Paddling in Monterey - with company

Sorry all, for the lapse in the blog! Yesterday I slept in to 7 am which was completely needed since I've been battling a sore throat and cough and the opening of the Blue Ocean Film Festival had June and I out way later than we normally would be before a day of paddling. Toss that in with the fact that the upcoming parts of the paddle are areas I've been concerned with from the start, and well, we needed to get down to the business of fine-tuning the route. You simply cannot land an outrigger, or anything for that matter, on a beach covered by elephant seals.So June and I have sketched out the last 14 paddle days. If all goes well I'll actually hit San Diego on the 11th and then paddle back up to paddle to the pier with the San Diego Chapter of Surfrider Foundation's Paddle Out for Clean Water on the 12th. I am a Surfrider Foundation member, of course, so I'm thrilled to be amongst fellow members of this ocean loving tribe! The schedule is getting kind of tight because my husband, Carl, who's playing "Mr. Mom" as well as working full time and keeping track of me, my emails, and logistics, has to go on travel on the 14th. Nailbiter time for sure! I've only got two days of "cushion" so far, and 14 days to paddle. Keep your fingers crossed the weather holds for those 50+ mile days I've got ahead of me!But back to the Monterey Bay crossing. I was joined by fellow paddlers Cat, Roger, and Yoko. We left with relatively good visibility on the Santa Cruz side, and with diminishing visibility as we approached Monterey. Cat had limited time, so she turned back at the bouy. Then it was Roger and Yoko in the two person outrigger (OC2) and me on the trusty Pueo. We set out on a fairly Southerly course which would allow us to be pushed by the wind once we hit the point of Monterey. Well, it was a nice thought, but the wind picked up and made holding that line a bit of a challenge. We had taken a bit of time to whale watch, and had a total whale ballet before us, so we were riding high despite the wind in our face.We were paddling in total fog out conditions so we were in the middle of the bay and could not see land. I guess we saw no land starting at about 5-6 miles off from Santa Cruz and that basically was what we had until about four miles off of Monterey. We did, though, see whale spouts. They were far off, about 14 miles out of Monterey. So we decided we would inch closer to where the whale watching boats were hanging out. I've never seen whales dancing and playing before, and these were humpbacks-the show was incredible. The grand finale came when a whale went straight for Roger and Yoko's boat. I thought they were going to get dumped, and I'm sure they did, too! Both of them grabbed onto the iako to keep the ama (outrigger) from popping up and over in a traditional "huli." I could see their whole boat heave up with the displace water from the whale moving beneath them. It was an amazing sight which may or may not be on YouTube. (I know someone on that Sea Wolf II had to have had a video going!) It happened somewhere around 11am, so who knows, maybe we can track someone down who got that on some sort of camera! The whole whale watching boat (well, starboard side, anyway) saw it. What a welcome to Monterey Bay!Once we left the whales we had a few minutes of blissful paddling until the wind picked up. I don't know what happened to the promised northwest wind, but we sure had a good workout paddling into a southwest one!It's really shameful that I did not try to get sponsorship of a waterproof camera. My trusty Sealife camera, which I had been using for my past paddle adventures, is no longer waterproof, and consequently, not on this trip. It lost it's waterproof coating when I left it on the roof of my car and only noticed when I saw it bouncing in the road from my side-view mirror. Never having the heart to ask for a replacement, and not wanting to spend the money (this is largely a self-funded trip, with some assistance from Blue Frontier Campaign, of course!) that comes out of the family opporating budget, I figured I'd just do without. Well, that was pretty stupid. There's been so much I wish I could share, te things I've seen and the stuff I've paddled through.Fortunately for anyone who's interested in seeing what I've seen, it does look like I'll be getting a video camera soon! So at least 13 of the last 14 days will have coverage! Thanks to Michael Carey of Michael Carey Productions, I will now have a waterproof video set up! It's just up to me and June to figure out how to use it and attach it to the iako. It'll take a bit to figure it out, but I'm forever grateful to Michael for his on the spot donation last night at the Blue Ocean Film Festival!By the way, on opening night of the event we were treated to Peter Brown's amazing movie about Sea Shepard, "Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist." it was totally amazing and awe-inspiring. It was also very sobering. It is completely disgusting that people still take pleasure, bad enough they still hunt, but to actually take pleasure in clubbing baby seals to death and in harpooning whales and dolphins- well, when you see the total depravity, the glee the killers take in their cruel acts, you find yourself witnessing non-human acts, when you see that, you are seeing the worst that humanity has to offer. I would definitely put folks who brutalize these animals in such a way-to glory in the agony of another living creature- in the same category as Al Qaida. No question about it. It is one thing to kill something to eat it, but to relish that killing, to decorate your face with the blood of the animal you so cruelly maimed and made scream out in shear agony and terror before actually killing, well, that makes you totally sub-human in my book. To glory in the pain of another creature is the basest of all acts. If you would do it to an animal, I wouldn't trust you to not to do it to another human.Fortunately, this paddle reinstates my over all belief in humanity. I have not found anyone yet who is "against" the ocean, and so far, everyone I've met had been fully supportive of this paddle. I am lucky to be seeing all this good and reason for hope. Now if only we could get our elected officials,the ones who have promised to do something different, do something to really help the average American taxpayer, to base their decisions on science, would actually do it rather than cowtow to greedy industry that would, like the seal hunters and whale hunters, take all that is before them and leave nothing for the individuals and individual business owners which depend on them.Yes, we have, finally, a National Ocean Policy, but that, Mr. President, cannot be just more pretty words on paper, nor can it serve industry more than it serves the people! Thank you, President Obama, for taking a stand for our ocean, but please, let's make it actually do something. Our ocean is in crisis!