Sunday, November 29, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Refuel in New England



From Denver, Chris flew to Boston and caught a bus up to Bangor, ME, where he met his father, Dave, for a ten-day visit to beautiful family property in Penobscot Bay. He has fond memories of summers spent with his father and sister, Sarah, in a small, undeveloped wooden cabin overlooking the water along Eggemoggin Reach on Little Deer Isle. The water, beach and roughly 30 acres of dense forest were great for exploring, hiking, clamming, canoeing, windsurfing, sailing, and just about anything else a couple of kids could imagine. This year, highlights included a 3-day sailing cruise around the islands of Penobscot aboard his father’s boat Mouette, a 31 foot Dufour (furry first-mate, photo right); spending calm evenings watching sunsets on the north porch; putting t
ogether puzzles with his stepmother, Anette; taking long walks in the forest; and watching boats navigate down the reach each day.
Leaving Maine, Chris traveled south towards West Barnstable, MA. There, he visited his mother, Jane, and stepfather, Abe, at their house on Cape Cod. While there, he enjoyed neighborhood walks and lengthy discussions with his mother; going out to favorite eateries and watching Red Sox games on TV together; and wholeheartedly enjoying the rare opportunity to spend time with his globetrotting mother and stepfather. Crisp, clear weather foreshadowed the changing seasons, and provided a good reason to cozy up to fires in the Franklin stove. Last, but certainly not least, he also made it to two Red Sox games at Fenway Park in Boston, taking him back to memories of ballgames with his stepfather
as a young kid. Amazingly, the Red Sox won both games, but not without some of the good drama you would expect.
Chris spent the final few days of his East Coast trip at a wedding on Long Island, NY, with friends from Occidental College. While at Oxy, he enjoyed surfing with the groom, Jason Graetz, and another close friend in attendance, Matt Gehrke, at various California and Baja Norte breaks. Jason was married to his beautiful bride, Rania, out in the fields behind a cleverly restored barn near Riverhead, Long Island. Following the reception, Chris traveled with Matt down to his newly purchased townhouse in Wilmington, DE. Although the visit was short, it was good to finally see Matt settling into a good groove at work and home.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Summer in Idaho
"Whatever I feel like I want to do. Gosh!" Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Chris’s primary motivation for leaving TAO on the hard this summer was to work with his close friends at Canyons, Inc., the excellent kayak surf conditions on his days off. Chris and his friends spent many blissful hours surfing in the perfect white pile of Gold Hole at 10,000 cfs, located in the very last rapid of the 6-day Main Salmon River run.
Apart from fun on the river, there were a couple of hallmark events worth mentioning. First, his dear friend and coworker, Greg McFadden (flexing some serious muscles in pic below), has made a successful bid to buy Canyons, Inc., from employers, Les and Susan Bechdel. The Bechdels have captained the Canyons ship from day one almost 25 years ago, building the company into one of the premier river companies to offer multi-day trips down the Middle Fork and
Finally, the event that capped off Chris’s summer was a little more painful, to say the least. On another rainy day 3 at Big Mallard camp on the Main Salmon, Chris slipped and fell between two rafts while unloading gear. He quickly caught himself by grabbing two shipped oars, one on each raft, but was caught suspended between the two boats slowly drifting apart. While lowering himself to the ground, he suddenly heard a distinct popping sound in his shoulder and felt searing pain. He hobbled out of the water and immediately saw the left side of his chest swell into a B-cup “man-boob.” Pain management and stabilization were the immediate chores on order; nothing that a few painkillers, ice, sling and swathe couldn’t solve. His injury was monitored for any signs of change, major hemorrhaging, or loss of feeling in his left hand. Despite several hope-filled dreams that symptoms had disappeared over night, morning came and he knew there was absolutely no chance he’d be able to row the last few days of the trip. Twenty-four hours and several satellite phone conversations
later, Chris was flown off the river from a short, steeply angled dirt runway with a harrowing, over the river take-off.
After medical evaluation, Chris was told that he had most likely torn the better part of his left pectoralis major muscle off of the upper humerus where it normally attaches. He needed surgery to gain back what he had lost. He had open surgery on August 17 and the surgeon indeed found that he had a “complete avulsion of the pec major tendon from the insertion point on the humerus.” They drilled ten “bone tunnels” into his humerus and used “baseball/whip/locking stitches” and four knots to reattach his pec and reestablish his “native anatomy.” He is still recovering from this setback, with physical therapy and, eventually, muscle rehabilitation. It’ll be a 5-6 month process but, luckily, he and his surgeon expect a 100% recovery. Special thanks go to Drs. Patrick Knibbe and Michael Curtin, as well as the entire Canyons, Inc., team for making Chris’ journey to recovery as smooth as possible.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Logical path?
It’s amazing how quickly time flows by. This summer found Shawn in California, Chris in Idaho, Grizzly in upstate NY, and Tao in Sonora, Mexico. Our family could hardly have been further apart, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Chris was guiding and making money on the wilds of the Salmon River, Shawn was negotiating the city jungle housesitting and doing preparatory yoga in Berkeley, Grizzly was enjoying non moving space at Shangrila-de-Judy in Ithaca, and Tao was fairing well through Chubascos in San Carlos. To most people this might not seem logical with our purported goal of sailing across oceans this coming spring but we like to think it all makes “perfect” sense. We are still focused


Sunday, July 19, 2009
Images of the Sea of Cortez
It's been a few weeks... After an awesome trip down the Main Salmon in Idaho together, currently Chris is working another combination trip on the Middle Fork/Main Salmon River and Shawn is in transit from Idaho to Berkeley via Corvallis Oregon.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Images of our adventures
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The misadventures of SPOT
Friday, June 19, 2009
Race to the finish…

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Out of the water!


Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Transitioning to Summer
Poco a poco (little by little). It was invaluable to be able to observe Pisces' process and we have allotted ourselves extra time to try to keep this transition as mellow as possible. Over the past week we started by researching all the possible places to leave Tao on the hard. Upon sailing in, we were leaning toward Guaymas, as it is known to be the least expensive, and near "the big city" of Guaymas, a hub for local fishing and shrimping operations. Upon visiting, it is run by a very amiable Gabriel, and is quite a small operation in a dirt yard with a barbed wire fence for security (it was strange to see Outkast and Misty on stands without their people). It turns out that it is on the outskirts with quite a trek, requiring a bus, to get to town for
buying parts to do work or even for finding a place to eat or grocery store which would make working on Tao upon return a bit difficult. Singlar is newer to the area and known to have exorbitant prices. Still we wanted to check it out. We were very impressed by their facilities (clean, paved and highly secure) and were pleasantly surprised that in trying to fill their small yard, they are offering 60% off their prices which bring them to a reasonable cost. The down side is there are no boat work services available through the yard, we would have to find everything ourselves. Marina Real, closest to the Sea, was immediately out as you are not allowed to live on your boat while working on it. Marina San Carlos tends to be the favorite among the majority of cruisers that want
to work on their boats. It is obvious that they have done this for a while and are quite a well oiled machine. Because of the cruisers demand, services for both the boat and the cruisers, although more expensive, have popped up all around this little town. It is also where Pisces hauled out the first day we were here (and several others such as Plume plan to), so we were able to intimately check out their process. After weighing all the pros and cons, we have decided to haul out into Marina Seca in San Carlos because of the high level of experience, decent security, and the larger net of other cruisers experience to draw from there. We'll just have to battle the dust and mosquitos and the extra money is worth it to us for a little more peace of mind.
Over the last week we also managed to purchase tickets from Phoenix to our different destinations just in time for the 2-week mark; we both fly out on June 5th. It's quite complicated and more details will follow as things fall into place. The basic idea so far is that Shawn and Grizzly are flying to New York to visit family and Griz will be staying with GrandMum for a while. Shawn will then head to Idaho for a trip down the Middle Fork/Main Salmon with Chris and on to Oregon to hopefully work a few trips on the Rogue before checking out the yoga scene back in Berkeley. Chris is flying to Corvallis to visit his sister Sarah and pick up our chariot Pepe, and then
working his way to Idaho for another season of river running with Canyons. Unfortunately, post ticket purchase, we found that the beautiful Mexican buses do not allow pets in the cabin. Yikes, now we find ourselves with a deadline in the states and no easy way to get there. We are practicing our zen and having faith that a ride from another cruiser will fall into place at the right time. Don't worry though, we do have a back up plan. We'll keep you posted. Until then, we haul on Friday at 2 pm local when the tide is high enough for our 5-ft draft. Tomorrow we plan to take a slip and drench everything in fresh water- it has been since the states since Tao has had a real fresh water bath and all of our running and standing rigging as well as our sails, canvas covers, windlass, Moni, Seahor(se), and Eeyore are screaming for a serious wash down. How different unlimited freshwater showers will be for us as well... Which brings us to
today, we are madly scrambling
around on board taking measurements, baking bread and cookies to use up the open flour, and generally trying to get all of the tasks that need to be done in the water completed while at the same time reminding ourselves to enjoy this part of the adventure as well.