His Wonders In The Deep

Beautiful Days in Paradise - Some days out on the sea in Guam

2011-12-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

Anae Island in the near background; the island of Guam further back.

My beautiful Denalee

Is this the man who sank the Titanic?

2011-10-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Is this the man who sank the Titanic by walking off with vital locker key?

By LUKE SALKELD

Second Officer David Blair was taken off theTitanic at the 11th hour.

It was perhaps the most catastrophic lapse of memory in history, costing more than 1,500 lives.

A sailor called David Blair forgot to leave behind a key as the Titanic set off on its maiden voyage.

Without it, his shipmates were unable to open a locker in the crow's nest containing a pair of binoculars for the designated lookout.

The binoculars were to look out for dangers in the distance including signs of bad weather - and icebergs.

Lookout Fred Fleet, who survived the disaster in which 1,522 people lost their lives, later told an official inquiry that if they had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg sooner.

When asked by a US senator how much sooner it might have been spotted, Mr Fleet replied: "Enough to get out of the way."

Ninety-five years later, the key which may have saved the luxury liner is up for auction - along with a postcard from Mr Blair telling of his disappointment at not being on the maiden voyage.

The key would have opened a locker where the crows nest's binoculars were kept

Alan Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Sons in Wiltshire, said: "Mr Blair was the second officer in charge of the crows nest and he had the key, which we believe was for the binoculars locker in the nest.

"A few days before the Titanic sailed he was bumped off the ship, a decision which probably saved his life.

"But in Blair's rush to leave Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.

"Had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crows nest.

"It is supposition but, in lookout Fleet's own words, they would have seen the iceberg sooner with the binoculars.

"It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic."

Charles Lightoller - who replaced Blair as Second Officer and should have been given the key - was the most senior officer to survive the disaster

Mr Blair, from Tayside, was 37 when he sailed on the Titanic from Belfast to Southampton, and Mr Fleet recalled his ship mate having the binoculars with him during the two-day trip.

He had been due to be the second officer for the maiden voyage to New York on April 10 but was told at the 11th hour he wasn't going.

Bosses at White Star Line decided Henry Wilde, the experienced chief officer of the Titanic's sister ship the Olympic, should be transferred instead.

As a result everybody was moved down a rank but Mr Blair was deemed too senior to take up the position of third officer and was tasked to another ship.

Although the move would prove to save Mr Blair's life, he wrote of his disappointment in a postcard he sent to his sister-in-law.

He wrote: "Am afraid I shall have to step out to make room for chief officer of the Olympic. This is a magnificent ship, I feel very disappointed I am not to make her first voyage."

The 46,000-tonne Titanic struck the iceberg in the north Atlantic at 11.45pm on April 14 and sank at 2.20am on April 15.

According to the official US inquiry into the sinking, Mr Fleet said he had previously used binoculars - known as glasses - on the RMS Oceanic, another trans-Atlantic liner.

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The Titantic struck an iceberg on April 14 1912

Senator Smith, chair of the inquiry, asked Fleet: "Suppose you had glasses ... could you have seen this black object [the iceberg] at a greater distance?"

Fleet replied: "We could have seen it a bit sooner."

Asked "How much sooner?", he said: "Well, enough to get out of the way."

In Mr Blair's defence, Mr Aldridge added: "Blair would have been rushing about tidying up his loose ends before then.

"In his rush it slipped his mind to hand over the key so the fate of the Titanic was in his hands in a round-about way.

"But in terms of blame then you have to look at the captain, EJ Smith. The ship was going too fast in an ice field which he had warnings about."

He continued: "There was a pair of binoculars on the bridge and a pair for the crows nest because Blair had them just days before.

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The image of the ship sinking in the 1997 film Titanic

"But the failure to provide the lookouts with them could have been down to Lightoller not knowing where they were.

"He would have found them had he been able to open the locker.

"So in the end all the lookouts had were their own eyes."

A year after the Titanic disaster Mr Blair was awarded the Kings Gallantry medal for saving life at sea.

Mr Blair kept the key as a memento and eventually passed it on to his daughter Nancy who gave it to the British and International Seamans Society in the 1980s and it is now being sold.

The key and the postcard are expected to fetch up to £70,000 at the auction on September 22.

HIS WONDERS IN THE DEEP: The Blue Whale

2011-10-02T17:22:00.001-07:00

The Blue Whale is the largest living mammal on the earth. Ten years ago I was delivering a high speed ferry down the inside passage and while overnighting in British Columbia I saw a vertebra from a Blue Whale sitting in someone's yard. I was blown away at how big it was.

While I was in Sitka, Alaska with Bryan in August (2011), we stopped by and visited the Sitka Sea-life Center. When we lived in Sitka (1995 to 2007) the building where the center is was a hatchery for Sheldon Jackson College. Now it is an aquarium. Upstairs they prepare their exhibits and that is where they had a Orca carcass that they were preserving in-order to display it to the public.

The Blue Whale is the largest mammal on the planet. It can grow up to 100 feet long.

Another view of a Blue whale vertebra.

Here is me posing with a rib bone of the Blue Whale.

This photo is of the ear mechanism in a Killer Whale. It is the densest bone in the Orcas body.

After the whale decomposes, it is the last thing remaining.

Here is a close-up of another Orca ear bone.

A Second in Time in Sulawesi, Indonesia

2011-09-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is a photo that I took in a very remote part of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Trevor and I were on our way to run the Sa'dan River in central Sulawesi with Sobek. We were whipping along a dirt road in a 1961 Land Rover that rattled from every moving part. I was looking out the window trying to soak up every view of the beautiful jungles of Sulawesi when all of the sudden I saw a little house along the road with a bamboo fence around it. I snapped off a photo as we went racing by. I didn't know if I had captured the photo until I looked at the slide after I got home and had the slides processed. In the photo was this little boy peaking over the fence at us as we raced by. These people, of course, don't have electricity or phone service. They live very primitive lives. I have always loved this photo because it captured a split second frozen in time.

The area that we started out from is called TanaToraja. The religion in that area of Sulawesi is Pagan Christian. Just a little over 100 years ago the people there were still headhunting.

My best Whale photos!

2011-04-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Nautical photo journey of my youth.

2011-04-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

While young, I had a lot of exposure to the California coast.

Here are some photos of our family when I was young.

My brother Jeff and I with San Diego Naval Base in the background.

Mom, Jeff, and I along the waterfront in San Diego.

I think this is at Scripps Institute in San Diego. It is a giant clam.

Jeff and I at La Jolla coves. This is near where we found the Abalone that Uncle Ralph cooked up for us.

I think this is near San Francisco. I am three or four years old here.

Many of our vacations exposed me to the ocean when I was young and always gave me a sense of peace.

Photos from deliveries from Alaska to New York

2011-03-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

Me, being lifted up with the vessel as it is being loaded onto a ship in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Me (captain), on the left and Tony B. (head engineer) on the right as we wait in a lock near Norfolk, Va.

Me, at the wheel, waiting to be loaded on board a freighter in Prince Rupert, BC.

This photo was taken by our shipping agent (Brian Phillips) from atop a hotel in Price Rupert. He shot this photo right as we were pulling into the harbor.

This is the M/V Da Verrazano. This was the first high-speed ferry that I delivered from Alaska to New York. Another boatman on the inter-coastal waterway took this photo as we were motoring north toward New York.

Sea Otter and Wildlife Quest

2010-12-02T22:14:00.000-08:00

This is a presentation that I put together while captaining whale-watching cruises in Sitka Alaska.

Click on the title (Sea Otter and Wildlife Quest) in the upper left-hand corner to see the video in full detail. If the title isn't there, click on the upper left-hand corner of the screen until the title appears.

Facpi Point, Southern Guam

2010-07-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

One day, while living on Guam, Denalee and Brooke and I drove out to the village of Agat and hiked out to Facpi Point. It was a beautiful day to go shell collecting. Other than being hot and humid, it was like paradise. We put on our dive booties and started down the beach. Facpi Point is along the South-western shoreline of Guam between Orote Point and the southern tip of the island. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed being completely alone. Facpi Point is in a very uninhabited part of Guam. (see map)

Brookie could always keep herself occupied. I don't remember but it looks like she found an empty bottle on the beach and was making use of it. We found all kinds of cone shells and cowries.

Cowrie Shells

When we decided to head back, Brookie was tired. She wanted me to carry her. I found a bamboo pole that I made a chair for her to sit on. I held it behind me and she sat on it and hung onto my neck.

The funny thing about these photos is that they don't show you just how hot, sweaty, and muggy it was. I still miss the smell of the salt air. Denalee was with us and I am sad that we didn't take any pictures of her.

Some memories I have about Facpi Point:

I can remember driving back around Facpi Point on the way back from a charter cruise to the southern part of the island after dark. We would spotlight out over the water for flying fish. When we would get one in the spot we would track it until it would finally lose its momentum and glide back into the sea. Sometimes we would see them for up to 45 seconds. As the boat came up on them they would panic and swim as fast as they could and then launch themselves up out of the water, spread their wings and glide in a big semi-circle toward the wind until they would drop back into the sea when they were out of momentum.

The flying fish were a beautiful translucent greenish-blue color when we would spotlight them.

Another time I can remember seeing a Mahi-mahi erupt out of the water right next to the boat. It was chasing a Flying Fish. It looked like it was bouncing across the water because it could only jump out of the sea for a short time before gravity would take it back down. When it was under the surface was when it was paddling to maintain its speed. It chased the Flying Fish in a semi-circle around the bow of the Sea Odyssea II until it finally caught the Flying Fish in its mouth. It was spectacular!

Some cool treasures I found while diving and hiking on Guam.

2010-07-25T23:12:00.000-07:00

Exploring a World War II Japanese cave on the island of Guam. Trevor probably took the photo.

I found this fork with U.S.N. stamped in the handle while diving in Apra Harbor on Guam. I was diving along the Glass breakwater side between Dog-leg Reef and the American Tanker wreck. Stainless Steel does not corrode so other than having to clean off some sea growth it was as good as the day it was dropped overboard. Could General McArthur have eaten from that fork? We'll never know.

I have always been a treasure hunter and it was so fun to find stuff from WW II. Was it casually dropped, or did someone drop it so that they didn't have to wash it?

Here is a 20 mm shell casing that I found in the same area as the fork. Look at the date: 1943.

You probably notice that the primer is still live. It was a live round when I found it. Here was the steps I took to render it harmless: 1. From about 30 feet where I found it I put it in a flooded dry box. 2. I tied a cord to the handle and then dragged it a safe distance behind the skiff back to the dock. 3. I left it flooded inside the dry box and took it home. 4. At home I dropped it off of a high place until the shell was harmless. Why did I do all that? Some say that after all that time underwater the powder becomes unstable. With this shell water had leaked in and when I threw it off of the high place it fizzed and twirled a little and then stopped. I then took the bullet off with pliers.

There are horror stories where unexploded ordinance has gone off years after it was abandoned on the field. One story I heard while living in Guam was that a school teacher had found a grenade and several months after keeping it in her classroom, it rolled off the table and exploded. Trevor and I found a dude grenade at the War In The Pacific Park. That was the battlefield where the American forces attacked the Japanese to take back the island.

Trevor found this Japanese fishing float while we were hiking along Scout Beach on Northern Guam during a Father and Sons outing. Nowadays, they are pretty hard to find.

This is a medicine bottle that Trevor and I found near a big bomb crater hole a mile or so south of where we lived on Nimitz Hill. I always assumed it was Japanese because of the cork lid. There were chunks of shrapnel all around so I thought it was some king of medicine.

These are chucks of some kind of fragmentation explosive. I found them while diving as well as hiking. I would like to know if these were Japanese or American?

Hiking through the jungle or diving and looking for WW II stuff was great fun. Especially when Trevor was with me. After serving my mission in Japan, it was interesting to visit battle fields where intense fighting took place. To know that all of that animosity is gone makes me agree with the side that says that men are basically and instinctively good.

An Interesting Shark Encounter

2010-07-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

In Guam, I was a dive boat captain and a dive guide. One day I took 6 or 7 divers out to the mouth of Apra Harbor. These Japanese divers had dove all of the regular sites and wanted to try something new so we decided to dive just inside of the mouth of the harbor. The currents are strong at the mouth and as we dropped down I noticed that there were no corals or other interesting sea life to look at. I noticed a cave down below us at about 100’ and as the divers with me were all advanced divers we descended down to its mouth.

As I settled to the bottom out from the mouth of the cave, I noticed a big palm frond sitting in the silt on the floor of the cave. The other divers settled to the bottom around me. The ascending bubbles of 8 divers is quite a noisy and visual thing and as everyone started to search inside the cave, the palm frond turned into a Nurse Shark and with a jerk of its tail, stirred up a wall of silt that blinded our view of the cave.

Photo from Google.

When the divers realized that it was a shark, they started to breath heavily in fear and surprise. More air in the lungs started our whole group ascending toward the surface. I immediately grabbed everyone that I could with my arms and wrapping my legs around others, dumped all the air from my buoyancy compensator and started exhaling like crazy to try and keep the group from an un-controlled ascent. The mass of divers rose several feet until I was able to act as an anchor and hold them down. When all were finally calmed down, the shark decided to peak out of the silt to see what had disturbed it. Suddenly, within a couple of feet of us the shark poked his snout out of the wall of silt until his eyes were exposed.

Photo from Google.

One of the Japanese divers in his late 40’s was a cameraman. He had an underwater camera with a big arm attachment with a flash on the end. Without thinking and without hesitation, he bopped the shark right on the snout with the flash unit. The panicked shark withdrew into the cave. Once again, the excited divers started to breath hard and rise from the bottom. As everyone settled back to the bottom, the shark decided to get the heck out of there and bolted from the cave. It escaped out of the right corner of the mouth of the cave and swam up at a 45 degree angle toward the surface

As it swam, I saw something that to this day still amazes me. Its skin turned colors in patches at a fast rate as the shark was speeding away from us. I had read the some sharks and whales can alter the shape of their skin to make them more hydro-dynamic. I am going to do some research to find out more about that.

As the shark swam out of our view, our exciting shark sighting ended. I, as well as the others were kind of angry with the cameraman for striking the shark. But it did give us the opportunity to see a very interesting phenomenon.

Three Experiences With My Dad

2010-07-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

When I was young, I had three singular experiences that remain poignant in my memory. They all had to do with situations that I shared with my Dad. Each experience taught me an important lesson about life. Lessons that I have had occasion to draw on from time to time.

The first lesson taught me about persistence. I think I was 13 or 14 at the time. I wish I would have written the date down, but of course during trying times, details are never recorded. Through my life I have thought about this experience often because it was such a remarkable recovery from a very bad situation.

My Dad, my brother and I, jumped into our old 55 Chevy truck and drove out into the desert on a Saturday. My Dad loves the desert, and enjoys wandering the arid spaces with no particular plan but to enjoy the wide-open and wild places. We drove to an area within miles of the Bonneville Salt Flats. We came to an old barracks and decided to check it out. There was nothing left inside but we did notice that some military personnel had left their names and dates scratched into the walls. The dates were around the time of World War II and I imagined that this could have been a barracks for those men that were training to fly the infamous mission on the Enola Gay. One of the soldiers had scratched the words, “been here and gone,” along with his name and date into the wall.

One of the doors of the barracks was still in good condition so my Dad decided to throw it in the back of the truck and take it home for a better door on the shed in our back yard. We jumped in the truck and headed north then west down a dirt road and suddenly found that the road had very muddy patches. It was spring and there were still patches of snow here and there. We realized that it was going to be very hard to turn around and when the road dropped down to a wide section of the mud flat I remember my Dad saying something about giving it “the ole’ college try” and away we went out onto the mud flat. We were sinking in enough that we were worried about bogging down and getting stuck so my dad gunned the truck along with wheels spinning and mud flipping out behind the truck. We were heading south now back towards I-80 and kept looking for an escape from the mud flat. After several minutes, there was still no way off of the flat and as we were sinking several inches into the mud we didn’t know how long we could keep up the momentum so my Dad saw a snowy area along the East side of the flat and assumed that the ground under the snow would be frozen and harder. We made a slow 45-degree turn and headed for the snow only to find that the snow had insulated the ground from the cold during the night and the mud under the snow was actually softer that what we were driving on. We slowly lost momentum and sinking in terribly, ground to a stop as our wheels were spinning. Dad threw it in reverse with no effect and with wheels spinning we knew we were stuck. We jumped out and to our horror the truck was sunk in the mud right up to the floorboards. As the reality of our situation sunk in, we looked around and there we sat, in the middle of nowhere, stuck up to the floorboards, with very little food or water and no way to communicate with the outside world. Remember, back in those days there was no such thing as a cell phone.

Our first plan was to jack up each wheel and try to stuff sagebrush under the tires. It was so muddy though, that the jack stand just kept sinking down in the mud. The door in the back of the truck was sacrificed for use in our extraction from the mud, but it was not heavy duty enough to stand up to the weight of the truck and broke up as we jacked up the truck and then quickly shoved in the door before the jack base sunk down. We were getting nowhere. My mind started to wander to the hopelessness of our situation. We were now covered in mud and I was starting to be hungry and thirsty. As we contemplated our next move, I remembered that we hadn’t passed a soul since leaving I-80 earlier that day. My 13-year-old mind was losing hope. As I remember though, I never heard one pessimistic word come out of my dad’s mouth. It wasn’t if we got out, it was when we got out.

Right about then, my Dad proposed that we hike back to the barracks and bring back more wood to stuff under the tires and anything else that might be useful. Luckily, the barracks was only a mile and a half or so away and directly east of us. Off we went! We had a mission. We walked and walked and finally made it to the barracks. After a few minutes of reconnoitering, we decided to climb up on the roof and pry four 12 foot, 1” x 10” boards off. We had taken the tool with us that we had pried the door off with earlier and within a short time we had the boards down on the ground and ready for the big carry to our truck. The boards were heavy and we took frequent rests on our way back. Glimmers of hope started to kindle in my mind.

Upon arriving back at the truck we got right to work jacking the truck up high enough to get the boards under. We still had the sinking jack base problem and stuck bits of the broken door and brush under the base to try to keep it from sinking. After 45 minutes of hard work we had the boards in place. Two of the boards were under the truck and the other two boards were placed directly in front of the truck to drive onto. Once we drove onto the forward boards, the ones behind would be carried to the front to start the whole process over again. It was a slow process and my brother and I carried those boards forward so that my Dad could drive onto them until we thought we were going to drop. Finally we got close enough to the edge of the mud flat that my Dad said, “get out of the way boys, I am going to go for it. Stay back because I’m not stopping for anything”. He punched it and off he went. I can still remember that truck bouncing up off of the flat onto the solid ground above, mud flinging in every direction. Dad didn’t stop until he knew he was on hard ground and as he was going my brother and I were screaming and hollering and running and waving our hands in victory. As we arrived at the truck we were smiling ear to ear and if there had been a photo taken at that moment it would have been priceless.

In our rush to get out of there we left the jack stand buried in the mud. No time wasted and we were on our way home. We stopped for a hamburger in Grantville and it was the best I ever tasted.

To this day I still remember the remarkable feeling of accomplishment that I felt as we drove home. We had overcome an obstacle. We had endured a setback. We had persevered and we had won.

Several years later we went back to our “stuck site”. It was weird seeing how fast the mud had leveled out after we had stirred it up so much. The most amazing thing is that the darn old jack base had slowly made its way back to the surface and there it sat, as if it had been waiting for our return. That place seemed like hallowed ground to me because we had shared an experience there. For a few short moments in time, that obscure place in the desert is where we shared a Father-Son experience that I will never forget. By the way, the barracks had been burnt to the ground. . . . . . . Been there and gone!

The next experience was a deer-hunting trip that we went on together to a place called Sulphurdale in central Utah where I started developing my love of nature. I think I was probably about 10 or 11 years old. We left on a Friday after work and arrived late that night. We got up early the next morning and hiked onto the mountain in the dark. Deer season is in the fall and I remember how loud and crunchy the dead leaves were. It was pitch dark and hard to see where we were going. At one point my Dad laid down to wait for it to get a little lighter before continuing. I laid down next to my dad and huddled up close to him for two reasons. First, it was cold. Second, in the dark, it was scary. The forest came alive and I could hear things moving around in the dark. My 10-year-old mind conjured up all kinds of scary images but now I realize that it was probably lizards and chipmunks starting to stir in the early morning light. I scooted even closer as I stared out into the blackness. I remember that the dry leaves made it sound like there were things moving within feet of us. I looked at my Dad to see if the sounds were spooky to him and he was lying there enjoying the early morning calm and the beautiful star show twinkling above us. In my anxiousness I wanted to crawl under my dad and pull him over me like a big, warm, safe blanket.

Later in my life I shared a similar experience with my son Trevor when he was 10. We were in Sulawesi, Indonesia on a white water raft trip down the Sadan River. We were sleeping in a Bungalow built up on stilts for when the river flooded its banks. I was suddenly awakened by a rock fall that seemed like it was going to come crashing down right on top of us. The canyon that we were in was very steep. The jungle growth next to the river was very thick and blocked our view. Once again, the inky blackness enclosed our world and deceived our ability to accurately measure distance. My blood ran cold and my heartbeat was thundering in my chest. I glanced over to Trevor and he was sawing logs, absolutely oblivious to the traumatic sounds. After the rockslide subsided and just as my heart started to calm, down river from the depths of the jungle, an animal started making the most anguishing moan that I had ever heard in my life. For the next 30 minutes this animal (one of our guides told us later that it was probably a monkey) would bellow out this heart-wrenching wail every 3 or 4 minutes that sent a chill threw my heart that I cannot describe with words. Remember, we were in the middle of the Indonesian jungle in the pitch-blackness. I glanced at Trevor and he was still in peaceful slumber, sleeping like a baby. I remember chuckling to myself as I pulled my sheet up over my head for some degree of comfort as, barely breathing, I waited for the next pitiful cry to shudder to the depths of my heart through the thick, dark jungle.

The hut in the middle of the photo is the one that we were in when the rock slide occurred.

This is a photo of looking from inside the hut to outside.

Let me tell you another reason why the jungle was so spooky. Have you ever heard of a Babirusa? A Babirusa is an Indonesian Pig-deer that lives in the jungles around rivers on the island of Sulawesi. They have weird tusks that grow up out of the roof of their mouths. To hear that eerie sound and know that these guys were near-by was spooky! (www.blueplanetbiomes.org/babirusa.htm)

Babirusa (pig-deer) from Sulawesi, Indonesia

I concur with what Edward Whymper said as he was writing about his 6^th attempt to climb the Mattterhorn in his book, “Scrambles Amongst the Alps”. He said, “The greatest rock-falls always seem to occur in the night, between midnight and daybreak. I may be wrong in supposing that the falls in the night are greater than those in the daytime, since sound is much more startling during darkness than when the cause of its production is seen. Even a sigh may be terrible in the stillness of the night. In the daytime one’s attention is probably divided between the sound and the motion of rocks which fall; or it may be concentrated on other matters.” The next morning I looked all around us and couldn’t see anywhere where there had been a rockslide. I suppose it had been started from a Caribou (Indonesian Water Buffalo) on a steep mountain trail, high above us. In the morning, Trevor remembered nothing.

As the dawn light started to filter through the trees we finally got up and started hiking further up the mountain. High up on the mountain we saw a group of deer but they were out of range. After more hunting we finally decided to sit down on the top of a large rock and eat our energy snack; apples and Hershey chocolate bars. The sun was now high in the sky and its warmth was nice. We settled back and started to eat. When my Dad finished his apple he sat up to throw the core down the cliff . . . . . but as he did he stiffened out like a board. Motioning me to be quiet he excitedly pointed his rifle over the edge of the cliff and shot. Rapidly and with a look of disgust he chambered another round and then shot again. That time, by seeing the joyous response in his face I knew that he had hit his mark. I stooped up and looked out over the cliff and there at the base was a huge four-point buck lying on the ground.

After field dressing the deer we began dragging it back to the truck. The big buck was heavy but we were aglow with the joy of a successful endeavor.

Even today, my love of the outdoors comes from remembering my Dad enjoying nature. He is a whole different person when he is out in the wild. I can remember my Dad slogging across the marsh, duck hunting out at Salt Creek. He was truly in his element, with shotgun slung over his shoulder, hip boots on with water up to his thighs, searching the sky for a flight of ducks.

Another time we were fishing at Kent’s Lake near Beaver, Utah. The sun had gone down and we were eating supper around a campfire. Way down in the canyon, someone hit their car horn. It echoed and reverberated up the mountain. Somewhere way up above us in the pines an Elk started to bugle. Then, on a far ridge in the opposite direction a coyote started to howl. In the midst of this symphony of nature, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It was eerie and beautiful. There, in the glow of that fire, the magic and majesty of the natural world started burning in my soul; a gift from my Dad.

The third experience happened while fishing at a favorite family fishing spot called Little Res. I think I was probably 8 or 9 years old. This was a favorite place to fish with my Grandpa and Grandma Nielsen. When I think of Little Res I think of drinking Shasta Root Beer from those big steel cans that you needed a can opener to open. For years my dad had been trying to catch a big German Brown Trout that lazily swam up and down the bank on the far side of the reservoir. So, the day that he finally hooked into it was an exciting time. My brother and I came running when we heard my dad let out a yelp of excitement. He fought it hard right to the shore. Of course there was no net close by so as he dragged the trout up onto the shore we were shocked when he slipped on the mud and fell back against the bank.

It was at this point that the hook came out of the fish’s mouth and as it started flopping across the mud toward the lake my brother and I were feverishly trying to grab the fish. It was slippery, of course, and we couldn’t get a good hold on it. During all of this our Dad was bellowing with laughter. My brother and I were absolutely serious and had on grave faces as the whole drama was playing out. Finally the fish flipped back into the lake and was gone. A thick cloud of disappointment overwhelmed my brother and me until we turned to see our Dad still in the ecstasy of the moment. He was enjoying the experience in spite of the loss. When it was all over my brother and I were mumbling about losing such a big fish, but my Dad said that that big ole’ boy deserved the right to swim free for another day. As my disappointment wore off the wisdom of my Dad’s words sank deep into my heart. He fished for the enjoyment of being in nature. He didn’t need to hold that big Brown up for other fisherman to see. It was the experience that had the worth. As a young boy I wanted to be able to say, ”my dad caught that big Brown Trout”. Instead, he taught me about conservation, sportsmanship, and style.

I really appreciate all the experiences that my Dad provided for me as I was growing up. They were numerous, varied, and fun!

H.W. Tilman - Sailor, Mountaineer, Explorer, and Author

2010-07-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Bill Tilman is one of my favorite authors. He was a mountaineer and explorer. Later in life he took up deep-water sailing. In fact, in 1977 he was lost at sea.

He wrote The Seven Mountain-Travel Books and The Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books.

He fought in World War II: A Bombardier from his battery in the western desert during the second world war recalls being told by Tilman to "stay 20 paces behind and step exactly where I do", only realizing, when told after a certain distance to relax, that they had been crossing a mine field.

One of his climbing partners said of him: He was always the first to cross turbulent streams, pass hard rocky sections, and shoulder awkward loads.

The following are my favorite Tilman quotes from The Seven Mountain-Travel Books.

I enjoy Tilman's wisdom and wit. He lived an interesting life. He had a lot of interesting experiences.

Even Sound Ships Leak

2010-07-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Pumping water out of the ship occupied a lot of the sailors time, especially in rough weather.

The following are photographs that I took of the bilge pump on the Star Of India in San Diego Harbor.

This was the article that was the inspiration for my poem, The Mariner's Question.

The Good which a single religious Captain may do can hardly be calculated. (R.H. Dana)

2010-06-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Last month I took a tour of the "Star of India" in San Diego Harbor. I had walked passed it many times over the years and decided to take a look. I came across this hanging from the wall in the Captains Quarters.

I'm sure that more than one Captain over the years abused his authority and did things he wished that he hadn't.

In this photo of the Captain's Quarters you can see the framed saying on the wall.

Three books come to mind when talking about abusive Captains:

Mutany on the Bounty - Nordhoff and Hall

The Sea Wolf - Jack London

Two years Before the Mast - Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Each one of these books have a section that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand erect because of the unrighteousness of the skipper.

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. was probably the most influential author as he actually sailed on a ship where abuses to the crew were apparent. He became a lawyer and was responsible for getting laws changed so that the Captains of the U.S. didn't have free rein to treat there crew with abuse.

The following was written by Dana about the good influence that a good Captain can have on his crew.

Click twice for easier reading.

In the same book, Dana also says the following:

No prudent mariner, however peaceably inclined,

would go to sea without his pistol and handcuffs.

Magical La Jolla Coves

2010-05-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to LAX to pick up Caci and Jace. I went down to San Diego to touch base with San Diego Harbor Excursions and while I was there I spent an hour or so wandering around La Jolla.

It was so nice to breath the sea air and enjoy the atmosphere at the coves.

Somewhere in my photos, I have a picture of me when I was about 17 years old in this same area.

When I was a kid, there were no Sea Lions. In Fact, we saw very little animal life.

I do remember an Abalone that I walked up on and it looked like an alien and freaked me out! It was not stuck to the rock in the normal way but the mussel that sticks it to the rock was exposed. We took the Abalone back to Uncle Ralph and he cooked it up for us. The pelicans are much more numerous now than they were back when we were kids. In Fact, I don't remember seeing pelicans back in those days. Did we see pelicans then?

It was fun to crawl around in those caves after so many years!

Right out from that opening is where we found the Abalone during a lower tide!

Another view of where we found the Abalone.

This is a photo the day we found the abalone.

We spent many joyful times as a family in this cove!

I was always secretly afraid of the sea life that we saw at the coves. That fright must have built in me a level of intrigue that wasn't fulfilled, that set me up for my desire to scuba dive and eventually led us to Guam.

I still believe that La Jolla Cove must be a portal to heaven.

When Trevor was small, we took him here and Denalee found a gold bracelet digging in the sand. What year would that have been? Mom and Dad: add some photos of us when we were young at L.C.'s.

My Beautiful Az, Our Youngest Angel!

2010-03-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is a drawing that Azure drew for me around Christmas time. Azure was born in Sitka Alaska. The drawing is of her and I with a whales flukes in the background. Sometimes we could even see whales from the windows of our grocery store's food court.

Azure was exposed to the sea at a young age.

I think she is about 6 months old in this photo. Maybe younger!

Azure and me on a whale watching excursion in Sitka Sound.

Azure is 6 years old in this photo.

One sunshiny summer day, we took a boat trip out to Ataku Island.

It was 2006 or 2007. Azure is at the helm.

At Ataku Island we wondered the beautiful white sand beach looking for shells and neat stuff.

It was a perfect day!

Azure, driving the boat on Dads lap. She is a good boat operator.

Azure is fun-loving like her brother Trevor. They have the same olive skin.

I am very lucky so have such a beautiful daughter.

I am very proud of Azure. She is very talented in so many ways.

(She got her talents from her Mother!)

Love you, Az

Dad

My Favorite Poem from my Favorite Poet

2010-02-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

This is a poem by Robert Service. He wrote this poem while living up in the Yukon Territory. He had been hired to work in the Royal Canadian Bank up in the gold fields. He wrote about all kinds of cool stuff up in the Yukon.

As a young man I went to the west coast every winter with my parents to visit an aunt in San Diego. I would look out over the Pacific ocean and wonder what was out there. I had my first opportunity to explore my "land of beyond" when I was called to serve in the Japan Okayama Mission in 1977. Later, in 1989, we moved to Guam to work in the recreational scuba diving business. We were there for 6 years and explored the Mariana Islands, the Micronesian Islands, Indonesia, the Philippines, and back for a couple of visits to Japan. In 1995, we moved to Alaska and for the next 12 years we explored the Pacific up in the North.

This poem's imagery is what I like. The poem reminds me of all of the false summits I have climbed, only to realize that the summit is still off in the distance and a adventure saved for another day. It reminds me of something that HW Tilman said in his book Everest 1938, about someday, finally reaching the summit: "is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment."

I believe that whole-heartedly. It's the journey. You always have to be looking forward! (funny how many times those two words are written in the Book of Mormon. Have you ever noticed that?)

Right before we left Alaska to move to Nevada to be closer to family, I helped deliver a vessel from Sitka, across the gulf of Alaska , out the Aleutian chain and into the Bering Sea. It was fun, but to some extent the mystery of that part of the world to me, was extinguished.

Anyway, I like the poem. I wish that I had written it myself.

Treasures from the Sea #1

2010-02-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

When Trevor was young he had a treasure box.It had all kinds of little trinkets in it that he had found. One trinket that I remember was a little melted army man that he found outside of our apartment building in Guam. He named it Army Flash. He treasured all of his little mementos.

Over the years I have also collected little treasures. I acquired most of the items while diving. I realize that these trinkets are not the type of treasures that we should be acquiring in this life . . . . . . but it sure is fun. Of course, my most valued collection is my nautical poetry. Most of these mementos taught me a lesson in the midst of acquiring them.

One day while guiding some Japanese divers on a World War I shipwreck, (SMS Cormoran in Apra Harbor) I came upon a long pipe that someone had pulled out of the bowels of the ship. The wreck sat on its starboard side at about 80 feet. (see description below, courtesy of MDA, Guam)

Because I was guiding recreational divers, it wasn't prudent to penetrate the wreck. We were slowly gliding down the hull of the vessel when I saw this long rusty pipe. The pipe was covered with encrustations that had been growing on the pipe since the ship was scuttled at the beginning of WW I. I noticed a bulbous mass at one end of the pipe so I unsheathed my dive knife and gave the bulb a whack with my knife. Why did I do that, you say? Because I knew from experience that sea growth can hide treasures. As my knife passed through the sea growth, a beautiful brass covered interior was exposed. I knew that there was something brass in the mass.

When I got home I continued to clean up the brass object and found out that it was a valve handle. The Cormorant was be re-fitted in Guam and that is the reason why you can see the words "open" on the picture where the valve is upside down.

See the word open and the arrows on the back of the valve.

If I could go back to a moment in time . . . . .

2010-02-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

If I could go back to a moment in time . . . . . . .

It would be to the Pondok Bamboo Cafe on the beach in Candidasa Beach in Bali, Indonesia.

To our beautiful 2 year old Brookie Blue Bells,

and our handsome 7 year old T- bird.

Today, Trev is working on a successful business venture in Kiev, Ukraine.

We are proud of him!

And Caci too!

And Jace too!

And Cali too!!!

Brooke is graduating from college this month and we are soooo proud of her!

And Steve too!

And Gage too!

We ordered Black Rice Pudding with bananas!

There are over 60 different types of bananas in Indonesia.

It was absolutely delicious!

Every one of our kids have been good eaters. I suppose it is because of the wide range of things that they ate at such a young age.

We gobbled the Black Rice Pudding up and licked the bowls.

Isn't Denalee Beautiful!!

We are proud of Bry, Sei, and Az too!

We love our kids!

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm!

2010-02-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

I don't remember where or when I came upon the article above. I just remember that it was hanging on a wall somewhere where it had been long forgotten. It was dusty and wrinkled. I really wish I could remember. It may have added some interesting sideline to my story. But, I can't remember. I do remember, however, that the words sank deep into my heart. I can remember as a young man in the mission field in some remote part of Japan, thinking to myself the equivalent of "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors".

I can remember on my mission, during trying times, being tempted during my personal prayers to ask Heavenly Father to, "get me through this". Then I would have a shot of resolve go through me and I would say, " Heavenly Father, teach me through this experience to learn what thou would have me learn". In other words, "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors".

Below, is an experience that I had while captaining a whale watching excursion in Alaska. Recently, my mind drifted off to that moment in time when I came in contact with the young fellow in the following writing. I remembered that I had written the experience up and after a day of trying to remember where I had put it, I finally found it. The neat thing about this story is that it didn't only affect me, it also affected Trevor and Brooke. Later in the day, this young man came into their lives also. What a profound experience, it was!

At one point along the trip, we crossed the wake of another vessel and without thinking I said to him, "hold on". I embarrassed myself by saying such a stupid thing to him and that is what made me uneasy about talking with him. Would I keep putting my foot in my mouth?

As we hit the wake he simply wedged his shoulders and knees against the door jam and rode out the bumps.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors!

A Few Lucky Moments!

2010-01-31T15:10:00.000-08:00

This is what the Sea Lion looked like when we first saw them.

This photo is taken in the same area that the story took place.

Close-up of the last photo.

This is what they looked like when we got close to them.

Close-up of the last photo.

Photo taken right before Christmas 2009.

Lessons Learned

2010-01-25T22:17:00.001-08:00

The following poem entitled LESSONS LEARNED actually happened to me while I was working as a Captain on the S/S Thorfinn in Truk Lagoon back in 1994. Left click on the poem for larger print.

My feet are resting on the tub that I was running to, to get warm.

This is the Steam Ship THORFINN.

All this talk about decks made me remember an experience that Trevor and I had aboard an Alaska Marine Ferry on the way back from a Frostbite Challenge in 1998. We had spent two nights sleeping in a snow-cave that we built in the frigid arctic cold of the Yukon. We were headed home out in Chatham Strait and decided to get some exercise by walking around the deck and reminiscing about the fun time we'd had. There was a deck on the ferry that went all the way around for exercising. Suddenly a guy came by us going the other way. He was doing that weird power-walking stride. We chuckled at his antics and after a few more passes I told Trevor that we should play a practical joke on the guy.

I told Trevor that every time that he passed us we should wait for him to get by us and then run like crazy and as he approached us again we would slow down and walk at our normal pace. Then after he passed us we would run again. After the first pass we didn't notice anything with the guy but after another lap we noticed a puzzled look on his face. The third time he really seemed confused and as soon as he passed us we laughed like crazy. As he passed us we would purposefully walk really slow and really ham it up with bored and nonchalant expressions on our faces.

All of the sudden a booming voice came over the loud speaker.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN BY THE ALASKA MARINE FERRY SYSTEM TO RUN ON THE DECKS OF THE SHIP. THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE RUNNING, STOP IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL BE ESCORTED OFF OF THE VESSEL AT THE NEXT PORT OF CALL.

Of course, we immediately stopped. It was really quite embarrassing because people inside of the observation deck were looking right at us as we came running around the bow of the ship. As we approached the power-walking guy, we had of course, slowed to our slow motion pace.

He also had slowed to a normal walk. Right as he got to us he stopped and turned to us and said in a very serious and disgusted voice, "Don't these people know what power walking is?"

I wasn't running! This is ridiculous!

Now, caught in our practical joke, I had no other alternative than to coyly tell him that the deck was a little icy . . . . . and . . .ah . . . that it was dangerous to run on deck . . . . because you might fall overboard . . . . . . and falling into the sea would be a very serious thing. Talk about tongue in cheek! We were both laughing hysterically inside! We ended up making friends with the guy and talked with him for quite a while. He never knew that he had been Punk'd by Trevor and I.

The Gregarious Sea Otter

2010-01-25T14:46:00.001-08:00

A group of napping Sea Otters in Saint Johns Bay north of Sitka.

There are a lot of Sea Otter in Sitka Sound. When the Russians owned Alaska, they thought that the Sea Otter pelt was the only thing of value and when they had wiped out the Otter population, they sold off Alaska for 2 cents an acre. They planted a group of Otter from the Kodiak area to Southeast Alaska 30 or 40 years ago. Today, they have grown into a large population and you can find them all over Southeast Alaska.

Our most popular tour in Sitka Sound was called the Sea Otter and Wildlife Quest. In the 12 years we lived in Alaska, I gathered 100's of hours of Otter watching. The following is one of the most spectacular and heart warming Otter experiences that I had.

One day I was captaining a tour in the Kamenoi Island area along the Southeast side of the sound, out in front of Redoubt Bay. There was a particular route that we did that put us in close proximity to a fairly large group of Otters. The route took us in between large rocky outcroppings. It was also a good place to see Seals resting on the rocks at low tide. I had been there with passengers many times, but this particular time a very cool thing occurred.

You had to do some touchy maneuvering to get close to the Otter with shallow rocks and patches of kelp as obstacles. As I brought the 110 passenger tour catamaran up to the optimal viewing position, I suddenly heard a loud chirping sound. It wasn't a usual sound so it drew my attention. After scanning the area I found the otter that all of the chirping was coming from. This particular otter was swimming fast and seemed very agitated. It would swim one direction and then turn to another direction, almost as though it was looking for something.

Suddenly the sound of the loud chirping became muffled and I lost sight of the otter. I looked all around to try and find the location of the Otter. From time to time the chirping would sound loud and clear and then become muffled again. Finally, I spotted the Otter and realized what it was doing. It was diving down under the water and calling below the surface. It was a female who had lost its baby. As I realized what was happening I started looking for the baby Otter. As I swept the area I spotted a fuzzy ball of fur on the other side of the boat. When we came into the area the female must have left the baby on the surface while she foraged for food. We didn't realize that we had come between the female and her baby. As I slowly moved the catamaran through the area, the female finally spotted her baby floating on the surface behind and beyond our boat. She let out a load chirp and the baby heard its mother. Both otters started swimming towards one another. As I had figured out what was going on, I started interpreting the Otters behavior to the passengers on the vessel. We all watched with excitement as the two Otters were swimming towards one another. When they finally met they hugged and patted each other. It was the sweetest reunion. As the otters reveled in their reunion the passengers on the boat cheered. That single act made the whole trip for all those on board.

This is a photo of a female with her one year old pup. Females will take care of there pup until they are ready to deliver again.

Sea Otters can do all of their essential behaviors in the water but once in a while they will climb out and rest on a kelp covered rock. They don't have thick blubber so sharp rocks are not as comfortable as the sea.

Otters know that they are out of their element when they are out of the water. If you get to close they will escape to the water fast.

Blond headed Otters are older Otters. Just like humans get gray as they age, Otters go blond.

This Otter is busy eating an octopus. Sea Otters are opportunistic eaters and when they are eating you can get closer than normal to them. If other Otters find out that it has an octopus, they will take it away so Otters were all business when eating a meal.

Another time, I came upon a newborn Sea Otter while on a tour. The baby Otter looked like a ball of fur. It floated very high in the water and at first I thought it was some sort of garbage. Baby Otters are very buoyant so that they won't drown before they learn to swim. Female Otters will pull their babies under the water to get them use to swimming. Of course, some of the tourists on the boat thought that the baby Otter had been abandoned and I had to teach them that it is never a good idea to take a baby animal out of the wild unless you are absolutely certain that the mother has died or been killed.

One day I came upon a sleeping Otter while on tour. Usually the Otter will wake up when you get too close but this guy was fast asleep. I kept getting closer and closer. Finally, the boat softly nudged the Otter and it woke with explosive furry. I wouldn't want to wake up to 49 people looking down at me either. I actually felt bad for waking the poor guy from such a deep and restful sleep.

In 1996, I witnessed a group of ten Orca teaching their young how to hunt by practicing with an adult Sea Otter. In the end they didn't kill the Otter, but they pounced on him and swatted him back and forth like a beach ball. The whole incident took about 20 minutes and then as fast as the drama began, off the pod went and we stayed to see the poor Otter swim to the shore and slowly drag himself up on the bank as if every bone in his body was broken.

Otters have very little body fat. They are just one big fir ball so an Orca would really rather make a meal of a juicy and blubbery seal or sea lion.

Orca are really family oriented and stay together in their own clans. Many times, out on tour,

I have come upon a cow, a bull, and a calf or two moving through Sitka Sound on their never ending quest for food.

The caption for this photo should be, "bye"!

Three Different Seashells

2010-01-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

The following photos are of three different seashells.

There are three photos of each shell.

One of these shells can dive down to 2,600 feet.
One of these shells is extremely poisonous.
One of these shells is ordinary. (No special ability or features.)

Study each photo carefully!

Which is which?

Some thoughts to ponder:

Are poisonous shells like killer snakes? Do they have ornamental coloring and markings?

Would a deep diving shell be shaped like a submarine in order to withstand great pressure?

All of the photos are by me except those that are noted.

Shell #1

Shell #2

Shell #3

This photo is from Wikipedia.

If I handed you one of these shells, which would you handle?

Judging by appearance is deceiving, isn't it?

Are you ready for the answer?

Trust your instincts! Tell me which you think is which in the comment section!

Don't cheat and Google the answer.

My Last Dive on Guam! By Denalee!

2010-01-18T21:15:00.000-08:00

February 14, 1995.

Valentine's Day.

We knew we were leaving Guam in just a couple of days, so made the most of this sunny day.

We joined up with Japanese tourists to head out on the Sea Odyssea II for a day of diving.

Our first dive, though refreshing, was uneventful.

As always, I'd abandon all responsibility while diving.

Brad would take the lead, and I'd blissfully follow, knowing he'd eventually bring me back to the boat. There's another advantage to being the "follower".

As Brad would leisurely kick along

(maybe 2 feet above the sand)

the gentle movement of his fins would lift the top layer of sand

often revealing amazing treasures.

I'd always end up with the best shells.

My favorites were "olives", but oh! how exciting when he'd uncover a larger shell.

We have a great collection of cowries, cones, and conchs.

Our 2nd dive was at Hap's Reef.

Incidentally, it was at Hap's Reef where I ran out of air the 1st and only time.

I'd been diving long enough to know not to panic. We knew I was diving

with a tank somewhat low on air, so it wasn't a big surprise.

As I worked to suck out the last bits of air in the tank,

Brad pulled his octopus out for my use

and offered it to me

for buddy breathing. It was actually a pretty fun experience

sharing air as we floated to the surface.

But that was another day.

This Valentine's Day dive was amazing.

Typical of Guam diving, the water was crystal clear.

We could see for miles, the temperature was perfect.

So it felt to me as if I were flying.

Besides the unearthly colors of the tropical fish and coral,

the sand captured my attention.

Following behind Brad I was focused on the amazing shells being uncovered.

Occasionally while diving with Brad I'll take my eyes off the shells

and take in the full beauty around me.

This was one of those moments.

Brad was a bit in front of me. He turned toward me and seemed to be watching me.

All of a sudden my eyes fell upon an object in the sand.

Poking out 3-4" was the point of a shell.

It looked sort of like a dunce-cap.

Although I'd never found one before, I knew exactly what it was ...

On my last dive in Guam, I'd found my

Triton's Trumpet!

It was like having thousands of hundred dollar bills drop from the sky.

I swam over, uncovered the rest and lifted up my treasure.

Brad had always said we couldn't leave Guam without me finding one ...

that thought entered my mind

and I replayed the last couple of minutes in my head ....

this was really Brad's find.

He was watching me to see the surprise unfold.

He'd spotted it, then moved aside to watch me find it.

Did I marry a great man, or what!

The Triton's Trumpet with Brad's watch to show the scale.

An Olive Shell - Denalee's favorite!!

What a beautiful shell!!

Over the six years we lived on Guam, we found quite a few of them!

M/V Austin Tobin

2010-01-17T18:53:00.000-08:00

On October 10th, 2001, I captained the M/V Austin Tobin from Sitka, Alaska to Cowichan Bay, Victoria, British Columbia. We arrived in Nanaimo on October 13th, where we worked on the vessel for the next several days before we loaded the vessel onto a freighter in Cow Bay on October 20th. We flew back to Sitka the next day. The freighter took the Tobin down through the Panama Canal and unloaded her in Port Everglades, Florida on November 12th, 2001. I flew from Sitka on November 10th in order to be in Port Everglades when the vessel arrived. I then captained the Tobin up the eastern seaboard to New York City where we arrived on November 21st, just in time for Thanksgiving. I had the opportunity to visit the wreckage at the World Trade Center location a little over two months after 9/11. I delivered the M/V Da Verazono 5 months before 9/11, and delivered the Tobin 2 months after 9/11.

I flew out of New York on November 24th. In all, I made 9 trips from Sitka to Weehawken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from 38th street on Manhattan Island.

The M/V Austin Tobin under construction in Sitka, Alaska.

Fall of 2001

October 13, 2001

Arrived in Nanaimo, BC

October 20,2001

Tobin being lifted out of the water in Cowichan Bay, BC.

October 20, 2001

Tobin being lifted onto the freighter in Cowichan Bay, Victoria, British Columbia

November 10, 2001

Seeing Dad off at the Sitka airport on his way to Florida.

November 12, 2001

Tobin being lifted off of the freighter in Port Everglades, Florida

November 17th, 2001

Saint Augustine, Florida

November 21st, 2001

Arrived in New York, City

November 22, 2001

At Macy's Day Parade.

November 22nd, 2001

Ground Zero

November 22nd, 2001

Ground Zero

November 22nd, 2001

Ground Zero

November 22, 2001

Ground Zero

November 22, 2001

Ground Zero

This is an interesting photo in that the World Trade Center Towers are not in the background.

Photo taken on November 23, 2001

November 23, 2001

The Empire State Building in the background.

I went to the top of the ESB twice while visiting NYC.

My First Dive on Guam! By Denalee

2010-01-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

Brad became SCUBA Instructor certified

in Utah.

Crazy, I know. I couldn't understand the draw to diving.

I was with him at Bear Lake once, and another time

at Blue Lake by Wendover.

I could barely see my hand in front of my face under those waters.

what's so cool about diving????

So when we moved to Guam for Brad to start his career in Marine Tourism

I was happy for him - but honestly, it held no interest for me.

Trevor was 5 and Brooke an infant.

We enjoyed walks on the beach and swimming in the complex's kiddie pool.

Diving was left to Brad.

Finally, 10 months after moving to Guam, Brad decided it was time for me to dive.

Previous to that time I'd stuck my head in the ocean with a snorkeling mask.

Beautiful! Clear, colorful, warm and beautiful!

So I was up for learning to dive.

The occasion Brad chose for my first dive was a company party.

MDA (Micronesian Divers Association) was having a diving party.

No one seemed to flinch at the announcement that it would be a night dive.

No one but me.

Why in the world divers wanted to dive at night, I couldn't fathom.

But (being the supportive wife I was ... hehehehe) I went along with it.

At most company parties, employees and their spouses really dress up.

This one we dressed down.

Swim suits and cover-ups. That in itself was intimidating!

I so wanted to make Brad proud of me. So I just acted like everyone else - like it was a totally normal thing to strip down, don a BC and tank

and jump in.

Brad had compassion for me, so we worked slowly so we'd be the last ones off the boat.

He helped me get all my gear on, checked my tank

to make sure it was on, even had me practice breathe out of the regulator.

Everyone but the captain was not only in the water,

but submerged ... so we couldn't put it off any longer.

Brad hopped into the water and inched back to give me room for my giant-stride.

("Giant-stride" was about the only terminology I knew)

Following Brad's instructions I folded my left arm over my weight belt

and covered my regulator and mask with my right hand.

Before I took the plunge I had a miriad of thoughts race through my mind:

If I die, I hope they figure out who I really want raising my kids

Just how dark is the water at night?

What if I sink and Brad can't find me after I jump in?

How embarassing will this be for Brad if he has to resuscitate me in front of his co-workers?

But I did it anyway.

And I did it quite well! I did a perfect

GIANT STRIDE

off the side of the boat (a good 4 feet from the deck to the water!).

And I sunk.

But only for a minute.

Rising to the surface, I opened my eyes to see Brad.

Half my fears gone, I could now focus on new fears ... and I did...

...because it was time to let the air out of our BCs and really sink.

Brad was amazing. We let out our air, facing each other.

Our eyes were locked, LOCKED, I tell you! on each other as we slipped

down ... down ... down.

I don't think I blinked even once.

(a later dive ... this one during the day!)

Brad kept hold of my hand and we floated 50 feet below the surface.

I didn't see a thing.

Really.

All I remember seeing is Brad look at me, engaging my eyes every few seconds.

He'd shoot me the "OK" sign with his hand, and I'd respond with the "OK" sign right back at him.

Finally, I'd had enough.

After the "OK" sign, I shook my head and pointed UP.

Get me outta here! NOW!

I was shouting in my head, and I think it showed in my eyes

Because we started ascending.

I don't know how I knew it, but Brad didn't want to go up yet.

I couldn't understand why.

We've been under the water for hours and there's nothing neat to see! Let's get up, climb on board and get warm.

When we surfaced I learned why Brad wasn't ready to come up:

Way in the distance was a little dot.

The boat.

OK, it's true ... everything was exaggerated to me.

Brad tells me we were under water about 25 minutes, and the boat was only a football field length away. That's still quite a ways when you're on the surface, trying to swim back.

I was exhausted. I'd been so tense that I'd used every ounce of energy.

To swim that distance seemed impossible.

(I would later learn that dropping under the surface even just a little, then swimming back would take very little energy.)

Brad suggested we do that, but I'd really had enough.

So we headed back on the surface.

Well, I floated on my back and Brad pulled me back ...

so chivalrous!

We were among the first to return, and that wasn't a bad thing.

I was ridiculously clumsy.

Once we were settled Brad talked to me about the dive as if I'd seen all the cool things that he saw ...

He didn't realize that all I saw was the man who would lead me safely back home.

The way I've always seen him - the reason I married him.

I've always known that Brad will lead me safely home.

A later dive when I was much more brave!

Peak 5390 Continued

2010-01-11T09:46:00.001-08:00

Chapter 2 (2,700 foot camp to the 5,390 foot Summit)

Bryan topping the ridge with the tip of Cross Mountain in the distance.

It took us about 2.5 hours to get up to this point from where the steep ridge began.

This is my favorite photo of Bryan on 5390.

Just snow, clouds and sky!

Me, at the top of the ridge. The peak is still a couple of miles to the left of me.

We dropped our backpacks in this area so that we could make a quicker scramble to the summit.

Bryan, on one of the false summits on the way to the top.

We were on a dash to get to the summit so that we would be back in enough time to set up our next camp in the daylight. From where we topped the ridge, we had to hike laterally across the bottom of this rocky ridge to get to the summit pyramid of 5390.

We finally arrived at the summit ridge and started up. The summit was made up of large granite blocks.

WE MADE IT!!!

Absolutely breath taking!

Lesser peaks of Baranof Island in the background.

Bryan took this photo of the summit with me on the top on his way down so that we could get a shot of what the actual summit looked like.

Bry and Brad on the summit. The sun was intense. We were in such a hurry to get to the top so that we wouldn't get caught in the dark that we forgot to put on sun block.

Needless to say, I got fried!!!

We were happy because our exertions payed off! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect summit experience.

Bryan, resting on the summit block after a strenuous climb! This photo is facing south.

Brad, on top facing North.

Bryan, facing to the North. Chatham strait in the background to the right.

Me, facing South.

Handsome Bryan taking a self-portrait.

Bryan, being creative on the way down the summit ridge.

On the way up the summit ridge, Bryan found a place where melt water was dripping from an icicle. We were dying of thirst and left a bottle to fill while we were at the top. When we arrived back at the bottle, we were so frustrated when we saw that the bottle had fallen over. Still, after filling the bottle up, it was some of the best water we had ever drank.

Doesn't that look refreshing?

Thirsts quenched and daylight burning, we headed back to retrieve our backpacks and head for a lower campsite.

The following photo is of me above the clouds on Lone Peak in Utah when I was 17 or 18 years old. The photo was taken by my friend, Brent Jarvis. I am at the top of Draper Ridge. It was so cool to climb above the dark and dreary Salt Lake Valley into the bright and brilliant alpine realm above a sea of clouds.

To be continued!

Some interesting info about this leg of the climb:

Peak 5390

2010-01-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 (sea level to 2,700 ft)

(From 1995 to 2007 we lived on Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. Baranof Island is 100 miles long and 35 miles wide at the widest point. It is an extremely rugged island with very few roads.It is a very beautiful island with high, craggy peaks and ridges. The island is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on the West and Chatham Strait on the East. It is said that this part of Alaska is where the Rocky Mountains meet the Sea.

Some may ask why an article about mountain climbing in a marine themed blog. In answer to this question, I defer to the writings of HW Tilman about the similarities of the seaman and mountaineer.

"There is something in common between the arts of sailing and of climbing. Each is intimately concerned with elemental things, which from time to time demand from men who practise those arts whatever self-reliance, prudence, and endurance they may have. The sea and the hills offer challenges to those who venture upon them and in the acceptance of these and in the meeting of them as best he can lies the sailor's or mountaineer's reward."

From H.W. Tilman's book, The Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books. Page 21

On June 17, 2007, Bryan (14 years old at the time) and I decided to climb the highest peak on Baranof Island.

We negotiated with a bush plane company to fly us to the back of Green Lake where we would start our climb for the summit of 5390.

It was a beautiful, clear day as we prepared for take-off.

The area around Sitka is an ocean-island-mountain world.

It was a nice break from the the marine world to get up in the alpine life zone.

This was Bryan's first bush plane ride and I think he was a bit nervous.

Coming in for a water landing at the back of Green Lake.

After unloading our gear, I gave the plane a push-off to get him faced the right way.

I photo of Bryan, our gear, and the departing plane. It is a weird feeling to see the plane fly off.

After getting our gear organized and on our backs, we headed up the mountain.

Almost immediately we started seeing bear sign.

A photo of Bryan about half way up to our first camp at 2,700 feet. There were large areas of Salmon Berry bushes that had been flatted down by avalanches. Going up through them was very difficult as the branches were facing down hill. It was a real fight to make your way up through the vegetation. This photo was taken in a clearing where the going was a lot easier.

We finally made it to our 2,700 foot camp. You can see Green Lake in the background. It was not fun getting there but Bryan was a real trooper. We are up at the snow level.

Level ground found, we dropped our gear and started cooking dinner.

Me, stirring our freeze-dried dinner. After a full belly, we laid out our pads and bags and got some much needed rest. About the time the photo was taken, I started seeing thick clouds making their way from the ocean, up the river valleys towards us. We didn't take a tent because of the weight. I put my sleeping bag in a bivy sack and Bryan slept under a tarp.

The next morning we were shocked to look out of our bags and see that we were enveloped in thick, wet fog. Cold and damp, we broke camp quickly and headed up the mountain. After a few minutes we came upon several snow white Ptarmigans. As we got closer they flew off into the thick fog.

After trudging around in the fog and patches of snow, we were so excited when we climbed up thorough the fog into the bright, warm sunshine. Another hour and we were climbing up a snowbound ridge. There were no trails or maps into where we were going so route finding always takes up extra time. Being above the clouds was surreal.

Some interesting info about our climb:

We saw bear sign within minutes of getting off of the plane. We didn't bring a firearm because of the weight. Quickly I realized that with the thick brush that we were in, we would need to make a lot of noise so that we didn't startle a Coastal Brown Bear. With as strenuous as it was, quoting poetry or songs took mental power that we needed to conserve for concentrating on our footing and hand holds. I could only hold a loud conversation with Bryan for a short time before I was distracted by the steepness of the route or our quest for good hand and foot holds. I finally started to yell the simple words, HUMAN VOICE. Bryan thought I was goofy but I thought it was ingenious. It was two simple words that didn't take any thought to yell. Of course, the bear couldn't understand the meaning but if there were people in the area, (we never saw a soul) hopefully we wouldn't sound like idiots. Half way up to our 2700 foot camp we came across fresh bear tracks through the snow. Huge paw prints that ran a chill down my spine. At the end of our trip I took some photos of paw prints in the mud at our pick-up location which I will show you later.

By the end of the trip I was hoarse. Several more times throughout the climb we came upon fresh tracks. One set of tracks came right down the face of a snow field that was steep enough to slide. What the Bear was doing up above the tree line puzzled me. It must have been an inquisitive bear. It was lucky that it didn't get caught in an avalanche. Toward the end of the trip, about a mile from our pick-up point we found where a bear had devoured a deer carcass. I scanned around the area eerily as we swiftly left the area.

Those two simple words ended up making our trip a fun father and son experience instead of a nightmare.

Denalee wanted us to call her throughout the climb to let her know our progress. Realizing that we would probably not have cell phone coverage, I brought along my marine band 2-way radio. When we arrived at the 2,700 foot camp, realizing that we didn't have cell there, I called out to any fishing vessels in the sound on channel 68, which is a recreational channel. A salmon troller in Silver Bay answered and I asked him to call Denalee on his cell phone and tell her that we were alright. He gladly did so.

To be continued!

Unforgettable Moments at Sea! #3

2009-12-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

MY FRIEND, THE GRAY WHALE!

One of my most favorite sea mammals is the Gray Whale. One of the reasons is because they have the most interaction with humans. Humpback and Fin whales can swim right passed your vessel and never show any recognition of your presents. Gray Whales, however, are different. The photo below is of a Gray Whale that I saw in Sitka Sound just west of Fragrant Island. Here is the incredible story:

In 1999, skippers started seeing single Gray Whales in the Kita Island area which is out along the southeast side of the sound. One day while on tour, I took the Kalinin Express further south than anyone at Allen Marine had ever gone with passengers. We started to see a whole wall of whale blows. It ended up to be about 15 Gray Whales that had stopped for a rest on their way up to the Bering Sea. We were lucky in that the group of whales stayed with us in Sitka sound over the next several years.

One day while on a wildlife tour in the sound just west of Fragrant Island I noticed some Gray Whale blows up ahead. Gray whale blows are more heart shaped than the V shape of the Humpback Whale. I slowly maneuvered the 110 passenger tour catamaran into the area of the blows. As we set in place I decided to shut down the engines so that the passengers could hear the sound of the blows. When they finally came up there was three Grays and they came up off of our port stern quarter. I noticed that they were headed in the direction of the stern of the catamaran. I grabbed my camera and told my engineer to man the bridge and I took off like the wind. The direction the whales were heading made me think that I might get a photo when the whales passed close by the stern. When I arrived at the stern I headed straight for the starboard swim step as there was no one standing there. To my surprise, a Gray surfaced less than 10 off of the back corner of the vessel where I was standing. Right as his eye came up out of the water and made contact with me I pushed the shutter button and got the photo below.

After a short look at me and the vessel, down he went. People standing around the stern were amazed that I got such a good photo. When you watch whales long enough, you get pretty good at predicting what they are going to do.

I got back to the bridge as quickly as I could. After a few minutes we saw them surface a ways out and realized that the close encounter was over. From the photo you can see that the Gray Whale has the worst complexion of any whale. Grays have a lot of barnacles and sea lice on their hide. Grays are bottom feeders and take big bites out of the sea floor and then sift the mud through their baleen plates, collecting little organisms and swallowing them down. Below is some info about the Gray Whale from wikipedia.

I took the following photos of a spy-hopping Gray Whale between the Taigud Islands and Kita Island in Sitka Sound.

Spy hopping is a behavior that whales do when they want to see what is happening above the surface.

This is a video of a breaching Gray Whale that I took in Sitka Sound over by Kita Island.

Watertight Integrity

2009-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

One day as I prepared to take passengers out on a whale watching excursion in Sitka Sound in Alaska, I opened the bow void hatch as part of a routine checklist and was surprised to see that the void was filled with 50 or 60 gallons of sea water. After pumping the seawater out of the void I was happy to see that the vessel handled much better. Water had been leaking in from the rain because of a worn out seal. Undetected sea water in a void is a very serious thing and can lead to disaster. I checked my voids more often after that incident.

Several years ago I was checking the Coast Guard safety alerts and I found the following.

Right click on the article for easier reading.

Several years ago on a christian radio station I heard a Pastor talk about Watertight Integrity and personal integrity and it really impressed me. The following poem was born from that radio program but quite a few years later.

Proverbs 12:22

Lying lips are abomination to the Lord:

but they that deal truly are his delight.

May we keep our hatches dogged tight and our bilges dry is my prayer . . . . .

Harbor of Refuge

2009-12-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

Psalms 9:9

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed,

a refuge in times of trouble.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Recently, I was remembering an incident that happened to me during a typhoon on Guam. I made a drawing of the experience from my minds eye. Although it is not the most artistic drawing, it will serve as a representation of the geographic set-up of the incident.

The center structure in the drawing is a rock wall jetty that went along the channel out to the harbor. The foliage along the right edge of the drawing were mangrove swamps that went all the way to the Cabras highway out to the Glass Breakwater. It was probably a couple of hundred feet wide. Up in the left corner was jungle growth that paralleled the jetty. The lagoon between the jetty and the jungle was probably the width of a football field and very shallow.

As a typhoon neared landfall, close to dusk I got a phone call from one of the owners of the company that I worked for. He asked me to go down to the harbor where the companies two dive boats were and put more bumpers between the concrete dock and the boat as the storm was going to be stronger than we had originally thought. He lived a lot further away from the harbor than I did and the full force of the typhoon was just hours away. The bigger of the two boats was tied up securely at the harbor of refuge. It took me about 5 minutes to drive down to Cabras Lagoon where the smaller of the two dive boats was tied up. The wind was howling and the boat was already bouncing around against the concrete sea wall. At that point I realized that the extra bumpers were on the big boat that was out at the harbor of refuge so I jumped into the companies skiff and saw that the fuel tank was close to empty. It was stormy, wet, and uncomfortable and I should have fueled but I wanted to get back to the safety of our apartment with the rest of the family and took off full speed for the refuge. Palm trees were already swaying wildly in the wind. At the mouth of the harbor of refuge the wind was really strong because it was more exposed to the open. I quickly grabbed the extra bumpers and threw them into the skiff. I looked around to make sure all lines were tight and then untied the skiff and headed back towards the dock. To get back to the dock where my vehicle was I had to exit the large harbor of refuge where a hundred or so boats of all types were tied to the bottom to huge concrete blocks that were in rows. There were rows and rows of boats and it looked like a big car lot with sailboats and powerboats instead of cars.

This is a photo of me in the actual skiff that this incident occurred in.

As I left the refuge and headed into the screaming wind of the main channel the outboard sputtered and my heart skipped a beat. For a split second I thought maybe I would get back to the dock on fumes but then.....the engine killed. A few quick pulls on the starter cord and I realized that it was useless. A jolt of panic hit my heart as I could see that the wind was blowing off shore and would blow me right down the channel and out into the harbor if I didn't think fast. I grabbed for the oars and was shocked when there was only one. As I coasted to a stop the wind overpowered my momentum and down the channel I went. I knew that I would need to use the oar like a paddle but the length made it really awkward. I quickly went up and sat down with my legs hanging out over the bow and started paddling with the oar, first on one side of the boat and then the other. I was paddling like crazy

and was just barely able to overpower the wind. The problem was my stamina. How long could I keep this up? I only had about 60 feet until I was in the wind shadow of tall jungle growth at the mouth of the refuge. As my muscle started to tire, I slowed my paddling and realized that immediately I started losing ground. At that point a prayer entered my heart. Father in Heaven, please help me! Over the next three minutes, I lost consciousness of my surroundings. I just paddled like a wild man. When the wind would start to overpower me, a shot of panic and adrenaline would course through me. Quick glimpses of me blowing down the channel and then jumping out of the boat with the painter in my hand and holding on to the mangroves in mud up to my waist went through my mind. My mind refused to even ponder on the scenario of blowing out into the harbor with the mouth opening up to the open ocean.

Suddenly I popped back into awareness. I am close. Am I going to make it? Just a little further. Push yourself, push yourself. Burning muscles. Father in Heaven, just a little further.

Finally, with one big burst of paddling, I made it into the refuge. As I paddled up to our double-decker catamaran dive boat, sweat was dripping off of my chin and into my eyes. As I tied the skiff up to the catamaran, I realized that I had no way back to my vehicle. I sat down on the boat and caught my breath. I chuckled as I wondered if anyone saw me in my crisis. And then in my heart, "Father in Heaven, Thank you!" After a moment my strength returned and I directed my thoughts at fulfilling my task.

As the typhoon hadn't reached land yet, there were still people tying up there boats. Maybe one could give me a ride to the dock? I looked around but couldn't see anyone close by. I realized that I would have to swim back to the dock but could stay out of the major wind by swimming down through all of the boats in the refuge. I put on a life jacket for safety, grabbed the lines attached to the bumpers, jumped in the water and started towing the bumpers behind me as I made my way down through all of the sail and powerboats. By now it was dark. I didn't have a light with me so I stayed out of the channels to avoid getting hit by boats. It is a good thing that tropical water is warm. Even so, after the sun goes down it can get a little chilly. I slowly made my way down through the vessels, ducking under and around mooring lines and dock lines. At one point I was spotted by some boaters that lived on their sailboat and were making last minute adjustments on their mooring lines. I'm sure they were thinking, "what is that crazy fool doing?" By and by I made it through all of the vessels and then climbed out onto the dock at a submarine tour's facility. As I walked back to my vehicle my shoes were squirting water and making a squeaking sound. When I got to the smaller vessel I tied the extra bumpers between the boat and the concrete sea wall and then headed home. Denalee laughed as I told her the story, standing there in my soaked clothes.

The very worst case scenario could have been pretty bad but I don't think it would have gotten that far. But I do think that if I wouldn't have been able to paddle my way back to the catamaran in the refuge that the whole episode would have turned out to take several hours more and would have been very traumatic as I would have had to tie the skiff off in the mangroves and sloshed through thick mangrove swamps to a highway and then would have had an hour walk back to my vehicle carrying the bulky and heavy bumpers in the midst of a typhoon.

Prayer and scripture knowledge is an interesting thing. Prayers don't mean much without experiences to go with them and back them up. I believe in the power of prayer and the value of scripture knowledge. Scripture had shown me that prayers can be answered. The following is a poem that I wrote after delivering one of the 150 passenger catamarans that Allen Marine built for New York Waterway back in 2003. I got caught in heavy fog in Millbank Sound which is about half way from Sitka to Vancouver, BC. The fog was so thick that I had to navigate using only radar. One of my crewman came up to the bridge and asked, "can you see where you're going?'

That sentence was the spark for the following poem. All I could see on the radar was a blip on the screen where the channel buoys were. My eyes where riveted to the screen to also watch for other vessels that might have been in the sound hidden in the fog like us. Of course I was going very slow in order to have reaction time in case something popped up in front of me that I didn't detect on the radar. It was intense. Prayers and faith that I would be guided were in my heart.

Right click on the poem for easier reading.

This is one of those scary boat experiences that was had by my Dad and sister Kathy.

Right click on this for easier reading.

This is another experience I remember having as a young boy.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much . . . . .

James 5:16

Cloth-of-Gold Cone Shell

2009-12-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

This is another one of my favorite seashells. It is called the Cloth-of-Gold Cone or a Textile Cone shell. I had been looking for one of these shells the whole time we lived in Guam and then one day . . . . . there it was!

There is nothing like tropical shell collecting. While living on Guam our family spent hours and hours looking for shells. Then in Sitka, where the shells are harder to find because the water is so cold, we changed our focus from shells to sea glass.

I guess it would also be exciting to find a gold nugget, but swimming up on a beautiful shell under the sea where there are brightly colored fish and coral is a fabulous thing.

This next photo is of Denalee on one of our shell finding dives out at Coral Gardens.

Denalee is in the same skiff talked about in the HARBOR OF REFUGE blog.

Here is a glass bowl of all of our sea glass gathered around Sitka. Sea Glass are chunks of glass from bottles that have been broken on the beach and then get worn down because of the wave action. Nowadays, not too many glass bottles on the beach anymore.

Our family sea glass collection.

Close-up of our sea glass.

Bryan and I searching for sea glass at Halibut Point in Sitka, Alaska.

Below is a photo of Sierra doing the same.

The Wonder of the Submarine

2009-11-17T20:05:00.000-08:00

In another life, I think I was a WW II submarine commander. Everything about submarines interest me. The photo above was a sub that I coordinated scuba courses for when I worked for MDA on Guam. We had an orientation meeting in the mess hall and we had 80 men in an area where no more than 20 could sit down and eat at a time. It was tight and I began to

think about a fast escape in an emergency. The U.S.S. Chicago is a Los Angeles class fast-attack sub. I had a chance to tour the bridge of the Chicago. All of the gauges and controls were covered and they told us not to take any photos. It was so cool to see the periscope. They explained that one guy sat at the dive depth controls and another guy sat at the direction controls and they were both directed by a control officer that took orders from the commander.

One day on the way to the sub on the base someone stopped me and asked me if I was special forces because I was dressed in khaki and had a beard. I told him I was a civilian dive instructor but I don't think he believed me. To get on the sub we had to first board a ship called a sub-tender. It was specifically set up to take care of subs if they needed resupply or repairs. Before we went aboard there was a guard with a shotgun, and all the sailors would salute to the flag on the way on and ask for permission to come aboard.

This next quote came from President Hinckley's book, STAND FOR SOMETHING.

One day while skippering a dive boat out to the dive site on Guam, I passed a Los Angeles class sub coming into Apra Harbor as I was leaving. The sub had slowed down and didn't leave much of a wake, so it seemed. Boy, was I mistaken. If you look at the photo above, you can see what size of a wake a sub is capable of producing. As we crossed the wake, we dropped down into a deep trough and as we came up out, we scooped a mass of sea water that soaked the people standing at the front rail up to the waist. I really bruised the ego of a Japanese guy who was well known in Japan as a diving guru on Guam. Being such an experienced diver, he should have known better, but there he stood, soaked up to the waist. The wall of water ran down the deck to the stern where it dropped back into the sea. People in the rest of the boat just got water up around their ankles. When it was over we all had a good laugh. All but the Japanese guy.

When we lived on Guam, I took a sailing course at the naval base. It was a blast. At the end of the course you could solo with one of their small sail boats out on Apra Harbor. One day I took Trevor with me. We had a great time sailing around the harbor. At one point we capsized the sail boat and then righted it. That is a very important skill to know as it is easy to capsize a small sailboat in the wind. Trevor must have been 9 or 10 and even though he had a life vest on it was a bit traumatic for him. We were sailing along having a blast without a care in the world when all of the sudden I heard a loud voice in a blow horn telling us to stay out of the shipping lanes. It was a huge submarine. As we steered out of the shipping lane we laughed like mischievous boys , which we were.

When I was delivering a vessel to a place called Cowichan Bay near Victoria, BC, I had the opportunity to tour a Russian Submarine. The sub had been built in 1971. We were acting silly and saluted for the photo.

I was in New York City a year or so later and toured the USS Submarine Growler that had been built in 1958. It was one of our first subs that fired nuclear warheads.. The older US sub was built better and was still in excellent shape. The Russian sub didn't even come close to the US sub. It was so evident that our technology was much more superior than theirs.

The submarine USS Growler is the only intact strategic diesel-powered submarine that fired nuclear missiles open to the public anywhere in the world.

USS Growler

Black-footed Albatross

2009-11-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Back in August of 2007, two co-workers and I at Allen Marine in Sitka delivered a 65' bow-loading vessel from Sitka to King Salmon. The trip took us up the coast to Yakatat, across the gulf to Kodiak, up the Aleutian chain to False Pass, and then up the Bering Sea to Naknik . Out in the middle of the gulf we frequently came upon Black-footed Albatross. They live their life out in the middle of the sea, only coming to shore to nest. They have a 7 foot wingspan and fly so majestically only a couple of feet above the waves.

The following video is footage that I took of the Albatross out in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska.

I am amazed that the Black-footed Albatross, living in such a gray world, so solitary in the wide expanse of the ocean, can fly so gracefully with the air of loving life. He is a wise bird, loving that existence that he has been bequeathed.

Photo from Wikipedia.

A Black-footed Albatross in flight.

This is the vessel that we delivered. It was built for the National Park Service to haul fuel trucks to bear viewing resorts around Naknic Lake near King Salmon.

The Mariner's Question

2009-10-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

This is a poem that I wrote on May 3rd, 2000. I wrote it after reading an article in the magazine PROFESSIONAL MARINER. The article was called "THE BILGE PUMP : A LIFESAVER".

The similarity between a bilge pump and the Savior came to me in the words of this poem.

(Click on the poem to enlarge it for reading.)

This is the picture that accompanied the article.

I believe that the Savior gave His life for each one of us.

I believe that if we follow His precepts, we can live with Him again.

Trevor and me onboard a replica of the Santa Maria on my 34th birthday.

Trevor is 8 years old in this photo.

Apra Harbor, Guam

Santa Maria replica at full sail.

1492 - 1992

To my wonderful and handsome Grandsons:

Jace and Gage

May they love the sea like their

Grandfather and Great Grandfather.

Wondrous Mantas of the Deep!

2009-09-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

This is a photo of a Manta that I took at Gun Beach on the West Coast of Guam. I was teaching Scuba Diving to a large group of Japanese students when all of the sudden two Manta Rays started circling our group. They seemed to appeared out of nowhere! I had the divers kneeling in a circle on the bottom at about 30 feet.

I had never seen Mantas in the wild before and I was completely captivated. I had a small underwater camera that my parents-in-law had given me for my birthday and set off to get a photo. I made sure that the other dive instructors had control of the students and off I went. The mantas just kept circling the group.

I started swimming along with the circling mantas, snapping photos when I got a good shot. All of the sudden the Manta that I was the closest to, slowed down as if inviting my approach. My forward momentum took me closer than I cared to be. Especially because the Manta turned and flashed its belly at me. A shot of fear shot through me as I remembered that Sting Rays had a barb that could be deadly. Remember that I was new enough to the marine world that I didn't know that Mantas were docile and harmless. I immediately started to back-peddle so-to-speak, pushing water toward the Manta with my hands and fins to escape from the white belly and tail that had been flared in my face. I'm sure that it was quite humorous to watch my antics. The Manta took off on his circling path around the group of dive students and then as fast as they appeared, they disappeared off into the blue sea. When my heart beat slowed, I returned to the amazed students who still were kneeling on the bottom with eyes as big as saucers. What a cool experience! But I was a little embarrassed when I inquired and found out that Mantas are absolutely harmless.

There are a lot of Mantas south of Guam in the Yap Islands. I had dove in Ulithi Atoll but did not see any Mantas during my dives. Dive masters in Yap have a unique way of feeding the Mantas in Yap for the dive tourists. They spray Cheese Whiz in their hair and the Manta flies over the top of them and sucks the cheese out of their hair with their huge mouths. I bet that is a weird sensation, having a huge Manta sucking in on the top of your head.

On dive tours in Guam, we used to feed the Moray Eels at Hap's Reef. We fed them hot dog wieners. Franks wear probably not the healthiest thing to feed marine life but that was the practice at the time. The problem with feeding the Morays hot dogs was that hot dogs look like fingers and the Morays didn't differentiate. I would cut off a piece of wiener and stick it on the end of my knife and hold it out for the Moray. Sometimes you had to kind off coax the Moray out of its hole by waving the wiener close to the mouth of its hole. I would put my other hand flat on my chest rather than let it hang down somewhere where another Moray in another hole would come out and take a bite thinking that my finger was a wiener. I never got bit, but a friend of mine, Jeff Earl got bit from time to time. He would sometimes forget about his other hand.

When I could coax a Moray out of his hole, he would cautiously move out toward the wiener on the end of my knife. Then I could take my other hand and stroke the slimy body of the Moray.

Gun Beach is names after the anti-aircraft military gun found at the North end of Tumon Bay in Guam. You can see a photo of that gun above. I got the photo from the Guamportal website.

HIS Swimming Wonders in the Deep!

2009-08-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Any idea what this is? It is a large Coastal Brown Bear swimming toward the far shore. After studying the charts, I estimated that the Bear was about 3/4 of a mile from the shore toward which he was swimming, and 3/4 of a mile from the shore where he had entered the water. The passengers on the tour boat I was captaining were amazed at the swimming ability of the bear. Fact: Bears that live on islands swim well. This photo was taken in Sitka Sound

between Gragarin Island and Krestof Island. When we came upon swimming bear we were always careful to stay a safe distance as stories circulated about commercial fishing vessels that would get so close that the bear would decide to climb aboard for a little rest. Definitely not something you would want to share deck space with.

A couple of years later, I came upon a bear in about the same area but he was swimming from Gragarin Island to Kruzof Island. He was only a couple of hundred yards off of Gragarin. We hoped that he would abort and go back to Gragarin because the distance to Kruzof was more like three or four miles. With our gentle persuasion by cutting him off out at a safe distance, he finally turned and swam back to Gragarin.

Coastal Brown Bears can run 35 miles an hour. You would never want to try to out-run a Bear. Although they don't swim really fast, you would still not want to try to out-swim a bear. In the short run you may be able to swim faster, but in the long run he would out endure you.

This is a swimming Sitka Black-tail Deer. During the tour season between May and September, I would usually see a swimming Deer about once a month. The area around Sitka, Alaska is an Ocean-Island world.

One day on the way to Juneau from Sitka, I came upon two young deer swimming from Deadman Reach in Peril Straight out to the area of Hoggup Reef. I got too close and the Deer started swimming for the Catamaran. I backed off quickly and the Deer started back for Deadman's Reach area. It was heart wrenching to see those two little Deer swimming their hearts out in that frigid sea. I didn't have time to wait to see if they made it back to shore safely, but I'm sure they did. I hope so!

Another time, I came across a large buck drown and floating in the sound. I'm sure that the Deer tried to swim between two islands and got caught in an outgoing tide. As the current took him out further and further in the sound, he got colder and colder and exhaustion finally won out. That Deer had probably swam between those islands many times, but finally, a series of unfortunate events.

One thing that was always interesting was that when the deer I was watching finally arrived at the shore and climbed out of the water, it would always stop and turn and look at us. Then it would take a short time to rejuvenate from the cold swim before it would shake off the water like a dog, and then slowly walk back into the trees.

It was always spectacular to see mammals swimming in the ocean in Alaska.

I never got any photos of this next story, but one day in Jamestown Bay, I saw a mother Merganser swimming across the bay with about 10 little baby Mergansers on her back. She was swimming like crazy and she kept looking behind her as she swam and it dawned on me why. A Bald Eagle saw an easy meal of Merganser chicks. As the Eagle would swoop down, she would give the signal and all of the chicks would jump off of her back and into the water and under her. She would turn and face the Eagle as he flew by and quake and flap her wings but there was never anything for him to grab in his talons. As soon as the Eagle would pass, her little chicks would pop back up to the surface and jump back on their mamma's back, and she would take off swimming again. It was so interesting watching that hen Merganser fighting for the lives of her little chicks. From the shore, we were cheering every time the Eagle would come away empty handed. Of course there was absolutely nothing we could do for the Merganser family.

One day I saw a Bald Eagle dive into the sea after a spanning Salmon and pop back to the surface with a Cormorant in his talons. When Eagle catch heavy objects in the water they swim to the shore with their catch. The Cormorant was still alive and it flapped and fought all the way to he shore. When the Eagle arrived at the shore he took one bite at the Cormorant and seemed to say, "yuck", and abandoned the Cormorant. Of course the Cormorant wasn't in very good shape because of the tight grip of the Eagle's talons. As it laid there on the shore other Eagles took a taste of the easy meal but also quickly lost interest. Oily Cormorant just doesn't compare with savory salmon. No such thing as a free meal.

Cormorants somewhere in Sitka Sound

An Eagle waiting and watching for a meal in Nakwasina Sound.

Here is a photo that Denalee took of a Coastal Brown Bear from a boat. Bears love to eat the beach grass in the spring before the berries are ripe and the salmon start spanning. Could he be contemplating a swim to another island. "but the water is sooo cold, do I really want to swim to another island?" This a younger Bear but still weights probably 600 to 800 pounds.

Rapture of the Deep

2009-08-11T11:33:00.001-07:00

This is a photo that was taken of me in the Blue Hole. It is a very popular Scuba dive on the Island of Guam. One day while working as a dive guide for some Japanese divers, we decided to dive the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a hole in the top of a shelf of rock at 60 feet on the South side of the Orote Peninsula. The hole is big enough to drive a large pick-up truck through the opening. It drops down like a shaft from 60 feet to 110 feet where there is a window that opens up to the depths. The very bottom of the blue hole sits at about 250 feet and slopes down from there into the Mariana Trench. (about 36,000 feet deep) We would descend down the hole and then exit out the window and then ascend up the wall facing the open sea. I was leading 5 or 6 Japanese divers down through the hole and I had told them that they needed to stay right at the top of the 110 foot window and to start ascending immediately after exiting the hole. The limits of recreational diving are at 120 feet and as a PADI instructor it was my duty to dive within the proper depths. We dropped from 60 ft down to the top of the window opening out into the expanse of the sea at 110 feet. In the photo above you can see the opening out to the sea at 110 feet in the Blue Hole. We hugged the roof of the window as we exited the hole. As we started ascending I was facing the divers making sure that no one was dropping lower than they should. One Japanese girl in her late 20's, early 30's started dropping at a fast rate. At that depth a body looses buoyancy. The pressure squeezes the wet suit so that it isn't so buoyant. Experienced divers know that at depth you must add air to your buoyancy compensator but these divers were inexperienced. The girl was not aware that she was dropping. I got her attention and gave her the ascend now hand signal. She was about 12 feet below me and she started to kick with her body in a vertical position looking strait up at me. As I looked into her eyes I could tell that she had nitrogen narcosis. I was swimming right next to less experienced divers so that I could watch them carefully and was hoping that she would quickly swim the 12 feet up to me. I was amazed to see that although she was kicking her fins and thinking that she was ascending, she was actually dropping. I immediately motioned to the other divers to cling to the rock face. Then I dropped down as fast as I could to bring her back up to the rest of the divers at 110 feet. When I caught her she was at 135 feet. I grabbed a hold of the yoke of her tank and started ascending with her as she weakly kicked her fins. I looked into her face and could see that she really wasn't aware of what was going on. Once we arrived at the other divers, we started ascending up the wall. From time to time I would have the divers grip the rock wall and rest. By and by we arrived at the 60 foot level. Below is my journal entry of that experience.

It was very interesting for me to see a person under the influence of nitrogen narcosis or rapture of the deep. Below is a definition of Rapture of the Deep from wikipedia.

The deepest depth that I ever dove was 200 feet. I was helping a fellow diver look for a watertight housing for a video camera that he had accidentally dropped. When I was at 200 feet, my entire body felt like that feeling that you have right before you pass out. Mild pins and needles over my entire body. I knew that as long as I moved slowly and kept calm that I could control the nitrogen narcosis that was affecting me. Down at that depth, according to the dive tables, you only have about 10 minutes before you must ascend in order to avoid decompression time at shallower depths. For safety reasons, I spent 15 minutes hanging from the decompression bar under the boat.

Father in Heaven has given us free agency to choose to stay in control of our physical bodies. The feeling of being very close to not having control of my body at depth was very uncomfortable to me. Why anyone would choose to lose control by taking drugs or alcohol is inconceivable to me. One of Gods greatest gifts to us, is that we can choose to be in control.

This is a photo of me diving right above the Blue Hole. I was getting ready to take some Japanese sport divers down through the hole. The tire and chain at the bottom of the photo is the mooring for the dive boat. You can see how strong the current is there by the angle of my exhaled bubbles and the angle of the mooring chain.