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Broughton Archipelago Sept 2024

I’m not done with 2024-year of awesome kayaking. This was a week long trip up to the Broughton Archipelago on the north side of Vancouver Island, BC. Originally we planned to move nearly every night but we got such a good campsite on Fox that we decided to stay there 3 days, making day trips out, before moving on.

We drove up to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, spent the night and then took a ‘water taxi’ from the main island out into the Broughton’s proper, to Fox Island.

We took several day trips, including up to Echo Bay which is a small settlement with a summer resort (closed while we were there) and a museum run by “Billy Porter” who has lived in the area his whole life collecting, in his words, ‘sea junk’.

We encountered many humpback whales but this is our best video. We came out from behind a small island and they were right there, slowly moving back and forth, feeding.

We found this beautiful sign, warning us about an aggressive seal. We were a little skeptical at first but spoke to some of the tour guides later and it’s accurate – this angry seal will attack you. Keep your distance. We did as instructed and never encountered him.

This may be the best place I’ve ever done a multi-day kayak. There are hundreds of tiny islands that are fun to paddle around, whales, seals, and, at least as late in the season as we went, quiet. A+ Would go again.

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Coastal Kayaking Camp – Hobuck – August 2024

This was a week long coastal class through Body Boat Blade and was a blast – highly recommended. Our last day we had glass calm conditions which is bad for rock gardening, but was fantastic for exploring the caves at Cape Flattery.

Some shots from Hobuck Beach Resort, Cape Flattery (from the land side), and the shells that the Makah use (we did not remove any from the location)

Alex La Londe showing how it’s done. The caves at Cape Flattery, and Bill Vonnegut once again making me look like a badass through photography.

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J Section PCT August 2024

We did this 72 mile section the first week in August, picking a pretty easy pace except for the last day when we decided to push through, exit a day early and did 18 miles: a personal record for me. We headed southbound, starting at Stevens Pass and ending at Snoqualmie.

When we started out there was some concern about fires – we could see heavy smoke and had heard some reports so we made sure we had a few exit options if the smoke became more than I could handle. But as soon as we crossed over the first pass at Stevens it began to clear.

This was my second longest hiking trip (after my 10 day hike of the Wonderland Trail) and the most days worth of food I’ve ever carried – on the Wonderland we arranged for a resupply every 3-4 day. For this one we started with 7+ days of food, no resupply, and my starting weight was 34lbs.

I bought myself a new tent just for this – a durston. Which is single wall tent that uses your trekking poles in place of its own poles – it weighs only 17oz compared to my 2-man REI quarter dome, which comes in at about 3lbs.

PCT J Section Day 1
J section PCT South Day 2
PCT J South Day 3
PCT J South Day 3
Cell service!

Highlights: swimming in alpine lakes many times when it was hot. Snacking on huckleberries for miles and miles. Finding out that the scary water crossing we were warned about was easy. The Kendall Katwalk was not as scary as I worried but the section north of it was.

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Baja “Lite” Kayaking

May 2024 my art class was interrupted by fun things! Went kayaking with Bill Vonnegut for a week in Baja Mexico. He’s down there for 5 weeks or so in the spring but this week long session was advertised as being ‘Lite’ & for people who weren’t confident enough for the full experience.

The joke was on us because once we were there we were told that conditions our week were bigger than they’d been all year and we were doing all the same things. This has redefined my thoughts about what ‘big’ conditions look like.

We stayed at a little cabin owned by Victor Leon – either inside the cabin or camping outside. I did both because I started camping but on day 2 my air mattress deflated and I moved inside. As you might expect in Baja, it was sunny and warm and we were right on the ocean.

All photos of me below are by Bill Vonnegut. Bill has a knack for making your run look really epic.

Bill also took this video of me at the “elevator”. It took me about 20 minutes of watching the waves and others before I was willing to get this close to it. By the end I was ready to get closer.

When we first drove up there were blue whales spouting just offshore. They stayed in the area for about 4 days and we were able to get quite close to them once. Photo by Victor Leon. I’ve been close to Orcas before but the idea that a living creature can be this large is just amazing.

There was no video of my best ‘near miss’ so I created this helpful cartoon to illustrate it. (Bonus cartoon of what it looked like when Kathy got surfed into a rock)

Summary: this was an amazing trip where I feel like I really leveled up my skill. A+ Would go again. Probably not until 2026, but I very much want to go back.

The captions read: 1. Me: happily entering. 2. Looming wave + Rocks/No Water + Sense of impending doom 3. Wall of sharp things. 4. Frantic back paddling + Exiting: like being shot out of a canon * I may be taking some artistic license here. 5. Woohoo! + I didn’t die!!

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Brushwork Class – Spring 2024

I wound up abandoning this class part way through because I was distracted by kayaking and I only got back to it near the end of the summer when I was in a hurry to get ready for the final class. I may revisit the exercises since I know I need more work here. This is the 2nd class in the series by Ian Roberts.

We started with black and white only and then, later, added ochre yellow to represent ‘warmth’ while black and white remain ‘cool’. I think one or two added a little UM blue as well, for extra coolness.

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Mastering Composition – Class by Ian Roberts

I enrolled in a composition class taught by Ian Roberts. All of our exercises were about 4×6″ and done on smooth bristol with a pencil. I haven’t used just pencils for quite a while, and never exactly like this so there was a fairly steep learning curve just for me to be able to feel like I could make effective marks on the page. Luckily he seemed aware of this and the earliest exercises were all about making smooth shapes and gradients before we ever tried to really draw anything.

The class was self-paced, but there are advantages to keeping up in that you can expect better feedback from your ‘buddy’ – the other students in the class.

Note – I wrote this post LAST YEAR and then left it sitting in drafts for 10 months. I’m going to try to get caught up to current day.

starting with simple shapes
simple shapes
surprisingly hard bushes
simple shapes
beginning compositions
Still Life
finding a focal point
Still life
my own images
NM Puddle
Snoqualmie
Palouse
Cascades
France 2018
still life
Ancient Lakes
France
Sultan
Barrels
White River
Fields
The Berm
Orcas
Cleat
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Urban Sketching

I’ve had a recent obsession with fountain pens, dip pens, pen and ink, and watercolor sketching. I’ll probably post my thoughts on fountain pen paper later. But all this led me to the world of Urban sketching – which I like because it leans into some of my strengths, namely, playing with ink, being impatient, and accuracy not mattering as much as mood and gesture.

I’ve talked to some friends and we are planning to check out some local Urban Sketch clubs but in the meantime I thought I’d see if my current mixed media sketchbook could handle a little ink/watercolor. This was fun! I decided I liked purple. All the linework is done with purple india ink (although I know it looks black). Paper is Canson XL Mixed Media 160g. It buckled under the wash but dried flat enough again.

A street scene from a tutorial
My friend’s horses this winter
Sunrise before kayaking on New Years Day 2024
From a photo of our trip to France in 2018

I’m also taking a composition class online from an artist I admire. I may post those images here as well eventually. So far we’ve been focusing on ‘going slow’ and ‘being careful’ – my weakness!

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Winter Kayaking

I haven’t done as much this winter as in the past, partially because I got covid over Christmas, but I’ve made it to a few pool sessions so I don’t lose my roll. And I figured out a new trick: the butterfly roll. This just tickles me because it’s so very simple but I couldn’t do it for a long time, and now when I do it it feels like nothing.

The Butterfly Roll!

And just for fun. I don’t have a gopro mounted to my deck but I have a friend with an underwater camera who took this shot of my standard layback roll from below. It looks super easy? Right. It is easy once you know how to do it! And then every now and then I just can’t do it again.

Layback Roll
From above water!
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The allen wrench (story time)

Sometimes I have trouble not answering questions literally even when a literal answer is not what is wanted.

When living in Albuquerque in my 20s I needed to go to the courthouse and at the time I was riding my bicycle a lot so I’d ridden it to the courthouse that day. As I’m passing through security I tossed my keys and and allen wrench into the basket as I went through the scanner.

The guard looks suspiciously at the allen key but doesn’t touch it.

Guard: “What’s this?”

Is he punking me?  Who doesn’t know what an allen key is.

Me:  “It’s an allen key?”

He’s not happy with that answer and is a little annoyed.

Guard: “Is it a weapon?”

Really? How can he not know what this is?  Maybe the problem is the word ‘key’.  I’ll call it a wrench and that will definitely clear this up. This is a mistake. I should have said ‘it’s not a weapon’ but I was a little hung up on explaining what it was to go for what it was not.

Me: “It’s an allen wrench.”

Nope. He’s frustrated that I’m not giving him the kind of answer he wants.

Guard (exasperated): “Can you hurt someone with it?”

Huh.  Well that’s a different question.  It’s a solid object so yes, I could technically hurt someone with it. Don’t say that.  But now it’s become a puzzle to solve, how could I use an allen wrench as a weapon? Could I take it and jab it into an eye?   Don’t say that either. Maybe I could kill someone with a ballpoint pen! I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that in a movie. Again, don’t say that out loud. I haven’t said it, right?  Good.  Why ask this question? Aren’t there any number of other things inside that could be used as weapons? How about a chair or a lamp? A true warrior is never disarmed until the room is empty!  Nope, don’t say that.

There’s an uncomfortably long pause while all these scenarios run through my head.  I need a better answer. One that doesn’t get me tackled.

Me: “It’s a wrench. I could unscrew something?”

He makes a sort of scoffing grunt and stares at me a bit longer before letting me through security.