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Published: February 26th 2008
The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.
-Marcel Proust
Wow, quite a bit of time has passed since I last posted a blog. For all of you who read it regularly and keep up to date, I apologize, and while I’d like to promise all of you persistant readers that such a horrendous lapse will never again occur, the best I can do is to tell you that I will try slightly harder to keep writing in it and that I do respond to criticism so feel free to let me know in any way that you deem fit that too much time has passed between blogs and I should update them. A simple, “Hey, Soarpheat! Stop being so lame!” generally does the trick. For those of you who don’t really have any interest in reading and the past few months have only been on your radar as strange because of a distinct lack of spam coming into your email box, to you I also apologize for reinstating that, but I also say to you, “Stop being so lame and read my blog!” That said, we can now move onto the complex goings on in my life since November. Brace yourself friends, this one just might be, as they say in Sweden, a doozy.
If my memory serves me, I last left off sometime in November, as I was getting ready to go on a kayak expedition. Well, that went great. My co-instructors were two guys named Josh and John. We almost immediately began renaming things on the course that we interacted with based on our man-ness. For example, the tarp was no longer a tarp, but instead became a Man-tarp, and later a Marp. Classes were Masses, and we didn’t go to sleep, we went to Meep. You can imagine the extent to which that could go over a month. The biggest thing to note however happened while we were camped on an island in the Sea of Cortez called Isla San Marcus. There is a little community there due to a gypsum mine which is also there. They are completely self-sufficient, generating their own electricity and de-salinating their own water. We (the course) would frequently hike the mile or so from our camp to the town and buy nice things like ice cream and meat, things that are understandably difficult to come buy in the middle of an expedition in the desert. Anywho, on one such occasion when we were hiking back to camp from the town, my students began saying that there was a whale out in the water. We had seen plenty of dolphins, stingrays, and other such awesome sea-life, but I had never seen a whale in the wild so I was pretty excited. I came around the bend and sure enough there was a big whale that appeared to be looking at us. It kept coming closer to shore and before to long we noticed two things. First of all, it was about a 45 foot long sperm whale, and secondly, it was badly cut and bleeding over the definite majority of it’s body.
As we watched, it became obvious to us that this creature was getting ready to die, and I got the distinct impression that it singled us out and swam towards us so that it wouldn’t be alone as it did so. The water was stained red for 30 feet in every direction out from the whale as it swam quickly towards us and beached itself. We watched for the next two hours as the tide went out and the whale gradually rolled over on its side. We watched as it took its last breath and rolled further so that its blowhole was under water. We watched for the next 45 minutes as its tail twitched and then stopped moving altogether. There was a sudden feeling that the whale was gone, even though a 45 foot body was no less than 15 feet away from me. It is (present tense) one of the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had. And while I might be taking a bit too much poetic liscence, I did feel like the whale wanted somebody to witness its death, to validate it. I feel like we were able to do that for this magnificent creature, and it is something that I know all who were there will always carry with them, as long as they live.
The rest of the course went fairly smoothly. In December, when it ended, I caught the bus as soon as I was done debriefing and headed to San Diego. The trip happened over night, so I was asleep for most of it, but by the time I stepped off the train and called my cousin, Will to pick me up, I was nonetheless quite exhausted. The next day, my brother, Dan flew in from Louisville to help me drive back. As part of that though I was able to give him his Christmas present, which was a trip to Ouray Colorado to go ice climbing. He had never been before and it was really cool to take him on an adventure that was completely new to him. And I had a blast as well.
We finally made it back to Louisville, just in time to greet all of my dad’s family as they descended on my folk’s house for a ginormous Christmas celebration. It was fun to see everybody for sure. Ash came in to Louisville on New Year’s eve, and we went to my buddy Chris’s house for a New Year’s Eve party. The party actually consisted of myself, Ash, Chris, his fiancé Kelly, and Speedy, which was the perfect size for me. It was great to see all of my friends and spend some time with them.
Over the holidays, I got a new utility trailer, which I then spent a couple weeks outfitting with my dad and uncles. Eventually we had this thing tricked out in an amazing way. It has bookshelves, and a bed, and a closet, and removable trunks, and secret compartments and all sorts of awesomeness. I’ll post pictures as soon as I get them from my folks, but it’s really something.
Anyway, the initial plan for the New Year was that Ash and I were going to drive to Maryland where I would hang out and she would work for CCS - DC. However, plans are meant to be changed, and so these were. Ash got a call from CCS on a Thursday, and they asked her if she could fly to Chicago for a job interview on Friday. We were still in Louisville at the time, so she had to go out to the store to buy a suit as all of her’s were still in D.C. She flew to Chicago, had her interview, and they asked her to work in St. Louis on that Monday. After that whirlwind craziness, we found ourselves in St. Louis. About a week after we got there, Ash started feeling sick. A doctor’s appointment revealed a pretty bad kidney affection, and she had to spend about a week in the hospital. She’s good now though. While she was in the hospital, I started a bartending class. Fast forward to 2 weeks later, Ash is doing fine trying to catch up at work, and I’m a certified mixologist, no joke. So that’s pretty fun.
Life went on and everything’s great. I’m now in Baja again, getting ready to do another sea kayak course. I’m psyched to go out again, and while it was great to have a bit of time off, I’m ready to get back to work. I hope that was something of a catch up, and I’ll try to do this more frequently than I have been. Adios all!
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Hailey K.
non-member comment
Beautifully Tragic
Wow, the whale story made me want to cry. That must have been desperately sad, yet beautiful in a way, watching a creature of such majesty pass away like that. And I think you may be right in that it didn't want to be alone. I wonder what happened to it, to injure it so badly.