The Scuttlefish

Urchin spines, reef gashes, a stomach bug, and spider bites that seem more akin to small caliber bullet wounds than any sort of arachnid assailment.

Went to a point just south of Boca de Tomatlan the other day, but forgot most of my fishing gear. Luckily I was able to gather some fishing line, a few old hooks left behind by local fishermen, and managed to pull up two little groupers off the rocks.

Of course, nothing is ever enough…

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Wednesday, After Dark:
The moon was almost full, and the lights from the city were helping guide us, too. The southern swell was wrapping its way into the mouth of the Sea of Cortez and finding me here in this warm place called another California, but with water nothing like California I call home. For starters, the sun had just gone down over the desert instead of the ocean. But across the sea and below a bank of still clouds was the moon. It was casting a shadow so we could see the waves, so crowded only a few hours before with beautiful Mexicans and pale skinned tourists, all wave hungry. And now, we were alone.

Every wave was ours, even though we could only tell they were coming by the shadow and faint shimmer. And the waves grew taller and glassier as the night went on. Someone up on the lookout point above tried to take a photo and a flash went off. Lighting fired in the northern sky, too. But there was no more light after that and my eyes adjusted and then relaxed because my eyes knew they were not as important as they previously thought they were to the riding of waves. And because of this muscle memory–as well as memory of how every wave fundamentally works and every board fundamentally works and how every surfer’s body fundamentally works with the wave–all came alive. More alive, I should say. Because of seeing less and feeling more. Wave after wave came, all of them cloaked in darkness that only the shimmering betrayed.

Back on land, closer to midnight, I lay exhausted thinking that tomorrow night, the moon would be at its fullest.

***

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I’m not quite sure where my father met Jim Hughes, but he has been a friend of my father and the family for a very long time (in my years at least). He owned a Marshall 22 Cat Boat, which was moored across the cove from our mooring when I was growing up.

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I grew up fishing in a small pond with my father who would back-paddle a two-seater kayak called “Keowee”, so that I could keep an anxious watch over the bobber above my fly, ready to drive the hook into sunfish and bass half the size of my hand. One time I caught a “large” perch of about two pounds, which we brought home and cooked on the grill for dinner, but I hadn’t yet experienced a true battle with a large fish at sea.

“What happened?” my mother screamed one afternoon as my father walked into the house after kayaking–she must have thought he’d been in a fight.

A fight of sorts.

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image from equaldist.com

John McCambridge is an artist, a surfer, and a big, conceptual thinker. He is the man behind Mollusk Surf Shop, which first opened in the Outer Sunset in San Francisco, and also has sister stores in Brooklyn and Venice Beach. I met up with John inside his newest branch of Mollusk, located at Voyager in the Mission District of San Francisco, which is designed like a submarine.

What do you do?

I’m an artist and a surfer. I used to actually make a lot of art, and focused on animations, paintings, and t-shirt designs. But more and more I am moving away from smaller projects, and instead I oversee larger installations of projects, like the sub we’re standing in here. I guess I’m sort of moving toward being an art director of sorts.

What is your typical day like?

Well, I have a kid, so that takes up a lot of my typical day. I go by Mollusk every day, which is located close to my house. And of course, I check the surf regularly, and if there’s waves, I’ll go surf. Lately I’ve been surfing my bonzer a lot and really enjoying it.

What is your most memorable ocean experience?

This is more of a broad way of answering the question, but when I turned 30, I went down to New Zealand by myself for about 6 weeks. I bought a van and lived out of it, and drove around looking for perfect point breaks. At that point in my life I had already dabbled in t-shirt designs a bit, but down there, doing nothing but surfing and sitting quietly by myself, not talking to people much, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do, and decided it was to open a shop. I came home, and lucked into a good space in my neighborhood, and started Mollusk. It was a good 30th birthday present to myself.

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Chris Del Moro is a surfer, artist, and activist with Surfers for Cetaceans, a non-profit dedicated to protecting all varieties of whale species. I met Chris, who lives in Southern California when he was in San Francisco to pain a whale mural on a nursery school as part of an initiative called “Where there’s a wall, there’s a whale.” We surfed together, I watched him paint, and we talked for a while about his life in the ocean

What do you do?

I’m a professional free surfer, meaning I don’t compete, but I get to travel and surf. I also am a self-taught artist, and I sell artwork but also do free projects like this mural. But most of all, I am an activist with Surfers for Cetaceans. I was raised in an environmentally conscious family, and protecting the environment has always been a big passion of mine. I met Dave Rastovich [professional surfer and the founder of the organization], and we get along and work well together. We’re both on fairly similar paths, so I have been involved in the organization since we met.

As a surfer, I get paid to surf by my sponsors: Honolua, Matuse, Etnies, Bing Surfboards, and Clif Bar. They give me the ability to have this lifestyle of traveling, searching for waves, and just kind of being me.

What’s a typical day like, both in and out of the water?

I travel so much that I don’t even really have a typical day. But if I had to give you an “average” one….I wake up around sunrise-ish, and start the day with a smoothie or fresh juice. I’ll take my dog for a walk and check the waves. If there are waves, I go surfing, and if not, then I go to yoga. After the morning, I might hang out with some friends for a bit, and then do some art around the house. At night, maybe it’s a dinner part or something like that, and then off to bed to do it again.

As for water activities, I love to be in the ocean in any capacity, whether it’s swimming, kayaking, sailing, or anything. The only things I don’t really do are fish or stand-up paddle, but otherwise I do the whole gamut.

What is your most memorable ocean moment?

In my whole life? Wow, that’s pretty hard. I’ve gotten to ride some incredible waves, but they all kind of turn into a blur with each other. I guess I’d have to go with a trip I took when I was a kid down to the Baja peninsula with my aunt and uncle. We were out on a small boat in a bay where the gray whales go to birth their calves, and I had a full-on interaction with a mother gray whale. She came up to the boat and flipped on her side, and looked me right in the eyes, and I got to pet her. It was unreal, and probably the most powerful experience I’ve ever had in the sea.

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Caroline Paul has been a private pilot, a whitewater rafting guide, a paraglider, an Olympic-class luger, and she has adventured all over the world seakayaking, paragliding and mountain biking.  After attending Stanford University for Documentary Film, she became a member of the San Francisco Fire Department and later wrote an account of the experience, Fighting Fire.  Her most recent book, East Wind, Rain, is based on the Ni’ihau incident, a true story of a downed pilot on a remote island after bombing Pearl Harbor.  Paul currently resides in San Francisco and is working on publishing her next novel, due in July 2011. More on her at CarolinePaul.com.

A Catalina Island Adventure had been a dream of mine for a while. True, I knew little about the place, just that it sat in the Pacific ocean about 22 miles from the California coast, that it was full of wildlife, and, with the exception of a few populated areas, that most of it was resolutely protected by a conservancy. I told my friend Sue Norman of my nascent plans, which vaguely included a sea kayak, a few friends, and great weather. She agreed it sounded like an excellent idea. But, she informed me, didn’t I realize that sitting down was passé? It was much too uncomfortable, and not a great workout to boot. She suggested a Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) trip instead. “Sounds stupid,” I said to myself, but out loud I said, “Really? Sounds interesting.”  Soon I had agreed to SUP-it down the Catalina coast.

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Of the 40,000 members of the U.S. Coast Guard, only 330 of them are Rescue Swimmers. Ever seen “The Guardian?” Yeah, those are the guys.

I lifeguarded on the eastern shore with Cory a few summers ago. While I went on to teach and lifeguard, Cory Ciekot has since become one of those elite swimmers. We conducted an email interview while he was on a surf trip in Nicaragua.

What do you do for your profession, and what are your hobbies that are ocean-related?

My job is to operate as a Helicopter Rescue Swimmer (R/S) for the U.S. Coast Guard. Basically, my primary duty as a R/S is to stand 24 hour shifts once every four days to help boats in distress. For example, a boat might be taking on water, or a person aboard could be having a medical condition. In short, any time there’s a water emergency, my “crew”–the pilot, co-pilot, mechanic, and rescue swimmer, have to be ready to respond accordingly. Living within a 5 minute bike ride to the beach my entire life had prepared me to take on the toughest challenge I’ve ever encountered…passing Helicopter Rescue Swimmer school. When I am not at work, I have many hobbies that all revolve around the ocean, like surfing, open ocean swimming, beach lifeguarding, and diving. Just like any other surf lover, when I’m not at work, and the waves are on, you know where to find me.

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