If you were at the 6th annual South Sound Tradional Inuit Kayak Symposium you might have seen me wandering around the beach with my video camera, desperately trying to keep the lens dry. It's a wonder my camera survived all that rain! Well, here is what I came up with, a little glimpse of the action at the beach. That's John Petersen of Shaman Kayaks trying out one of Harvey Golden's replica kayaks. Enjoy!
Ah, the San Juan Islands! Here is a neat video I found about kayaking with Shawna and Leon of Body Boat Blade International. This video gives you a little glimpse of what taking a class with them is like -- trip planning at the chart table in the shop, messing around on Cascade Lake, and launching the fleet of Nigel Dennis kayaks off to explore the northern outer islands. It was produced by one of Body Boat Blade's former partners, Bryan Smith, now a filmmaker with Reel Water Productions.
I watched Jaws the other day with my son for the first time in several years. Fun movie. It was the film that kept from swimming in the deep part of my grandmother's swimming pool when I was 11. I told my son beforehand that shark attacks are extremely rare worldwide, and unheard of in this part of North America. I would have liked to tell him that no great white shark has ever been spotted in Puget Sound, but I would be wrong. In December 2002, Bob Salatino saw a 20 ft great white shark while fishing off Point Defiance. In fact, it jumped up out of the water chasing the flasher on the end of his line while he was in his 16 ft boat. Scary! Experts have assured the public that a shark in these waters is a rare anomaly.
One thing I love about Spielberg films is the verisimilitude, the depth of research that goes into the details. Did you ever listen closely to the background chatter that goes on in the scene in ET where the extraterrestrial dies? It is a very accurate portrayal of the resuscitation protocol for cardiac arrest (modified a little for a space alien, of course). Back then other filmmakers really didn't care if they got it right -- only health care professionals would notice anyway. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind Spielberg hired UFO expert J. Allen Hynek as a consultant, and no other major motion picture since has more accurately portrayed the state-of-the-art of ufology, except maybe The X-Files series. Hey, I'm really dating myself here talking about all my favorite old movies!
Another example from Jaws: on the deleted scenes I found an interesting shot with a guy sitting on the dock coiling a line around his arm. He was conspicuously placed in the middle of the frame. In this scene a crowd of people are hurrying get on the water to kill the shark for a $3000 reward. What was the whole point of this deleted shot? Well, one of the first things I learned on my first sailing lesson was how to coil a line. My friend and instructor told me, a sailor coils "with the sun", that is, in the direction the sun travels, I think. Don't ask me why. It's important to slightly rotate the line with one hand so that it lies neatly and doesn't twist into a figure eight. He also told me that whatever you do, absolutely do not coil it around your arm like a farm boy! I think the whole point of that shot was to demonstrate how lubberly these amateur fishermen were. Only sailors would understand the reference though.
One last thing: I don't know if it's his salty language, reckless nature, or refusal to wear a lifejacket, but that crusty old fisherman Quint sure reminds me of Warren for some reason! ;-)
While browsing the Greenland kayaking websites I found a link to this Real Media clip from SOS Eisberg, a 1933 German film directed by Dr Arnold Fanck. It has great footage of Inuit launching from a beach in 50 kayaks, plus some rolling. (scroll down to "The Inuit" on the link).
The sun is out -- stop everything! Time to go rolling!
