, the wind shift began to feel more and more like wind dying. At about 7:30 pm I made the call, turn back, turn back! Becalmed in shipping lanes, with a frost advisory – not a good situation. I spun around and watched the sun drop for another hour as I fitfully creeped back toward that awful cement plant.

A rip roaring sunset with pink beams streaking across the dome of the sky. Hello World going slower, slower… stopped. It’s dusk and I’m paddling for some friendly looking dunes to the west of town about 2-3 miles away. After some confusion, my iPhone charts tell the story, the cement plant is the closest landfall. Now the ominous factor increases – didn’t Jeff mention that there was a nuclear plant up around these parts? Is that actually a nuclear power plant, are those domes containment vessels? Wouldn’t a nuclear power plant look more slick? What is homeland security going to think about a radical with an FBI record paddling a backpack ladened sailboat up to a nuclear power plant in the dead of night?

A boat approaches, cautiously. They come around in a long slow parabola, obviously casing me. Probably doing a night vision scan for weapons of mass destruction, expecting twin hulls filled with thermite or rocket launchers disguised as tripods. Whoever they are I feel unreasonably embarrassed to be naked, windless. A rakish sailboat shorn of all grace and speed, having no good reason to be out fumbling around in the deepening twilight. No I don’t want a tow, probably.

Off my stern, still a good 100 feet away, the pilot leans away from the wheel and asks,

“All good?”

Relieved and slightly sheepish I reply,

“Yeah, just waiting for some wind.”

No more questions or offers of help, he just motors off, as politely as he approached. He didn’t offer a tow. Stubborn and totally screwed to the last, that’s me.

Around 9:30 pm, a wind arrives, bringing me in, drawing me towards – the ominous complex. My destiny is to sleep next to this mighty grumbling monster, whatever it is. I drive in towards the lights of town tacking experimentally to see if I can somehow make those dunes. Nope, there’s no escape. On the last tack, I’m driving in to heaven knows what, a couple hundred yards or so from concrete towers and domes. Suddenly bumping on shallow rocks, I dive for the rudder release, the boat slews around while I’m busy and then there are huge rocks, dead ahead. I spin the boat around and away from collision more by force of will than anything, and we run gently aground. It’s not a beach, just big rocks guarding a marsh. A condo or commercial building with a few lit windows broods over the scene. The only option is to anchor and get into my sleeping bags and quick, it’s damn cold. I’ll never get the wetsuit off in time to pee, so I just let go right there. Baptism. I vow to at rinse it and me before getting into dry cloths. I jump off and drag the boat into deeper waters for anchor. The water feels toasty, a bad sign. The temperature of my extremities must be below the water temperature, 65F or so? Gotta move quick and get warm. Wish I had read Gretchen’s post about this very topic instead of just scanning it. What follows is a series of tedious but essential boat shut down proceedures, executed mostly in the dark and talking to myself encouragingly the whole time.

Finally – sails down and stowed and me on up the trampoline rinsed, dressed and ready to shut down. I get in the sleeping bags slightly damp from yesterdays dew and strip off my socks and bottoms. I have the over confident notion that I’ll keep them in the bag and dry them with my body heat, but nix that after my stone frozen feet make it clear that I’ve got to focus all my body heat on me. I close the bags’ drawskins until there’s only a snorkle opening for oxygen. It’s 11:00 pm. I drift off to the hum of american industry.

The candle is optimally situated. The bowl of quinoa porridge with collard greens and button mushrooms steams in the foreground, illuminated enough so that one may design a fortunate arrangement of tasty morsels on one’s spoon. In the background, in fact wrapped around and above the cozy bowl of porridge – everywhere the bowl is not – stars. I am eating at the edge of the cosmos tonight.

Polite waves lap at the sand not more than 4 feet from my booties. It’s 10:10 or rather 22:10, 2:10 utc.

My neighbors at Barnes Park campground are snug in their pop up campers or tents, each with thier own version of Hello World parked nearby. Are we sharing the same night, or am I alone in the theater of stars, gateway to the universe?

Before bed, I visit the glistening facilities at the campground. Is this cheating?

Brisk north wind of 15 knots with gusts up to 25! Then there were the waves, crest to trough 4-5 ft at times. Sail up and over, big splash, do it again. After about 14 miles of tacking nw and ne to move 9 miles north, I was ready for a break and a rope check.

After running long vectors across the entire bay, I moved close to the east shore. The low dunes I’d spotted couldn’t be identified with the iPhone, but they looked remote and cottage free. As I approached I picked out sunbathers. A friendly chap named Gerry helped pull up the cat and informed me that there was a campsite above the beach, $25 for powered sites or $21 for unpowered. So much for remote.

A staff member at Barnes, Dillon, later told me I could stay on the beach as long as I wanted. I’ve decided to wait for the wind to slow and change direction from north to south as forecast. Plenty of nice folks here. Mark and Kathy of Onekema left me a care package.

Harvesting the sun to charge batteries and catch up on blogging.

Draining the hulls - a lot of water came out, maybe that's why the boat seemed sluggish in the big wind.

My bare back is covered with fruit flies, a delicious tingle like static electricity.

That’s this mornings update from the nitrogen accumulator, otherwise known as the dungomatic, TM. I’d anchored on a pretty wild beach and so was amazed to see them (feel them) in such profusion, but of course they have a life beyond humans. Aside from the surreal Groucho quip, this was my first positive fruit fly association. Another reason to get with nature – erotic encounters with wildlife.

Anchored on Old Mission Peninsula western edge, and a special moment on the dungomatic.

The Science of Keeping Warm

Dressing to stay warm is all about slowing the transfer of heat from your body to the outside environment. Basically you’re trying to put your warm body in the best thermos possible. The process of heat transfer can be described quantitatively using the law of heat conduction: H=kAdT/dx.

In the equation above, H is the amount of heat energy per unit time that moves from your body to the outside. A is the surface area of your body. dT is the difference in temperature between your body and the outside. And dx is the distance from your skin to the outside. The final element, k* is a constant determined by the insulating material.

The k, or thermal conductivity, of water is .6. The thermal conductivity of air is .023. From this you can see that the conductivity of heat through water is (.6/.023 times) or about 26 times greater than through air.

Dry fleece is mostly trapped air and has a thermal conductivity of about .08. Cotton saturated in water is mostly water and will have a thermal conductivity close to that of water. The thermal conductivity of rubber is .2. It’s pretty easy to see that dry fleece is the way to go to maintain your body heat.

After clawing my way out of Grand Traverse Bay for the better part of the afternoon, I decided to turn right and check out the tip of Old Mission Penninsula for overnight potential. It looked quite picturesque with seagulls and herons decorating verdant shoals and a white lighthouse. These are of course hints about the nature of the place as regards to sailboats, the tip of Old Mission is quite shallow and rocky. I swooped around the eastern shoal and ventured into a bay that only waterbirds and catamarans dare to enter. I bumped and clunked to the beach and landed. I didn’t much like vibe I got from the odd ducks (people)I saw pacing the beach, nor was the locale remote enough for camping. After consulting my iphone charts, (the new iphone with working GPS, yeah!), I decided to scrape and squeal back out and reconnoiter the western edge of the peninsula. I checked the western shoals on the way out, but their stony and flora entangled flanks were not ideal for pulling up a cat, though the birds seemed to dig them. Rounding them I found a very wild shore with a little island nearby, an appealing setup. It was far too shallow to land Hello World, so I opted to anchor and sleep on the trampoline, a first.

Looking north from Old Mission anchorage

The bustling urban mileau fades ever so slowly into a haze of jet exhaust and wood smoke. Bows angling toward the arctic, I slither forward on an occassional puff of wind. 30+ miles before I can clear Grand Traverse Bay, with a bit more breeze I might make it before dark.

I’ve been at Jeff’s the first and last two nights with a visit to Crystal Lake in between to see the boy. When I wasn’t tuning the travel kit I was asking folks if they’d ever seen any sustainable civilizations. Busy 5 days.

I’ve got Steve Zilliax’s bike with me on the off chance I get to Canada and can give it back. It’s slung a little close to the waterline but I’ve since had a brainstorm for raising it up. I must be getting close to Hello World’s max cargo capacity.

Just before I left I visited a cwazy mofo whose refurbing a big cat (40ft?) for ocean travel, powered by kite. Seems like a lot of boat for one dude, he could have a rack of bikes!

I’d like to say that it was all part of the master plan, so maybe I will. I arrived in Traverse City just in time for the Maritime Heritage Alliance’s Michigan Schooner Festival, a (near) zero waste event. Around and about the festival I had some intriguing conversations. Future artifacts, predictions and portents.

Pete Bentley and Captain Tom Kelly of the Schoolship Inland Seas.

Ray Minervini and the Grand Traverse Commons

Caught some excellent interviews at the Schooner Festival yesterday with Tom Kelly, Master of the Inland Seas, Ray Minervinni of Grand Traverse Commons, Andy Gale from Bay Area Recycling for Charities and Tanya and Chris from Homegrown.

Hello World at anchor with majestic schooners in the background. Camera pulls back...

... and she's surrounded by smokers (motorboats). This shot is all about the ironic contrast between sail and smoke, please ignore the sunbathers - they have nothing to do with this shot... though perhaps one might find a striking resonance between svelte female anatomy and the sleek geometry of Hello World, or notice how nicely these women would both fit on the trampoline. Other than that, lounging bikini clad hotties are not relevant to this purely documentary moment illustrating an ironic contrast between a small footprint approach and... oh, whatever.

I borrowed Jeff’s car and returned to Crystal Lake last night for some quality time with Mr Boy and to pick up a few items. Heading back to Hello World tonight. Look for a Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning departure from Traverse City.

At the home of Jeff Gibbs, friend and advisor. Mentor even, feisty ally and occasional pain in the ass. He’s offering me a base of operations for reorganization and resupply here in Traverse City.

I’m off to the Schooner Festival to see if there is something fragment of the SC there. More soon!

Stuck, stuck, stuck this morning from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. When will I learn to turn on the radio?

Poised to enter Grand Traverse Bay after an excellent night under the clay cliffs of Northport’s big lake shores, I packed and launched. Nevermind that there was hardly a puff of wind – I had a schedule to keep. Kicking back on the trampoline, I lollygagged, loafed and waited for the wind to stir. After a couple of hours creeping north and getting some annoying texts from Jeff Gibbs in Traverse City such as…

“Are u really going to make it today?”

and

“From the tip of the leelanau to tc is equal to two thirds or more of the distance you’ve already sailed in six days?”

I tuned into the NOAA report and heard that there were east winds of 6 knots at Traverse light, just a couple miles north of my dead calm position. So where was MY wind? I began to paddle out of the land shadow…

Riding a northeast wind past Cat head Point, I passed Traverse light and turned south.  The rest of the afternoon and the better part of the evening was spent running with the wind, surfing.

I fired an update to Jeff predicting a landing at 8:00 pm, then at 7:00 pm moved my ETA to 9:00 pm. My actual arrival turned out to be 10:00 pm. Approaching Traverse City took forever. At sunset I still couldn’t see any landmarks, buildings even lights – just low hills funneling into haze. All the while surfing like crazy, bob sledding down trenches and half pipes of water. Finally lights appeared, but to my old flatscreen eyes they were just sodium colored star bursts in patterns that may or may not have suggested familiar features. The starbursts resolved slowly with much tacking to and fro, standing rigging clanging in the now fitful wind. To anyone watching us from shore, Hello World and I must have seemed dark specter slightly out of control in the blustery twilight.

Using the giant candy cane / fake lighthouse / massive power tower near where I believed to be second street, I landed tentatively just west of West End Beach and walked Hello World to where I saw some other boats anchored. I perched her on the beach and ran in check the proximity of the volleyball courts. I had hit it pretty nearly. I called Jeff and asked him to come for me in 30 minutes, while I offloaded and set an anchor. Took me more like 45 minutes but Jeff was a sport about it all, eventhough I had my wires crossed as to where I would meet him. We finally found each other and went back to his place for an epic bowl of pasta and sauce.

From 10:00 am – 10:00 pm, a trip and personal record of 33.95 miles.

This morning I borrowed his bike to check out the boat and scarf a breakfast burrito from the local organic food joint, just across the street from West End Beach!

It was late in the day when we approached Northport’s clay cliffs, reminiscent of crumbling citadels. Several spots looked agreeable and unpopulated from the water, but I decided to chase down a couple walking north along the beach and get the skinny. We had to tack repeatedly to catch up to them.

“Ok to camp around here?”, I shouted, after a brief introduction.

“Sure, there’s nice sand that way,” the fellow replied, pointing south.

Hello World and I spun around and found a lovely little roost, just before sunset.

looking east

looking west

Some images are beyond documentation. A tent glowing with a single candle under a star scattered sky. Goodnight from Northport, Michigan.

After all of Kai’s stories about crossing the Pacific in Desire and almost being run over by robot controlled cruise ships, I finally got a taste. Having caught a lovely wind after leaving North Manitou Island, I was making deligtful progress east-ish towards Northport. The sun was shining and all was right with the world… except for that low throbbing. Must be a freighter around somewhere. Far to the north I could see a motorboat or maybe a sailboat cruising, but then something clicked. Low throbbing of big engines, only one boat in sight – what is that boat?

My neighbor to the north, where's that low throbbing coming from?

I wondered how I might get a magnified view and then I remembered the Vixia’s digital zoom. I had stumbled upon it while playfully spying on my neighbors at Crescent City, thinking they might get naked and go swimming. I grabbed the Vixia, activated the digital zoom and pointed it at my new neighbor. There, glowing in the afternoon sun was the giant bow of a freighter. I couldn’t see the port or starboard side of the ship, just this massive gleaming bow that appeared to be several stories high.

Thinking to myself, “If all I can see it the front of the ship and I can’t see either side at all, that means… it’s heading right at me.”

Now this ship is still pretty far away… but it’s got these throbbing monster motors, and I am maintaining a course close to the wind, not moving very fast. I dropped off my course and put on some speed in an attempt to get past this behemoth.  She came on pretty quick, growing in size at a surprising rate. Eventually, I began to see a sliver of her port side which meant I was out of her path. These big boats are supposed to generate an impressive wake so I kept my speed up. When she finally passed, she wasn’t quite so huge – about 300 feet – but big enough.

Pictures from my camera are a little misleading – the first shot illustrates how close she was when she passed and the second shows our wake crossing her course.

This is how close she actually was. Check out the big water she is making in front and behind.

Notice our 'tire tracks' crossing her course... yikes!

Now, this wasn’t exactly a near miss, right? IMHO, anything closer would have been a near disaster. I had no indication that human beings were running the show – as she passed I honked my horn at her and waved – without response. Maybe they were just unfriendly or were too busy to acknowledge me. Worst case scenario – the crew was playing cards down in the galley and had the whole thing on autopilot, I might have been too small to set off a proximity alarm. What’s are the odds of two boats coming even this close in the middle of the big lake? I think Kai would have called it near miss… fun!

Decided to check out of the Crescent City condo and point the bows at Traverse City. A great start at 10:00, enjoying a steady push north from a south breeze.

Pushed to the north end of North Manitou Island ...

... while eating wild Crescent City apples.

Rounded the north end of the island too close to shore and got caught in dead air, likely a wind shadow from the island. Stuck there for hours, by 2:00 I’d decided it was fate, I had to stay another day.

I anchored and took a swim. Popping out the weather radio, I heard all about the steady 6 knot wind running either north or southwest on northern Lake Michigan. NOAA reports are a little confusing. Maybe it was southwest turning to north in the afternoon. I raised anchor and pushed Hello World to the east coast of the island to grab the wind. It was in fact from the northeast.

So aloha my lover, sister, mother North Manitou. 23 miles to landfall in Cathead point or Grand Traverse Bay. My ideal course heading is approximately 84 degrees or just slightly north of due east, (90 degrees). I am able to hold 110 – 130, so I’ll be hitting land to the south of my goal – Northport with luck but likely Leland. I trust whoever that beach belongs to will be down with me camping there.

North Manitou Island, about 15 miles away

Moving out towards the Manitou Islands from the mainland felt wonderful. These islands have much resonance for me and approaching them while in synchromesh with the wind and a sailboat made me giddy. Long tacks to the NE and NW were needed, but nothing to dramatic. On one of the final NW vectors, I spotted the defunct lighthouse, a familiar site for campers on Manitou Island Transit ferry. It’s sticks up out of nowhere, surrounded by water. If it weren’t so late in the day I would have landed and claimed her for Ladonia.

As we approached, the wind picked up and I had to get on the wire, for the first time loaded with gear! This is Hobie speak for putting on the harness so I can hook into the trapeze wire connected to the mast. This allows me to stand on the very edge of the trampoline and project my body out away from the boat, in order to counter balance wind force and keep Hello World from flipping over. How exquisite to be hanging over the water, skipping into paradise on a sunny day.

look ma, no hands!

Me and North Manitou

blogging beauty

dippin'

Here’s where i tack away from the mainland and run for the island.

Your guide, Dan Kelly

My own little spot of heaven, just south of Sleeping Bear Point. All sorts of interesting things to see just over these low dunes, but no time. Gotta move on, North Manitou Island awaits.

Looking south towards the high dunes

Looking north towards Port Oneida and Glen Arbor ...

... as the dunes begin their rise back to the south

Morning clutter takes some time to pack

Stopped for the night south of Sleeping Bear Dunes Point. Here’s the approach as the sun was setting. The peak at the left of the shot (north)  is about 400 ft high. I beached Hello World even farther to the north where the dune sloped down to about 50 ft. That boat in the shot was still anchored there the next morning.

Here’s the namesake of the entire Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. These images hardly do the dunes justice, they’re huge and… sandy.

Late start today 2 hours and then I’ll check in.

After putting a good amount of distance between me and the starter fluid people, I blew off the idea of reaching Otter Creek. It was surely not far away, but it was getting late and I was ready to stop. I hauled her up on the beach and pitched my tent on the trampoline to pacify any passing rangers.

Up in the morning around 8:00 am, who happens by but Ranger Jim. I greet him and he asks if I know it was it was illegal to camp. I told him I was on my way to North Manitou, that I would have anchored had I not arrived very late, that I had a composting toilet and that the North Manitou ranger told me that it was ok to pull up a boat on the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and camp as long as I was 150 ft from the water, but I figured sleeping on my boat would do less damage than trying to wade into the dune grass in the pitch dark. He replied that the 150 foot rule applied only  to the islands, not to the mainland. He said he was going to give me a break because I was on a boat, but that the other campers were going to get tickets. I thanked him and immediately ratted out the arsonists to the south, he told me he had found their empty cans of starter fluid. We parted on friendly terms.

South of Otter Creek, looking south towards Platte River	My first stew, when I discovered that grain alcohol isn't the ideal fuel.
Looking north towards Otter Creek	The tent. Housekeeping on the Macbook Pro inside while charging batteries with the Brunton Solaris outside.

x
Why do I pump? First morning on the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, lazing in the sun and expounding on earning water. I am made of water, sipping from the shores of a fresh water sea, feeling grateful.

I recorded an iPhone audio snippet of my moolit sail to Otter Creek.

The slight wind continued for what seemed hours. In the dark, I passed chatty smokers anchored by what I guessed to be Platte River. Later and far ahead, a bonfire surged in brightness almost rhythmically. My destination was supposed to be a sort of Benzie ‘Burning Man’ near Otter Creek and I figured that must be it. After a long approach, I was disappointed to find two idiots squirting their campfire with lighter fluid – for fun. I felt as if I was participating in a post apocalyptic moment, and perhaps my passing sobered them – beyond their fire dazzled eyes, a ghost ship near enough to touch and pale with moonlight, passes in utter silence. Urgent whispered voices…

“There’s a sailboat there.”
“What?”
“There’s a sailboat right there”.
“Whoa.”

Maybe their little moment of squandering petroleum was trumped, their boredom pierced and shredded finally by the sublime. Hello World and I certainly felt like a manifestation of the Mystery that night.

Better figure out which one is proper, wouldn’t want to give the impression I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s all about the lingo.

So here we are heading north in the zig zaggy pattern sailors call tacking. I can see Point Betsie and another sailboat with a big spinnaker. I’m about to tack and head right towards the lighthouse.

It’s 4:57 UTC-4 (EST) and it couldn’t be more beautiful out here in the water wilderness. Nibbling on celery and squashed blueberries whilst blogging and steering with my feet. This is one happy boat.

The gps on my 2g iPhone is a little confused and the cost of repair is about the price of a new 3gs. Hmm. Anyway the fabulous charting software provided by my fabulous brother shows my position as somewhere near the south shore of Crystal Lake. My actual position is about 4 miles from Point Betsie NNE, (45 degrees). I’m heading almost due north now, and will tack after this sentence.
Bearing east more or less after a jibe and a pee. I mention peeing only because my new toasty wet suit is a bit tricky to slide get out of, so it’s kind of a major accomplishment.

I’m in the catbird seat now. Heading is amost due east, I’ll pass on by Point Betsie and claw my way right up to tonight’s camp, Otter Creek, where the dang pagans will be throwing a soirée. 6:04 pm EST (UTC-4.)

That’s the lighthouse at PB and below is what artist’s at the Franklin Mint can use for designing the project’s commemorative coin.

Here’s an excerpt with Larry Kinney discussing Harmony Home Construction, recorded on Elberta Beach, a few hours before I launched. Having Larry’s energy around was a huge gift, but to pull off an interview with him too? Bonus!

Elberta Beach, the most dazzling jewel in Benzie County’s diadem of wilderness destinations. Granted there are fools who occasionally drive their vehicles on the beach and yes, jetskis buzz by once in awhile. In spite of these insults – glory, beauty, bliss.

Someday even these abuses will end – either by the efforts of the resourceful Elberta Parks and Recreation committee or the utter collapse of civilization. In the meantime, Elberta beach with it’s commanding dunes remains a wide swath of publicly accessible wilds, uncluttered by condo or cottage, forgotten by industry, treated mostly with love and respect by those who visit.

The Village of Elberta begins to hitch it’s destiny to this star with the help of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and the owner of the Elberta dunes – the aptly named Sand Products Corporation. The Land Conservancy has almost completed negotiations to protect of a chunk of the dune property and the visionary executives of Sand Products Corporation have already participated in a similar project in Manistee. What a boon for the backwater little town long ago deserted by the masters of capital, it’s residents the vested stewards of this joy magnet, gatekeepers to one of the most vital shorelines in Michigan.

My favorite interface to the Big Lake, Elberta Beach. Gretchen and I both agreed that it was the ideal launch point. Finally after the travail of Betsie Bay, triumph.

JB on the barbie	Over here you fool!	beach that cat
Future Sailors of America
Bailey and Lauren with Milee under wraps	Big old moon

James Barnes (of portage fame), Heidi Mahler and her brother Will Church were all celebrating birthdays that evening, we just grafted the launch onto this gathering. Larry, Patrick and I camped out on the beach under the light of a big old moon. Larry eventually took his multicolored blanket and retreated to the truck. Patrick and I shared party leftovers with the fruit flies the next morning, supplemented by cinnamon pull aparts and coffee from the Trick Dog provided by Larry.

Morning on E beach	Dunes
Me and Lawrence scope out the plan	We just look good	Isn't that Eric Pyne?

It’s 7:00 am UTC-4 or eastern standard time for you lubbers, and this is it finally, with luck. Hello World has lay quietly at anchor all night while multigenerational revelers ran slightly amuck. I’ve got a garage to clean, some dishes to do, files to copy, gear to stow and a couple of bills to grab… Then I’m on the phone with the portage team for pickup. On the big lake by 1:00 pm – doable.

We made it by 5:30 pm – Jim, Bailey, Patrick, Jonathan and myself – the Hello World portage team. Photos below by Patrick Kelly.

x

What’s missing from this set of pix is Hello World at the Elberta put in and Dan paddling into the Sargasso Sea, otherwise known as Betsie Bay where I was alternately becalmed and entangled in weeds while smart asses yelled at me from shore. I ended up paddling out the channel between Frankfort and Elberta, slogging past the breakwater and then with a puff of wind, sailing over to Elberta Beach. The two or three miles from Elberta put in to Elberta beach took almost 2 hours. An auspicious if slightly annoying beginning!

Even a sailboat has an environmental cost. Rebuilding Hello World was intended as a low impact project, not a sustainable project as I defined it a few days ago. Not only was electricity and petroleum poured into the tools, lights and vehicles supporting the repairs, but waste was produced. The steel paint and acetone cans can be recycled and the 30 year old grinder can be dropped off at an electronics recycling box. The big bag of garbage and the vacuum cleaner bags full of fiberglass dust however are destined for the landfill. About 35 lbs of waste was generated to renovate 300 lbs of 30 year old sailboat. About 4 – 6 ounces of fiberglass / mineral dust and and a gallon of VOCs escaped into open air.

Once the entire budget has been tallied I’ll be able to make a wild guess at the carbon cost of the project.

Big Bear makes the point that wind turbine and solar panel factories are powered by coal fired and nuclear power plants and therefor wind and solar power are far from sustainable. Is anything we do sustainable? Do we have any technologies that are in accord with the global life support system?

Launch on Saturday 8:00 am AFTER launch party Friday at 6:00 pm. The checklists are evaporating, I went to bed early-ish last night – should be a productive couple of days. RSVP if you’re coming. I’ll be press releasing from Hello World on North Manitou. Any questions?

Beautiful today. I need a nap and thought about a quick one on Hello World. Laying here in the sun is very nice.

That’s Patrick on the sunken pirate ship mast, he just showed up. Guess I’ll make him drive me to Traverse City for more gear, maybe I can nap in the car.

Had enough lists yet?

It looks like Friday’s the day, just waiting for confirmation from the portage team.

I’m enjoying a quiet moment in the nitrogen accumulator and composting facility.

It’s all good, I’m wanting a bit more sleep but am scheduled to enjoy a hearty helping of corn polenta après, which, combined with a fresh brew of sencha, should trigger an energy fête.

For you all, fête on this…

√ (1) Drybag Sealline Sealpak

Camera A
√ (1) Tenba padded case
√ (1) hand towel
√ (1) Kingston Technologies MobileLite card reader ~$20.00
√ (1) Delkin Technologies 16 gb class 6 SDHC ~$40
√ (1) Canon Vixia HF S10 $1300 purchased 05-06/09
√ (1) Century Optics DS-55WA-58 wide angle and fisheye $259 – panoramic shots and tight interiors eg sauna, ship cabins, cars
√ (1) Vixia remote
√ (3)  emergency lens wipes

√ (1) Tenba Messenger bag

Power
√ (2) BP819 3 hour batteries $80 x 2 = $160
√ (1) BP807 1 hour batteries – included with camera
√ (1) Canon CG-800 charger
√ (1) Vixia power supply and AC cord – included with camera
√ (1) Belkin surge protector
√ (2) iPhone wall charger
√ (1) IPhone car charger
√ (1) Midland CB charger
√ (1) Mifi charger
√(1) Mifi interface USB
√(3) battery for Sure Shot
√(1) transitor battery

Sound
√ (1) Juicedlink Phantom Power XLR adapter CX231 $299 – for use with professional microphones and to split audio channels
√ (1) Sennheiser MKH 418 phantom power shotgun microphone with Rycote
√ (1) Audio Technica shock mount AT8415
√ (1) Monster XLR cable 25′

Glass
√ (2) Tiffen 82 mm white water HT glass $108 – lens protection for wide angle, on camera and extra
√ (2) Tiffen 38 mm white water glass $50 – lens protection when not using wide angle, on camera and extra
√ (1) Century Optics DSFA8200  w/82 thread $149 (no retangular sunshade)
√ (1) Bowers 58-62 step up ring ~$7
√ (1) Bowers 62-82 step up ring ~$10

Post
√ (1) Macbook Pro 15 2.4 Intel Core Duo
√ (1) Macbook power supply
√ (1) Sonnet Tempo Sata ExpressCard/34
√ (1) Sonnet Fusion F2 portable SATA drive 640 gb $250
√ (3) Sata cables
√ (1) Vixia video and audio NTSC interface cable
√ (1) Vixia interface USB
√ (1) Firewire 400 to 800 adapter
√ (1) Firewire 800
√ (1) Firewire 400
√ (1) Firewire 400 4 to 6 pin

Sundries
Roll of saran wrap

√ (1) carbon fiber monopod (converted boom fishpole) $100

20′ rope, 30′ drawstring, 200′ twine
4 x spare synch thingies
2 x lighter
candle lantern
3 x candles

Hygiene Health and First Aid

scissor
tweezor
utility knife
finger nail clipper
aspirin
cotton swabs
20 x hair ties

Shaman Rx
Cold sore
Hauschka’s sunscreen
2 x Green Ban
Niacinamide Gel
R-alpha lipoic acid
Banyan botanicals immune support
Beta glucans
CoQ10
3 x endochrine balance
melatonin
Dinindolyl methane (DIM)
B-12
Zheng gu Shui (bone water)
Wan hua oil (joints)
Ching Wan Hung (burn medicine)

Reference library
Weather 1957
Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Wilderness Medicine Beyond First Aid, Forgey
Ropes, Knots and Slings for Climbers, Wheelock
NAUI Openwater I Training

Splitting the checklist into sections cause it’s getting outta hand.

2 x socks wool
2 x underwear quick dry
2 x underwear cotton
2 x merino top
2 x merino bottom
1 x black cargo pants
1 x pile pullover
1 x wind/rain shell
1 x wind/rain pants
1 x pile baklava
1 x wool gloves cut-off
1 x shorts
1 x bandana
1 x hawaiian shirt (cotton)
1 x five fingers shoes
1 x hiking boots – ideally I wish I had another pair of merrills pull on boots…
1 x sun hat
1 x pack towel

There are seeds in my landfill lifestyle, seeds of change, seeds of a fuzzy future utopia. If we poke around, can we find some pre-sprouted possibility, can we find the incarnate potential, a hint of what IT might look like?

Around Lake Michigan there are mad experiments, noble projects, impractical dreams, pragmatic miracles. Scattered all around the planet in equal distribution. The shores of Lake Michigan are no different than any other place on earth when it comes to magic seeds. The kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth and man does not see it. Tell me about it.

Get a trickster out there, a cwazy wabbit and look through his eyes. A sproutatarian, an animal magentized to the new shoots, the green life. Moi. If green means anything, it means fresh. Electrically luminous from rain, glowing with vibrant near knowing.

Forget the doublespeak abstraction of green that means just about whatever the marketers want it to, nothing. All natural, green – words that have had all the love sucked out of them, processed and nullified to serve the consuming civilization, the self consuming and nullifying anti-life.

So soup me, it’s late! Rather than sleeping, I see the shining moon and prepare to check the list. Shouldn’t be blogging, too much hot truth from a dizzy core dump.

Queue voice over by Rod Serling or Leonard Nimoy… not Twilight Zone or Star Trek, but the 70′s Cousteau docs of Serling’s and the 80s ‘In Search Of’ series hosted by Nimoy. Sustainable Civilizations has a mythic ring. They are not lost in the hoary past like some lame Indiana Jones sequel but rather waiting for us in an alternate future, a misty maybe world we must bring into razor sharp focus. It’s epic in the sense that we are running out of time. If we don’t find a path to a highly sustainable reality lickity split, we’re gonna suffer some serious trauma and maybe worse – extinction. No amount of military spending can protect you from a crippled global life support system. If you really love your grandchildren, change your life style. And so on.

Can we peer into the mists and make out some outlines of a sustainable human scenario? How would we change and will it be fun? What do we really want anyway? The tie in between our desire and our destiny is solid, what we want or think we want determines what we move toward.

I like wilderness. My personal mission is…

Activating global consciousness to steward and expand the wilds.

The way I see it, the global life support system includes the atmosphere, oceans, plants, algae, fungus, wild animals of all stripes, volcanos, rocks… It is certainly quite ancient, very sophisticated and complex – regardless whether one believes it’s designed by natural selection or a personal god.

The current configuration of cities, suburbs and strip malls and their associated infrastructure are probably not contributing to the proper function of the global life support system. That’s why my mission bucks the inevitable trend of building more stuff – I want to expand the wilds. Why? Because the wilds comprise an efficacious global life support system. When the earth has dominion over the land and seas, you can count on breathable air, potable water and reasonable temperatures. Human occupation and management as it’s currently configured hasn’t worked out all that well in the long term.

If you meet someone who doubts that humans can influence the global climate, check their stock portfolio. Chances are there’s some fossil fuel or uranium investments, probably defense industries too. Think about it – 6 billion people is a huge force, especially when augmented by machines. Is there anything we can’t do? Altering the climate of an entire planet? Childs play.

Relying on a government / corporate driven tech fix is not an option – some bogus half assed boondoggle porkbarrel scam slathered with a thick icky sweet icing of propagandertainment. Let’s just give it back to the ultimate technology, the 4 billion year old supra genius mutha. Let HER bring it back online for heavens sake, before it’s too late.

If you’ve been checking in at On Desire, you know I am not one of those ‘human beings are a cancer’ type. I’m not advocating ‘kill all humans’. For me it’s about figuring out how we fit into the global life support system.

We can take a little tech with us, certainly. Landing on the moon was cool, but for my money the best thing we’ve come up with lately is the internet. It’s a mostly harmless way to stimulate the brain and other parts. It’s got a footprint, but it get’s us all connected in a way that works for me. We can collaborate directly. I vote to keep the internet.

So it’s not about having 6 billion farmers either. Sustainable civilizations are a mystery we can solve, but it’s going to be much more juicy, enigmatic and elegant than anything yet described by the mainstream media. It’s to funky for the hollywood formula. We’ve got to make it, ourselves. We’ve got to do it together.

How does this apply to Around Lake Michigan? I am creating a bit of a spectacle with the lowest impact tools currently at my disposal, a sustainable moon landing or Jacques-Yves Cousteau riff. It’s a little kooky, it’s Dan Kelly style. Asking the right questions is what this is about, asking as if I expect there to be an answer. Ask questions in that way and the hazy horizon get’s a little bit brighter.