Monday June 21^st

We stopped by Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey to speak with Jim Watanabe, Professor of Marine Ecology. Sitting back in his office chair overlooking the pristine Monterey Bay kelp beds, Professor Watanabe told us about tube snails. These small mollusks used to only inhabit Southern California. In fact they were never seen anywhere near Monterey before 1980. Now tube snails inhabit nearly every stretch of rocky intertidal in Monterey. As the ocean and air temperatures warm, intertidal species migrate northward to remain their area of desired climate.

We wanted to see if Professor Jim’s story checked out, so we headed over to the Hopkins Library. Joe Wible, the Hopkins Librarian, let us take a look at Ed Ricketts old collecting cards from the 20’s and 30’s. We wanted to see where exactly Rickett’s had found tube worms 80 years ago. Ed Ricketts was a marine biologist, philosopher, and dear friend of John Steinbeck, who worked and lived in Cannery Row. His collecting cards thoroughly document all the marine life he examined between Vancouver and the Gulf of California. Most of his records were burned in a laboratory fire, but luckily for us, his cards from Monterey down to San Diego were saved. We waited as Joe Wible pulled out two shoeboxes from behind locked doors.

A reverent silence fell over us as Joe opened up the boxes. The very tops of the envelopes were charred from the laboratory fire. We realized that we were looking at cards that had been rescued from a fire over 70 years ago. On the cards themselves, Ricketts had carefully documented each organism by its full scientific name with its depth on tidal horizon, exposure to wave shock, type of bottom, and number observed. Browsing through the cards, we found a record of the tube worm, or as it was called in the early 20^th century, aletes squamigerous. Confirming what Professor Watanabe had told us moments earlier, Ricketts observed no tube worms at all in Monterey during the 20’s and 30’s. However down in Southern California, Ricketts collected tube worms in the Laguna Beach Rocky Tide flats, E of the CIT Station in Newport Bay, and on the channel side rocks of the Newport jetty. The most amazing thing was seeing the dates next to Ricketts notes, the earliest being Nov 18 1930.

Professor Watanabe and Joe Wible wished us luck on our trip, and we were off to Stanford for some last minute prep.

If you want to see Professor Watanabe’s webpage, visit http://seanet.stanford.edu/

Better yet, if you want eyes light up ask him about the “mighty and rugged” mussel

-Ian

For the past few days the three of us have been driving down the coast, and camping along the way.  We took off Saturday morning, headed for Monterey (with a quick stop in Moss landing to pick up paddles).  A few hours and a few parking tickets later, we arrived at Lover’s point, the future beginning of our trip.

We did this to mark our daily landing points, and to find and mark any emergency landing points on our GPS.  We found a lot of unmarked landings and that offered some much needed peace of mind.  However, Big Sur still loomed in all of it’s raw beauty.

The first night we veered off highway one and took a gorgeous nine-mile road up into the mountains and camped at Botcher’s Gap.  It was awesome.  For the next night, we decided to sleep on the beach at Pismo Beach State Park (Oceano), which required driving our cars two and a half miles down the beach during a rising tide.  Before we made our way to the spot, we asked the ranger if our two-wheel drive cars could make it.  He hesitated, doing a quick cost-benefit-analysis weighing the money he would get from us for the night of camping against the potential cost of bailing our cars out of the Pacific Ocean.  After a while he replied, “Yeah, go for it!  Just stay near the water on the hard sand.”  So, we made our way into the night and onto the sand.  Michael and I (Lane) made it to the spot after some close-calls.  When we looked back, Ian was a few hundred yards away, spinning his wheels in the sand–right next to the rising ocean.  So we ran over to his car and started digging it out.  Luckily, a few guys in the next camp over came with a shovel and some two-by-fours.  We gave the car a place to go and a hearty shove while the ocean rushed in under the car.  Finally, we got it moving and the car tore off, eventually making it to the camp site.  We spent the rest of the night jamming on guitar, ukulele, and harmonica.

The next day we made it to Ian’s house in Los Angeles and took some much needed showers.  Today, we picked up our kayaks (two huge 18-foot Cobra Expeditions) in Compton, bought life-jackets, and took the kayaks out through some mellow shore-break at Will Rodgers State Beach.  The next few days we will be kayaking, planning, and setting up our gear.  After that, it is back to Stanford to pick up the last bit of gear and visit some friends.  Then, we begin.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Lane

Big Sur Flexing

Big Sur

The Beginning

The Lone Cyprus

Kooks

Michael and Lane map landing spots in Big Sur

Last night, with final exams behind us, we finished mapping out the trip. Each day at sea comes out to roughly 11 miles, with some longer stretches off the more rugged Big Sur coast. For every stretch we designated a main landing spot with two other landing options just in case. We never know when sudden winds, high seas, or pirates will force us to shore. This weekend we’ll drive down to LA making sure our landing spots look safe in person.

Onwards and into the fog (smog?)…

Ian catches up on sleep after finals week

So, as our departure time, as well as the end of this school-year, fast approaches, we had the pleasure of meeting professional kayaker/general extreme adventurer David Kelly (all the way to the right in the picture).  We had a lot to learn from him, and we are so grateful for his insight.  He definitely lowered the chances of things going seriously wrong on this journey.  Thank-you David!  We all look forward to seeing you again soon.

Ian, Lane, Michael, and David

We had our first group kayak session Saturday (May 15th) by Moss Landing.  We are planning to do 10 miles a day, and wanted to become acquainted with how that felt.  Ian, Michael, Matt McGuire and I rented 4 prowler 13s at Monterey Bay Kayak, and at the end of the day, we had kayaked 13 miles in a little over 4 hours and were feeling great.  We also had the pleasure of meeting Aaron, who worked at the kayak store.  Man, he knows his stuff and he sure did help us out.  If you read this, thank-you so much and feel free to come join us for a day kayak during the trip.  After that, we all enjoyed some of the best fish and chips we have eaten.  We left stoked for what this summer will bring.  What a day.

Michael contemplating the day

We are trying to listen to the song of California’s coast through our kayaks, scientific findings, and our interviews as we kayak from Monterey to Mexico—the geographical lower-half of California.  We want to show ourselves and others that adventure can be had in the backyards of millions, though few ever realize the possibility.  Throughout this time, we will keep an open eye to an environment in distress by comparing  observed marine life and human impediments to natural marine life cycles from to region to region.  By sharing our images, interviews, writings, research, and travels we hope to convey the adventure that awaits outside of our back doors and prove that the adventurous spirit of the West is still alive.

We will leave in mid- to late-June from Monterey, and will spend most of the following 8 weeks at sea.  If you live between Monterey and San Diego and have any interest in what we are doing, we would love to hear from you and hopefully meet up (we will paddle right up to your beach).  This journey is a dream come true for us, and we hope to share it with all of you.

Love,

Lane Hartman, Ian Montgomery, Michael Taylor