Twice to the Sea (Part One of Two)
I feel as though I have enough things moving around in my head for an almost daily blog, but alas, summer school, cleaning house for S's return tonight, my own trip on the Bay sailing last weekened...I just haven't been writing. But there are two stories I'd like to tell, one about the first time I snorkeled, the other the first time I was on a sailboat. My first scuba day makes for some good bloggage too, but snorkeling is a better story, and it was the first time I peered beneath the surface of the water. Incidentally, the scuba mask really has changed world culture; it allows us all to see what is beneath the sea. The mural on the Casino in Avalon was painted by what little could be seen through the old glass bottom boats; it's fairly fanciful, and it was painted in the twenties. Not anymore.
And so, before the story of my first sail, the story of my first trip under the water.
It was the first time S and I went to Catalina; we were dating, had only been dating a few months. It was fall, and I took an ex-student named Clint up on his offer to camp for free at his place. We were discussing Thoreau and Walden in a Composition class and a student I didn't know, except that he always wore the same pair of khaki shorts and green t-shirt, mentioned that he, in fact, did live outside in a house he himself had built. A tent really, with a wooden floor. I found that quite impressive, and when he told me he had been living that way for two years already and that I was welcome to visit, I took him up on his offer. I had never even been to Catalina, the place where Clint was living this extraordinary life, so the next November, months after he had been in my spring class, I came over as a special guest and stayed at the Hermit Gulch campground outside Avalon. I think Mikey may have been with us; no, that was the second trip when we got to sleep in a teepee.
I was quite amazed to find that Clint did in fact live in a tent/cabin he had built, with a wooden deck floor, low wooden walls (perhaps three feet) and then upper canvas walls and a peaked canvas ceiling. Why he didn't build his walls higher (they were just framing and plywood, if I recall correctly) I don't know, but he had no electricity at that time, no phone. Just a gorgeous spot at the head of a canyon, at a trailhead which runs all the way to the backbone of the island. The campground was behind him, and he did in fact work there and commute to Long Beach for classes, but when I saw the inside of his place...it felt like something at Disneyland, the treehouse, or what you see waiting in line for the jungle cruise, only real. Many books along the wall, mostly anthropology, literature related to travel or exploration, a globe, and a futon bed up off the plywood floor, covered in blankets. This was before he had expanded, before sweet J moved in with him and his place was very small, maybe 10 by 12, but he could tell me for sure. I do believe he had already built the little deck out front with the crimson bouganville (sp?), a single stem barely two feet high.
And so we sat there, on wooden stumps outside his shack in the evening, drinking rum and coke or beers, grilling in the dark by flashlight (make sure that chicken isn't pink) and eating what came to be the classic Club Clint meal: chicken thighs, string beans (french cut according to the can) heated in said can on the grill, and beans, cooked the same way. Ranch style beans, mind you, not the sweet Boston variety. Perhaps some bread or rolls to go along. I had that meal many times, and always with the beers flowing. Clint may not have had electricity, but he had a sizeable ice chest and he kept it stocked from the campground ice machine. I learned immediately (it just felt right, he never said a word) not to come up the hill empty handed; it would have been poor form indeed. So usually Cuervo or Captain Morgan came with me, maybe a twelve pack of coronas or sierra nevada.
I believe this happened on my first trip to the island, if not perhaps the spring after. But we began talking about snorkeling and spear fishing. Neither of us had scuba dived (he later became my scuba buddy and we certified together) but Clint had a 3/4 wetsuit and spent whole afternoons in the water on his days off. The more we talked about it, the more intrigued I was to see what could be seen. And so it was that in that cool autumn air I decided to go down the hill with him and get into the water at lover's cove, a little preserve where diving and hunting of any kind is prohibited, snorkeling encouraged. The truly funny thing is that it was already late, fully night, and I had no gear of any kind.
J didn't live with Clint yet, but she lived in a tent nearby, and she came up with a pink girl's wetsuit; I don't know what the size was, but it was not big; she was a small woman. Somehow Clint and I got me into that thing in his tent cabin, and it was so tight (and I swear, bright pink from wrist to ankles) I couldn't lower my arms to my sides and couldn't take a full breath. I had no dive light, only a backpacking headlamp which was supposed to be waterproof. Someone came up with a mask; I went without fins. Unaware.
What I do remember is riding down on the handlebars (in said wetsuit, unzipped down the back so I could move) of Clint's bike (and I was, oh, 32 years old by this point in chronological time) all the way down the hill, through the lower canyon, past the golf course, through avalon to lover's cove and the sea. And I remember how wonderful I felt. I have trouble with tension now, but I was always tense then, very tense, just picking my textbooks for a semester scared the pee out of me, and rolling down the very dark canyon road to avalon (this was before the new lights) on the front of a bike seemed to me an extremely therapeutic activity; I could think of nothing else but the moment, and it was beautiful; the smells in that canyon are extraordinary, anise and brush. For someone who takes, and took, few real risks, avoided dangerous things, this was a very different kind of night.
When we got to the ocean (and avalon is on the lee side of the island, away from the weather and heavier surf) there was some surge, small waves, but it was pitch dark. Clint told me there was no law against being in there at night that he knew of, but someone might think we were poaching, so we had to be careful. Lover's cove is a perhaps a half mile to the east along the sea from the actual city; there is only rare night traffic on that road and again, it was very dark.
Down the steps (what did I have on my feet? someone must have come up with booties; perhaps I had teva's?) and across the short rocky shore and into the black surf and water; for the first time I felt how water creeps cold into a wetsuit, then warms; though my suit was so tight I probably didn't take in much.
Dive lights are very large if you look at one. The reason this is so is that it takes lots of light to find things in the water at night. My headlamp, which I switched on, did very little of anything, though it did help me find Clint when I looked around on the surface. But he was careful with me. I stuck close to him and could see what was in his beam, and we just floated in our wetsuits, salt water gurgling around faces, staring at the shallow rocky sea floor and the strands of kelp which floated just as we were floating, silent, shifting with the roll of the surge as it came in and out.
But the things we saw, even with only one dive light and in average visibility: a huge lobster on a rock, long-lived in the preserve, something out of the old submarine ride at the aforementioned theme park in the sixties (and my favorite ride as a boy). Fish, of course, brilliant sea urchins, and even a sand shark, somewhere between four and five feet (hard to tell in my memory). Apparently these sharks have no real teeth; I didn't know this, but as Clint pointed it out to me, maybe twenty feet away, curling in the dim water just off the shallow bottom, I noticed he was not concerned, even happy (and it is a funny thing, picking up facial gestures through mask and snorkel, but it can be done for the more demonstrative moods). Since he was not concerned I figured I had nothing to worry about either. The shark looked smaller, or certainly no bigger, than me anyway.
We hadn't been out there too long yet I was getting worried: how far is the shore? can I get back?. I know how to swim but have never been a swimmer, and not having fins is a terrible thing in a situation like this. Now if I was out doing the same and dropped one, certainly both, I'd head in. But it wasn't until the Sherrif SUV spotlight picked us out that I figured we were heading in anyway. So far we had just been floating in the surge, not swimming much at all, and I wasn't far from the beach, maybe fifty feet, maybe less than that as we were trying to stay shallow to see the bottom better. But no mistaking a police spotlight an actual sheriff, standing on the edge of the road and shouting down at us. She may have used her sheriff speaker, I think that's how it began, I can't recall.
But she asked what we were doing, told us we weren't supposed to be there. For sure, she was trying to figure us out, thought we were poaching. But really, it was when I then put my mask up on my forehead (a sure sign of a dive fool: one never, ever, ever mask props; the mask goes around the neck so it doesn't fall off the head) and she caught sight of the pink wetsuit and my awkward arm strokes (made more awkward by the tightness of the suit, and again, you don't swim with your arms when snorkeling...that's the fins) that I think she gave the final word for us to come in. I was getting a bit nervous, but it wasn't hard at all to get back to shore. Once out, Clint talked to her, I believe knew who she was, and she stood there talking to him but looking from time to time at me, dripping in my pinkie with my tiny backpack headlamp on, no fins. She felt we should call it quits, and by then I believe she was right.
How did we get back up the hill? I know I didn't walk it in that wetsuit, unless I had it zipped down and off around my waist. I think Clint called and J came and got us in the thrasher campground pickup which always smelled like brush (including poison ivy) and dog. I got back to his place, somehow peeled out of that thing without killing myself, and was back in dry clothes in no time. And I had a story to tell.
'What was it like?'
Hard to describe, really...murky, objects showing up in a spotlight I stayed close to, and us always moving, smooth hard rocks and soft and slippery kelp. It was my first time in the sea, or under it I should say, and because of the rocky bottom and the low surf the visibility there is much greater, even on a terrible day, than anything along the california coast. So I indeed had seen things. The mural at the casino (is it a mural, when it's made from thousands of flecks of tile...perhaps mosaic is the correct term) looked different to me when I saw it again. I had peered beneath the black and shifting blanket and seen, and felt, something entirely new. A number of other campgrounders congratulated me on my courage, going out without fins on my first snorkel, and at night no less, but I only knew how alive I felt that night, baptized, the first time, in the great salt mother, for so she is. Though the sea has no heart, it somehow opens ours.
***
My time is short. The story of my second sea baptism, my first sail, comes next. And I promise to try and get it out soon. Some of my series have months between installments! Not fair to my loyal handful.
Peace and love to all.
And if you ever get the chance (in the day, preferably) to snorkel catalina, by all means do it. Two hints though: one, have all the gear, fins are essential, as is a wetsuit unless it's very warm and a mask and snorkel, even gloves if anyone has them; two, do it as Descanso beach if lover's is crowded which it usually is. Heck, at Descanso you can get out and lie in real sand to warm up while the wait staff brings you fish tacos and a mai tai.
Well, and one third hint. If you get motion sick at all, take meclizine, 25 mg. or so the morning before you go out, the night before also if you know you have trouble. Snorkeling can make me motion sick faster than almost anything; I'm never on the island without meclizine, cheap now and over the counter at Long's.
Have fun, people. That night was the beginning of a long love for the island and the sea for me, a love I too rarely indulge (all the more difficult that I now live in the mountains).
Part two next.
t
And so, before the story of my first sail, the story of my first trip under the water.
It was the first time S and I went to Catalina; we were dating, had only been dating a few months. It was fall, and I took an ex-student named Clint up on his offer to camp for free at his place. We were discussing Thoreau and Walden in a Composition class and a student I didn't know, except that he always wore the same pair of khaki shorts and green t-shirt, mentioned that he, in fact, did live outside in a house he himself had built. A tent really, with a wooden floor. I found that quite impressive, and when he told me he had been living that way for two years already and that I was welcome to visit, I took him up on his offer. I had never even been to Catalina, the place where Clint was living this extraordinary life, so the next November, months after he had been in my spring class, I came over as a special guest and stayed at the Hermit Gulch campground outside Avalon. I think Mikey may have been with us; no, that was the second trip when we got to sleep in a teepee.
I was quite amazed to find that Clint did in fact live in a tent/cabin he had built, with a wooden deck floor, low wooden walls (perhaps three feet) and then upper canvas walls and a peaked canvas ceiling. Why he didn't build his walls higher (they were just framing and plywood, if I recall correctly) I don't know, but he had no electricity at that time, no phone. Just a gorgeous spot at the head of a canyon, at a trailhead which runs all the way to the backbone of the island. The campground was behind him, and he did in fact work there and commute to Long Beach for classes, but when I saw the inside of his place...it felt like something at Disneyland, the treehouse, or what you see waiting in line for the jungle cruise, only real. Many books along the wall, mostly anthropology, literature related to travel or exploration, a globe, and a futon bed up off the plywood floor, covered in blankets. This was before he had expanded, before sweet J moved in with him and his place was very small, maybe 10 by 12, but he could tell me for sure. I do believe he had already built the little deck out front with the crimson bouganville (sp?), a single stem barely two feet high.
And so we sat there, on wooden stumps outside his shack in the evening, drinking rum and coke or beers, grilling in the dark by flashlight (make sure that chicken isn't pink) and eating what came to be the classic Club Clint meal: chicken thighs, string beans (french cut according to the can) heated in said can on the grill, and beans, cooked the same way. Ranch style beans, mind you, not the sweet Boston variety. Perhaps some bread or rolls to go along. I had that meal many times, and always with the beers flowing. Clint may not have had electricity, but he had a sizeable ice chest and he kept it stocked from the campground ice machine. I learned immediately (it just felt right, he never said a word) not to come up the hill empty handed; it would have been poor form indeed. So usually Cuervo or Captain Morgan came with me, maybe a twelve pack of coronas or sierra nevada.
I believe this happened on my first trip to the island, if not perhaps the spring after. But we began talking about snorkeling and spear fishing. Neither of us had scuba dived (he later became my scuba buddy and we certified together) but Clint had a 3/4 wetsuit and spent whole afternoons in the water on his days off. The more we talked about it, the more intrigued I was to see what could be seen. And so it was that in that cool autumn air I decided to go down the hill with him and get into the water at lover's cove, a little preserve where diving and hunting of any kind is prohibited, snorkeling encouraged. The truly funny thing is that it was already late, fully night, and I had no gear of any kind.
J didn't live with Clint yet, but she lived in a tent nearby, and she came up with a pink girl's wetsuit; I don't know what the size was, but it was not big; she was a small woman. Somehow Clint and I got me into that thing in his tent cabin, and it was so tight (and I swear, bright pink from wrist to ankles) I couldn't lower my arms to my sides and couldn't take a full breath. I had no dive light, only a backpacking headlamp which was supposed to be waterproof. Someone came up with a mask; I went without fins. Unaware.
What I do remember is riding down on the handlebars (in said wetsuit, unzipped down the back so I could move) of Clint's bike (and I was, oh, 32 years old by this point in chronological time) all the way down the hill, through the lower canyon, past the golf course, through avalon to lover's cove and the sea. And I remember how wonderful I felt. I have trouble with tension now, but I was always tense then, very tense, just picking my textbooks for a semester scared the pee out of me, and rolling down the very dark canyon road to avalon (this was before the new lights) on the front of a bike seemed to me an extremely therapeutic activity; I could think of nothing else but the moment, and it was beautiful; the smells in that canyon are extraordinary, anise and brush. For someone who takes, and took, few real risks, avoided dangerous things, this was a very different kind of night.
When we got to the ocean (and avalon is on the lee side of the island, away from the weather and heavier surf) there was some surge, small waves, but it was pitch dark. Clint told me there was no law against being in there at night that he knew of, but someone might think we were poaching, so we had to be careful. Lover's cove is a perhaps a half mile to the east along the sea from the actual city; there is only rare night traffic on that road and again, it was very dark.
Down the steps (what did I have on my feet? someone must have come up with booties; perhaps I had teva's?) and across the short rocky shore and into the black surf and water; for the first time I felt how water creeps cold into a wetsuit, then warms; though my suit was so tight I probably didn't take in much.
Dive lights are very large if you look at one. The reason this is so is that it takes lots of light to find things in the water at night. My headlamp, which I switched on, did very little of anything, though it did help me find Clint when I looked around on the surface. But he was careful with me. I stuck close to him and could see what was in his beam, and we just floated in our wetsuits, salt water gurgling around faces, staring at the shallow rocky sea floor and the strands of kelp which floated just as we were floating, silent, shifting with the roll of the surge as it came in and out.
But the things we saw, even with only one dive light and in average visibility: a huge lobster on a rock, long-lived in the preserve, something out of the old submarine ride at the aforementioned theme park in the sixties (and my favorite ride as a boy). Fish, of course, brilliant sea urchins, and even a sand shark, somewhere between four and five feet (hard to tell in my memory). Apparently these sharks have no real teeth; I didn't know this, but as Clint pointed it out to me, maybe twenty feet away, curling in the dim water just off the shallow bottom, I noticed he was not concerned, even happy (and it is a funny thing, picking up facial gestures through mask and snorkel, but it can be done for the more demonstrative moods). Since he was not concerned I figured I had nothing to worry about either. The shark looked smaller, or certainly no bigger, than me anyway.
We hadn't been out there too long yet I was getting worried: how far is the shore? can I get back?. I know how to swim but have never been a swimmer, and not having fins is a terrible thing in a situation like this. Now if I was out doing the same and dropped one, certainly both, I'd head in. But it wasn't until the Sherrif SUV spotlight picked us out that I figured we were heading in anyway. So far we had just been floating in the surge, not swimming much at all, and I wasn't far from the beach, maybe fifty feet, maybe less than that as we were trying to stay shallow to see the bottom better. But no mistaking a police spotlight an actual sheriff, standing on the edge of the road and shouting down at us. She may have used her sheriff speaker, I think that's how it began, I can't recall.
But she asked what we were doing, told us we weren't supposed to be there. For sure, she was trying to figure us out, thought we were poaching. But really, it was when I then put my mask up on my forehead (a sure sign of a dive fool: one never, ever, ever mask props; the mask goes around the neck so it doesn't fall off the head) and she caught sight of the pink wetsuit and my awkward arm strokes (made more awkward by the tightness of the suit, and again, you don't swim with your arms when snorkeling...that's the fins) that I think she gave the final word for us to come in. I was getting a bit nervous, but it wasn't hard at all to get back to shore. Once out, Clint talked to her, I believe knew who she was, and she stood there talking to him but looking from time to time at me, dripping in my pinkie with my tiny backpack headlamp on, no fins. She felt we should call it quits, and by then I believe she was right.
How did we get back up the hill? I know I didn't walk it in that wetsuit, unless I had it zipped down and off around my waist. I think Clint called and J came and got us in the thrasher campground pickup which always smelled like brush (including poison ivy) and dog. I got back to his place, somehow peeled out of that thing without killing myself, and was back in dry clothes in no time. And I had a story to tell.
'What was it like?'
Hard to describe, really...murky, objects showing up in a spotlight I stayed close to, and us always moving, smooth hard rocks and soft and slippery kelp. It was my first time in the sea, or under it I should say, and because of the rocky bottom and the low surf the visibility there is much greater, even on a terrible day, than anything along the california coast. So I indeed had seen things. The mural at the casino (is it a mural, when it's made from thousands of flecks of tile...perhaps mosaic is the correct term) looked different to me when I saw it again. I had peered beneath the black and shifting blanket and seen, and felt, something entirely new. A number of other campgrounders congratulated me on my courage, going out without fins on my first snorkel, and at night no less, but I only knew how alive I felt that night, baptized, the first time, in the great salt mother, for so she is. Though the sea has no heart, it somehow opens ours.
***
My time is short. The story of my second sea baptism, my first sail, comes next. And I promise to try and get it out soon. Some of my series have months between installments! Not fair to my loyal handful.
Peace and love to all.
And if you ever get the chance (in the day, preferably) to snorkel catalina, by all means do it. Two hints though: one, have all the gear, fins are essential, as is a wetsuit unless it's very warm and a mask and snorkel, even gloves if anyone has them; two, do it as Descanso beach if lover's is crowded which it usually is. Heck, at Descanso you can get out and lie in real sand to warm up while the wait staff brings you fish tacos and a mai tai.
Well, and one third hint. If you get motion sick at all, take meclizine, 25 mg. or so the morning before you go out, the night before also if you know you have trouble. Snorkeling can make me motion sick faster than almost anything; I'm never on the island without meclizine, cheap now and over the counter at Long's.
Have fun, people. That night was the beginning of a long love for the island and the sea for me, a love I too rarely indulge (all the more difficult that I now live in the mountains).
Part two next.
t
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