On Desire

The Search for Sustainable Civilizations. A Thousand Miles in a $400 Hobie Cat.

In September 2009, Dan Kelly started production of Around Lake Michigan, Search for Sustainable Civilizations.  Dan and the 16 foot catamaran Hello World sailed 300 miles, querying locals about the emerging survivable future. This first expedition was a unequivocal success, demonstrating that 1) a low impact documentary expedition is feasible 2) the fragments of sustainable civilizations are everywhere.

From May – August of 2010, join Dan and Hello World as they sail the entire perimeter of the Big Lake – over 1000 miles!

Built in 1979 by the Hobie Company (Oceanside, California), Hello World was purchased by Dan and his nephew Patrick in May 2009 for $400. The 2 month restoration of the 30 year old catarmaran included a rough estimate of the associated environmental impact based on time, money and waste generated. Though sailboats have a small footprint in transit, building them requires big footprint petroleum products and metals. Since impact estimating tools are not readily available to the general public, Dan devised his own carbon cost methodology, inspired by the carbon cost of jet flight.

Hello World is equipped with wilderness camping gear, snorkeling equipment and a portable production kit based on the Canon Vixia HFS10, Apple’s Macbook Pro and Final Cut Pro Suite, Adobe’s Production Premium Suite and open source inspired software. Wireless internet connection is enabled by Verizon® Mifi and the Apple iPhone. A Larrivée parlor guitar completes the ensemble. Update (09-13-09) guitar returned to base. Update (10-06-01) guitar is on the 2010 expedition.

The Director and Principle Personality of Around Lake Michigan is Dan Kelly. Dan enjoys dual citizenship in the People’s Republic of Brooklyn and beautiful Beulah, Michigan. The primary collaborators for the 2009 journey were Producer Gretchen Eichberger of Elberta, Michigan, Technical Advisor Kai Schwarz of Seattle, Washington and Fabrication Specialist Patrick Kelly of Bear Lake, Michigan. Other collaborators included corporations like Apple® Computer, non profit organizations and of course the trans sentient global life support system.

The 2010 collaborator team is expanding to support robust social outreach.

The schedule will be updated in transit with destinations about 3 days in advance. Suggestions and invitations are welcome – Around Lake Michigan can even visit your school! If an adequate trailer is not available, Hello World can be disassembled and fit in a large cargo van.

Call for details.
Dan Kelly 231 882-0460

I shot around 20 hours of video in September. Is that enough to build a coherent feature length movie?

My original idea was to post video during the trip, but It turns out that sailing 20-30 miles, camping/packing, shooting and editing are four unique and demanding jobs. Usually only two of them (occasionally three) are doable in any given day. So…

A trip rhythm might flow like this – sail to an interview or location and shoot (day 1-2), rough cut a ten – twenty minute chapter, perhaps moving to a remote site to minimize distraction (day 3-4) and post to the blog as at the next decent cell connection, (day 5).  Repeat. If the weekly postings are consistent the chapters become episodes of a show. At the end of the trip the episodes might be reconfigured as a feature or perhaps a trilogy.

With more advanced packing techniques I may be able to reduce my cargo and the inherent complications of carrying gear for so many diverse activities. I can schedule destinations based on the rhythm and perhaps develop editing templates so chapters can be easily assembled. There’s lots of strategies for handling the unique workload of a windy filmmaker, the first step is feeling it – taking in the experience.

Then there’s the open source philosophy. Open source started with software development but has been migrating to other disciplines. It’s a cooperative ethic. My posted chapters are available under a Creative Commons license, which basically allows non commercial use with attribution, meaning folks can work with my video in their own projects as long as they are not making a profit and I get credit. This might queer my chances at distribution or getting into festivals, but I like the idea of providing public access to the film as it happens.

This is a lesson I took from working with Jeff Gibbs on his Planet project. We were in West Virginia interviewing a man whose land was being destroyed by a nearby mountaintop removal operation. I proposed to Jeff that we leave some footage behind so the local activists would have more resources for their struggle, but he declined – he needed the footage to remain under wraps until the entire project was completed, even if it took years. He didn’t want his footage getting used in some other project, he didn’t want to get his story scooped. His reasons made sense, but it meant that the local folks wouldn’t be any better off by our visit.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since. I recognize that by putting great gobs of my source material online I may be risking my feature project but if I find something that can advance global consciousness or energize regional activism then posting as I go makes sense.

As I’ve mentioned, I didn’t get to put much video up in transit, so the next best thing is to open up the editing process. This makes me feel a bit queasy though because I am showing rough cuts which are by nature – rough. I am making the first pass on my source material, grabbing interesting moments and slamming them into some kind of sketch. In a closed editing process would then drop that sketch into the archive for later review by the post production team. In an open process sketches go up on the web, warts and all, for public access. This is probably not really such a big deal – my public is less than 200-300 people presently. However, it’s likely to increase if I keep presenting interesting and valuable material. It’s both a marketing ploy and a proof of concept. I want to explore how an open source movie would actually work. What are the implications and can it be scaled up?

For me, this is what the entire project has been moving towards.

If you’ll be in or near Northern Michigan on November 28, come to the On Desire / Around Lake Michigan SPECIAL EVENT! Join the amazing folks who participated and supported the Around Lake Michigan, Search for Sustainable Civilizations project. We’ll be gathering at Benzie County’s most historic theatrical venue, TBA, (not Dan’s house). Spread the word – but space is limited! RSVP ASAP so to put you and your party on the guest list.

press release

This last trip was a luxury ride across a sacred place for me. We survived in spite of our lack of preparation. My main reason for this sailing gig, besides a ride home, was to have an opportunity to see for myself the legendary ‘Garbage Patch of the Pacific’. I did see it. It exists. You have to look closely though. I believe the statistics of approximently 35 million tons of plastic in this part of the ocean. But you have to take into account the vastness of the Pacific. Most people’s perception is a floating land fill ‘twice the size of Texas’ that you can just about walk across.

If you were to drive from LA to Las Vegas you would see several orders of magnitude more garbage. But the fact that it’s out here in my church is deplorable. Something definitely needs to be done about it. Most of the stuff we saw floating seems to come from the fishing fleet. Big clumps of polypropylene netting and lines. Plastic sea monsters that will stop a small vessel cold in it’s tracks and disable it if encountered in a bad way.

Lots of floats. Then odds and ends like packing containers and detergent bottles. The occasional flip flop or cooler. Then, on a calm day when the sea is still and the lighting just right, the truly disturbing stuff. The stuff that’s been out here for a while and degraded by sea and sun into small bits. Trying to degrade back to the eco-system but no truly a part of it any more.

So what’s to be done? First off, in our brown noise, short attention span, society I understand, this needs to be blow into a huge myth for people to take notice.

Firstly, ways need to be found to make the fishing and transport fleets more responsible in their actions, including fishing quotas and the fuel they burn and smear the sky with.

On the home front people need to be more responsible about  their consumption and the ‘end use’  litter it generates.

I believe most of the land based stuff gets out there from storm drainage systems. Some communities in Southern California have mandatory filtering/screening systems for their rainwater run off. But not enough. This needs to be done all around the Pacific. It’s really not very difficult or complicated.

I found a secluded cove in Kauai who’s shoreline was strewn with  laundry bottles and other  Asian consumer packaging, a few flip flops and broken up floats that made great, yet mildly disturbing, hats.

‘nuf said…

Back in Brooklyn after a 13 hour drive with my brother Steve yesterday. We’ve got a date today to help a mutual friend with his apartment, then Steve will be heading back to Michigan on Wednesday. Meanwhile, wow! What’s it like to be back in the burghs of NYC after almost 5 months of water work and wilds? As we flowed through the three and four lane feed lines of Manhattan yesterday evening, I couldn’t help comparing the presence of the Big Lake with the approaching Big City. Caught in a cluster of steel quanta hurtling along animated asphalt, eerie lights barely penetrating the dark jumble and riot of overpowered civilization. Just a week or so prior, the shape of distant clouds determined the day and the tickle of wind on my cheek was significant. Awesome energies inherent in either scenario, and perhaps there is relationship, commonality. I am the bridge between them certainly and they are both wonders of the planet earth at this general locus of space time. Could there be more?

Hello World

Just a teaser…

Story to follow…

After a 2:00 am start C-130 calls us att dawn to help with rescue::

Overturned boat::

Man is rescued minutes before we get there after standing on the boat all night:

We return to our course:

We catch our first fish:

This is Your Captain Speaking:

We have to turn right due to water crises:

We see some garbage:

We catch a nice blue fin Ahi:

We fish some more:

All safe and sound in San Diego:

Thank you for flying on Holokai Airlines.

(Please don’t worry about your luggage)

Just before launching last month, I took some pictures of the waste generated from Hello World’s renovation. Getting her ready required power, raw material and room in the landfill. Around Lake Michigan is a search for sustainable civilizations that utilized unsustainable technologies. That’s seems contradictory, was ALM a sham?

Renovating this boat took resources, it had a footprint. Was it a large or a small footprint? Until the final budget is tallied, there’s no real data to examine. That should be ready in the next few days, but in the meantime, I’ll elaborate on the premise.

Big Bear points out that wind turbine and solar panel factories are powered by coal and nuclear plants. That’s a significant footprint. He also suggests that solar panels cannot break even, they can never generate enough electricity to pay for their cost. If one takes into account their carbon and toxic cost as well as their monetary price, he might just be right. I don’t know. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that there was such a thing as a profitable solar panel, that after 10 years of operation, it would pay it’s total cost (carbon, toxic, monetary) back twice. That would mean that the panel paid for itself and paid for a second panel. If that were possible, wouldn’t it make sense to make these panels? We would be investing energy to make more energy, rather than just burning it up.

Hello World is an experiment and a sort of calculation. I create a solar powered transportation platform (sailboat) with a finite investment of energy and materials while generating a byproduct of garbage and carbon. I then sail 300 miles making minimal additional impact, finding and documenting low impact or perhaps even sustainable technologies and strategies. What would have to happen for Around Lake Michigan to break even and pay back the inital investment? If I never sail Hello World again, if I never find anything of value or I never share the documentation, what did those 300 miles cost? How far would I have to sail to make a ‘profit’? What would I need to find?

Perhaps just the process of calculation and accountability is enough of a discovery. We tend to think that sailboats and solar panels are easy on the earth, same goes for organic food and compact florescent bulbs. We shirk our responsibility by embracing generalizations rather than actually finding out for ourselves. It’s the training we’ve been given since birth – buy stuff. That’s the plug we’ve got to pull.

Anyway, I’m going through the posts and fleshing them out. The video is fully digested and ready to edit and post. Can’t wait to see where it’s all gonna go!

Talked with two of my bio brothers yesterday about the trip.

Mike and I both have an affinity for the national parks and we discussed how I might craft a proposal based on ALM to increase access to parks without increasing impact. During the trip I made several overnight stops within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore where camping is prohibited. I even met up with a ranger south of Esch Road, the morning after. Being on Hello World meant I had the option to anchor and sleep on the boat, so it’s not technically camping. Also, I carried a composting toilet so I never needed facilities or dug catholes on park land. In additon, since I carried my own stove, I never built fires on the beach. Mike and I discussed how a constituency could be organized around sustainable camping and presented to park adminisitrators. Beach cat sailors, kayakers and canoers with proper equipment and training could perhaps get special permits for transient camping. This would increase visitation to the park, perhaps even enabling handicap and youth access to remote areas.

Steve and I talked about techniques for making the hulls leak resistant and how to amp up traffic to the ondesire.com project.

He suggested that hulls could be pressurized and/or vacuumed to determine their structural integrity. With a threaded connector that matched the drain hole, air could be pumped in to the hull and then soapy water spread around questionable areas – wherever bubbles appear the hulls are not air tight. Another approach would be to suck air out of the hulls and wait to see if the vacuum remains or how long it takes to equalize. A flexible seal around where the pylons meet the decks is important. This area likely opens and closes a little in heavy weather, when the hulls are subject to flexing and torque.

Of course, getting on the Hobie forums, explaining my recent experience and asking for advice about leaky hulls is a given. I might even drive some traffic to ondesire.com, as folks from the forums follow links from my posts. This sort of effort could be replicated on all sorts of forums – post production forums, vixia forums, underwater, etc. I’ve got plenty of questions to ask!

What I need is a few more bodies to help me do this outreach.

On the subject of collaboration, I definitely am looking forward to doing a review of products and services. I had some stellar gear and a little crap, and I feel compelled to provide detailed reports. This will likely be helpful in facilitating future collaborations, too!

Today I’d like to take exploded view pictures of everything before stowing it away for the winter.

Phase 1 of Around Lake Michigan is complete. The overview – 300 miles of sailing in about 30 days, 50+ hours of video recorded including travel and interviews, plenty of low/no impact camping, many new friends, 20,000 hits on the blog and no arrests, tickets or injuries.

It’s a few days since my return and I’m unpacking gear, sorting out the video and deciphering my notes. In the next couple of weeks I’ll review what I’ve accomplished and learned in detail. Specifically, I want to look at equipment – what worked, what didn’t and what was missing, such as a waterproof housing for the camera with fixed mounting points for hands free recording in heavy weather.

The overall approach to documenting is worth looking at too. I’ve an enhanced appreciation for the amount of effort needed – planning and scheduling a documentary film, shooting the film, sailing between 4 – 8 hours a day, packing and unpacking a boat and blogging. That’s a lot of stuff to do. It will be fun to discuss how this all flowed.

Packing and cargo strategies are significant – where does everything go, how quickly can the boat be packed and unpacked, do items need to be dry, how can packs be shifted to balance the boat while sailing? How would cargo be recovered if the boat flipped? I often spent hours getting ready to launch in the morning, is there any way to speed this up?.

Looking over the blog, it’s fairly skeletal. It’s a little tough to follow along, a chart showing my route would have been ideal. 90% of the video has yet to be posted.

So while the computer churns away, turning Vixia video into something I can edit, there’s plenty to think about.

Lake Michigan shares 1600 miles of shoreline with 4 states. The 2009 expedition of Around Lake Michigan explored about 300 miles or 1/5 of the perimeter in 3 weeks.

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1. Elberta Beach 09/05 – 09/06

2. South of Esch Road and Otter Creek 09/06 – 09/07

3 South of Sleeping Bear Point 09/07 – 09/08

4 Crescent City, North Manitou Island 09/08 – 09/10

5 Northport 09/10 – 09/11

6 West End Beach, Traverse City 09/11 – 09/17

7 Old Mission Peninsula 09/17 – 09/18

8 Barnes Park 09/18 – 09/19

9 Charlevoix 09/19 – 09/20

10 St James Bay, Beaver Island 09/20 – 9/23

11 Garden Island 9/23 – 9/24

12 UP 9/24 – 9/25

13 Dune Buggy Blowouts 9/25 – 9/26

14 Stonington Peninsula 9/26 – 9/30

15 South of Crescent City, North Manitou Island 9/30 – 10/1

16 Point Betsie (bike ride back to house) 10/1 – 10/2

It’s best to start the morning slowly after a 9 hour enchanted sail, to take a languid inventory of all of your parts, cozy warm in the sleeping bag. A trip down to the boat for toothbrush and iPhone charging gear, a sauntering walk in an open sunny field to brush up the teeth and make a nitrogen rich deposit, lazing in the tent with a light breakfast of cheese, raisins and sesame butter.

Atop the bluff, the wind felt stiff and westerly. I was packed and launched by 1:00 pm.

Looking back at North Manitou Island, north is to the left and south to the right. The bluff campsite above the landing is the green swath just left of south edge of the photo. Crescent City is the low lying area to the north.

After much tacking and fitful wind, I finally approached and cleared South Manitou at 5:00 pm. The wreck of the Francisco Morazan standing out in the sun was a temptation, I’d never been able to approach from the water, much less board her. That expedition would have meant another night camped and now that I was only 19 miles from my home turf I felt ready to finish, even if it meant sailing into the night again. Also, who could say what the wind and the weather would be tomorrow or the next day? Sans robot radio and cell phone connection, not me.

An ore boat on the horizon

My charts gave me a heading of 193 degrees, and a half an hour later I could see some smudges on the far southern horizon, my destination. The wind was blowing me home now to the south and then eventually providing real power from the east. As Point Betsie grew, I kept looking back at South Manitou to gauge how much I had traveled. The big bluffs were still towering over the water 10 miles away. I had never realized how easily one could spot the Manitou Islands from Point Betsie. No wonder John Barnes had lusted after them. He and Joe Sturges had done the trip on their 16 foot Hobie Cat almost 20 years ago, and everyone thought them crazy kids.

I decided to head to the western most edge of the point rather than follow the bearing offered by my chart. I hadn’t been adjusting for declination on the trip and I suspected that was why the chart offered the odd bearing off to the east. There’s a reason it’s called Point Betsie – the lighthouse is at the end of the point.

There was some question whether the light in the lighthouse was actually operational. It had been years since I’d been there at night and the complex had been mostly decommissioned and sold to private parties many years ago. I spotted the Frankfort Airport light, past the bluff and behind Crystal Lake about 10 miles. Crystal Lake! The Artist house and my Benzie rook was about as close as Point Betsie now, if Hello World could go airborne.

The west was gray and overcast so the last hour of the sun’s progress was hidden. There would likely be no sunset watchers at Point Betsie to greet me. I was judging how much light I had left by the official sunset time from windfinder.com – 7:44 pm. It was just about that time when the lighthouse began flashing at me! Yee hoo!

I really felt a homecoming now, like a mariner of old returning to home port. The wind was stronger and I even got a little song out of the rudders as I flashed past the lighthouse. The moon was like a streetlight, bright and white on the beach. As I turned into the beach, the wind just shut off. I made a couple of feeble passes back and forth before finally landing with a crunch. Made it!

I threw all the bags off and dragged up Hello World, using the baolong fenders under the hulls over as usual. It was a good hour before she was 6 feet from the surf, sitting prettily on her baolongs. I repacked her for the night removing only the bike, the prepared food bag and the drybag containing the precious cargo of project hard drive and computer. I hit the road and biked the 6 or so miles back to the house. I was in the tub soaking and sipping stew by 11:00.

The next morning I started catching up on the blog. My plan was to call Patrick as if from the boat and ask him to go to my house to “look for something”. Then I’d surprise him by being there. My brother Steve called to ask where I was, I made some misleading references to Wisconsin and so forth, telling him that my actual location was secret. Patrick called me back later and told me he’d drive to my house in 45 minutes and would call me from there.

After about an hour of waiting for Patrick I got a call from Justin at the Coast Guard. Did I have a boat called Hello Kitty at Point Betsie? There was a report it was half in the surf and he wanted to know if there were people that needed searching for. I assured him that no search was needed and that I’d be picking up the boat later that day. Half in the water? I checked windfinder and sure enough, the easterly wind had picked up over 30 mph overnight, possibly blowing Hello World off the beach. Shit, where was Patrick? Icalled his cell without getting through. I then started to worry that maybe something happened to him, he was running pretty late now.

I forgot about all my clever surprise tactics and just waited for him to drive up. When he did I jumped in and said “Let’s go to Point Betsie.” Off we went.

Sure enough Hello World was being sucked into the surf, her gear hanging off precariously. The baolongs were long gone, but amazingly, everything else was there. We threw off our shoes and socks and waded into the frigid surging waves to do battle. Struggling against the sucking surf, we tossed off all her baggage and began wrestling her up. I had left one of the hull drain cocks open and water and sand had packed itself into the hull, increasing her weight. Not good.

With a few clueless tourists looking on, we eventually muscled her up high and dry. All the baggage and sails went into Patrick’s Subaru. We dropped the mast and lashed it to the roof rack. Much lightened, we were able to drag her all the way to the dune grass. While we were there John Anderson from Detroit showed up. He had phoned his brother with the project URL and they had checked out ondesire.com, got my information and phoned the Coast Guard. He had even tried to pull her up with help from some bystanders. So not all tourists are clueless, my apologies!

John Anderson, Hero

Post Point Betsie recovery - Photo by Patrick Kelly

I put a request into Jim Barnes to borrow his van. He had a catering job the next day but said he was pretty much ready and would be happy to give us a hand. We drove to his house and the three of us jumped into Jim’s van (after unhooking the catering trailer) and sped out to the property where he keeps his Hobie 16 and trailer, with only an hour until dusk. We off-loaded his Hobie and dragged the trailer over to Point Betsie where I waylaid a sunset watcher from Springfield, Illinois to help drag Hello World to the road. The four of us together huffed and puffed her up to the trailer suffering no serious injuries in the process. I thanked our friend and sent him back to the water with plenty of time to see the sun sink. Getting her up on the trailer and strapped down in a jiffy, we were off again to my place to dump Hello World gently in the driveway. Another trip back to Jim’s property where we put his Hobie back on his trailer (it was dark now) and finally returning to his house for a beer and sandwiches. Phew! Patrick and I eventually returned to the house where I taught him to smoke sage out of the old flintlock pistol.

So Long Stonington Peninsula - Photo by Ritch Branstrom

There I was in Wisconsin waters, having just passed between Washington Island and the Door Peninsula. Twenty eight miles in 3 hours, a decent trek for one day. I’d left Ritch and Hello World’s caretakers, Bunny and Ed at noon near the limestone cliffs of the Stonington Peninsula and caught a brisk wind south. A delightful ride, save for my nearly frozen feet. Too much strolling around in the Little Bay Du Noc preparing to launch. Also, a bit of confusion along the way about which shimmering mirage was actually Washington Island. Too much western slide and I could sucked into the funnel of Green Bay.

I’d just tip toed over the shoal between Plum Island and a tiny mainland town not shown on my charts, when it happened. The wind kicked in with a magical tingle, the tiller gave a little jump and Hello World swept away from Wisconsin, back out into the open waters of Lake Michigan!

Not finding any stuck linkages in the rudders or snagged sail lines, I concluded that mystic powers were at work. Based on the SE course, the next landfall would be Point Betsie, 44 miles away! 3:00 pm was a little late to start Big Lake crossing, but the wind was a friendly NW ish at 8 knots (7 mph), the sun was shining, there was plenty of food and what the fuck.

It was a steady ride. An hour or two later I could discern a shimmering shadow on the horizon, a very prominent point or an island. Point Betsie could not be sticking out that much! Perhaps this was an enchanted island, impossible to chart and reachable only by a special boat such as the very one I was not quite sailing.

The shadow to the SE grew and darkened to a silhouette, while the sun sank towards the horizon. Time slowed and all events extended into infinity, the island (for certainly it was an island) forever getting closer, the sun ever dropping towards the waters edge… but neither did the island arrive nor the sun set. I successfully took pictures of this state of events, establishing hard evidence that reality is variable. Sailboats sailing themselves is one thing, but a deactivation of the spacetime continuum? C’mon!

Eventually the island got close enough to be identified – North Manitou! There were the great sandy bluffs north of Crescent City.  Still the sun sank ever closer to the horizon without touching it, let alone pass behind it. I could see the potholes and blowouts to the north of the island. I wondered how I could safely land without lights to guide me in, for North Manitou is a maintained in a state of wilderness, no houses and no fires. That’s when the full miracle manifested. I noticed a nearly full moon hanging over the island. When the sun passed, the moon would guide me in.

I gobbled some vegetarian heat fuel in preparation for the final approach – raisins, sesame butter and mild cheddar, all mixed up. Now that our destination was obvious, I was back in control. The wind was getting more intense now and I was on the wire, that is to say I was harnessed up and attached to the trapeze, counterbalancing the push of the wind by standing out away from the boat. A grand sight for any late season campers equipped with magnification – Hello World dashing toward them through the swells, sails ablaze with orange sunset sailed by a mad shaman, standing back and flipping perpetually overboard, sheet in one hand and tiller in the other. A grand site from my angle, no doubt!

I had switched on my little nav light for some pretense at legality, but it’s light blinded me and I missed Crescent City by 100 yards. We crashed up on wide sandy beach, clunking a few rocks at the very end. I jumped off, waded to the bow and immediately fell into the surf, the sheet line wrapped around my legs. It was now about 9 pm and I was chilled and shaky. Hello World was banging up and down in the surf, I had to get her unloaded and properly beached. I dragged packs off her in the moonlight, dropped sails and after an hour or so, had her safely up. I struggled into the camp pack and followed what I thought was a wash up the bluff, but turned out to be a trail to a idyllic campsite. Popped the tent, climbed in and fell into a coma.