Standing among high mountains, we are instantly humbled. Their towering peaks, foreboding granite walls instill a sort of humility that only the powerful forces of the universe can provide. And yet they almost seem to crave being climbed, beckoning like a child wishing to be acknowledged. It is like Schrodinger’s cat, the sort of thing like some philosophers hypothesize the universe necessarily must spawn life in order to exist. If a mountain exists in the woods and no one is there to climb it, does it exist? The mountains seem to announce a similar array of necessity, not an insecurity, but rather a requirement to be observed. Continue reading The patient life: life of adventure
Tag Archives: travel
Alone on a glacier, Joffre Lakes
I shoved my ice axe down, trying to establish a self belay, essentially the lifeline for my travel on this alpine glacier. If I fall I would quickly grab the axe and hopefully it is well planted enough to hold my weight. The axe penetrated just a few inches in. Before it had been going deep into the snow. It happens though, there are occasional patches of ice. I pushed through again. Didn’t budge.
The story I wanted to tell: climbing Longs Peak
His name is Alex, a recent immigrant to Boulder, Colorado. But to someone from another coast, another world, his move from Seattle to another high mountain range seems altogether mundane. And in truth it was. He was working now at a small start up technology firm vying it out with giants like Sonos and those robot vacuum cleaners. A fascinating enterprise which he had studied for his masters in Seattle. He is one of those economical academics who worked in the PhD program, secured funding and a generous stipend, then abandoned with his masters, a genius loophole to obtain a masters with no debt, and one which the universities have yet to close or don’t have enough concern to care. Continue reading The story I wanted to tell: climbing Longs Peak
Key West to Tortugas, Part 3
My boat glided up onto the beach as I popped open my spray skirt. The dense smell of sweat and urine assaulted my nostrils. I slipped out of the boat and fell into the water, tried to stand, and contented myself with wading. I waded in the water for minutes, looking up on the island at the campers. Occasionally one would walk by and give me a look of total confusion, but the refugee Cubans arriving moments before distracted them from my arrival, at least long enough for me to learn how to walk again. Continue reading Key West to Tortugas, Part 3
Final modifications
The setup I decided on for the outriggers is similar to Andrew McAuley’s rig for his Tasman Sea crossing. I used ram ball and socket mounts, size 1.5 inch ball on the deck on either side. I used giant 1.5 inch washers on the underside but I still think I need to reinforce the hull with some fiberglass in that area. The benefits of this design is its flexibility and convenience. It’s weakness is the stress on the hull and weight. I considered simply strapping the extra paddle to deck but realized that would be neither flexible, resilient, nor convenient. However, the load would be distributed across the hull whereas the load for the ball and socket setup is on the hull in just a 2.5 inch diameter circle. Another fault of this system is that the outrigger can slip over the ball, a problem I imagine worsens in the water. Still a work in progress but I’ll figure it out.
“A leap of logic”
Andrew McAuley suggested that sea kayaking was the new mountaineering. For him it was, and it is luring me in too. But for some reason it isn’t drawing the crowds that a new frontier maybe should. It is baffling how many untouched adventures exist on the open water. But even many serious mountaineers draw the line at an open ocean crossing. 95% of the ocean has yet to be explored and until recently, more was known about the surface of the moon. The water turns people away and rightfully so. It has been hundreds of millions of years since we were residents of an aquatic environment. It is foreign to us, unstable. We are not the top of the food chain in the ocean. In fact, we are so outnumbered that an open ocean swimmer is as easy of a meal as a pork tenderloin on your dinner plate. We can only be visitors to the ocean, and that humility is something foreign to the designed environments. Continue reading “A leap of logic”
Kayak sea anchor setup
I added some deck rigging for a kayak sea anchor and towline. I used 80 feet of 2.8mm Spyderline. I took the line all the way from the bow to the stern using Ronstan’s sheaveless blocks at either end. The reason I did this is so that when say I have the sea anchor deployed, the tension runs through the bow block all the way to the stern and then to the deck cleat on the right side of the cockpit. What this essentially does is lower the force on the deck cleat by half. The deck cleat is the most fragile component of the whole system and the one that would cause the biggest problem if it breaks (a hole in the boat). It also allows me to easily deploy and retract both a sea anchor and towline from the same rope. A sea anchor is used in heavy winds to slow the boats progress by acting as a parachute in the water and to orient the bow into the wind where the boat is least likely to capsize.
Kayak sail
In preparation for my fast approaching attempt to kayak from Key West to the Bahamas, my aunt and I made a kayak sail. I created the mast and boom using fiberglass rods which I ordered from DX Engineering. I considered using carbon fiber rods but changed my mind because of the expense. A fiberglass pole may cost $10 whereas the equivalent in carbon fiber will be over $100. For a low stress kayak sail, the fiberglass will do.
Cockpit cover
I have created a coffin but I sure as hell hope that I am not digging my own grave. I made a cockpit cover for my kayak, a kind of last resort safety capsule, a way to turn my boat into a life raft. I’m pretty proud of the design and the construction, it’s like nothing I have ever built before. But when I slid into for the first time today, with the roof less than an inch from my nose, I realized what I had done. This is an absolute minimal design so that I can store it below deck. It is cut in the middle to latch together and to break apart. On top I have installed an air-only ventilator, an incredible design that could very likely save my life. The frame is made from fiberglass which I purchased from Tapp Plastics. The latches I purchased from The Toggle Clamp Store.
First I taped down the mold which I cut from polystyrene foam using a hacksaw and an electric carving knife and then sanded down. I then covered the whole thing with plastic wrap which I then covered with mold release. Then I laid down one layer of 2oz fiberglass mat and then another layer on top of that, all the while rolling to smooth out bubbles as best I could. I ended up with an imperfect piece but good enough for my purposes. I am currently working applying an overhang on the front cover which will come over the rear cover to allow me to make it watertight. All the edges will be coated with a rubber seal.
I imagine trying to sleep in this thing will be pretty close to anyone’s worst nightmare. Alone in the ocean, no land in sight, with a twenty-one inch beam, and two inches of freeboard, crammed down in a cockpit no bigger than a coffin. But while I hope it never comes to that, it is a safety measure that I would feel moronic doing without. I would much rather spend a few hours waiting out a storm in a coffin then the rest of eternity in a coffin. It may seem curious why I would even consider putting myself in these predicaments. I’m not. It’s an all else fails scenario. The goal is to bring this trip to safer than the thousand mile drive down I-95 to the Florida Keys. Not more comfortable, just safer. And this cockpit cover is another step in that direction.
The weatherglow
Frederic Fenger published these words in his book, “Alone in the Caribbean”, after his 1911 crossing of the Lesser Antilles in a sailing canoe.
“Crab pas mache, il pas gras ; il mache trop, et il tombe dans chodier.”
“If a crab don’t walk, he don’t get fat ;
If he walk too much, he gets in a pot.”
— From the Creole.
IS IT in the nature of all of us, or is it just my own peculiar make-up which brings, when the wind blows, that queer feeling, mingled longing and dread? A thousand invisible fingers seem to be pulling me, trying to draw me away from the four walls where I have every comfort, into the open where I shall have to use my wits and my strength to fool the sea in its treacherous moods, to take advantage of fair winds and to fight when I am fairly caught — for a man is a fool to think he can conquer nature. It had been a long time since I had felt the weatherglow on my face, a feeling akin to the numb forehead in the first touch of inebriety. The lure was coming back to me. It was the lure of islands and my thoughts had gone back to a certain room in school where as a boy I used to muse over a huge relief map of the bottom of the North Atlantic. No doubt my time had been better spent on the recitation that was going on. Continue reading The weatherglow