Category: Uncategorized

Orca Luna-Cy: Remember Luna the lonely killer whale? The orca Canadian fisheries experts tried to remove from an inlet in British Columbia only to be foiled by local native groups who believed Luna was the spirit of a dead chieftan? Well, Luna was pretty cute for a while, playing with visiting boats and letting people pat him. But now he’s rather large, so when he “plays” with visiting boats things, well, break. Now some locals are calling the whale “Luna The Lunatic.” And his latest escapade involved holding fisherman Kjell Aalhus and his son hostage. Here’s the Globe & Mail’s account:

“The drama began just before dawn Wednesday as he and his son sailed toward Gold River, their boat laden with more than 200 spring salmon caught the night before. The plan was to unload their haul, catch some sleep, and then set out again.

As the boat sailed eastward, David Aalhus spotted the whale about 30 metres ahead, its nose pointed toward them. A minute later, the boat shuddered and nearly lifted out of the water.

The banging sound from below was Luna playing with the rudder.

For four hours, Mr. Aalhus and his son tried everything to lose the whale, but it was having too much fun. “It was like he was playing with us, like we were toys, like he didn’t know his own strength,” David, 38, said.

When the whale wasn’t underneath the boat, it splashed alongside it, looking eerily human.

“What kind of a whale interacts with boats and humans?” David asked. “You should have seen him lying beside our boat, looking up at you with his eyes, like he wants you to pet him.”

Luna’s knocks against the rudder disabled the steering. Eventually, a packer heard Mr. Aalhus’s distress calls and towed the Wendy-Lynn to a nearby bay, where the two men spent the day repairing the steering.

That afternoon, they sailed north to a fishing ground in Tlupana Inlet, more than 10 kilometres from where they last encountered Luna. As they slowed their boat, Mr. Aalhus’s heart sank as the whale’s distinctive outline appeared on the horizon. Luna was back for Round 2.

This time, Luna pushed the rudder loose and turned it around so that it hit the boat’s propeller blades, disabling the Wendy-Lynn. Luna was pushing the boat toward a rocky beach. Mr. Aalhus went to work on the rudder with a pipe wrench. At that moment, Luna rammed the broken rudder again, pinning Mr. Aalhus to a fuel tank with the wrench.

After two hours, Luna swam away and Mr. Aalhus repaired the rudder.”

Sounds a lot more exciting than Sea World. Aalhus says he won’t be going back anytime soon. But at least he kept his sense of humor, joking: “What if he brings his whole family back to Gold River?”



Overfriendly Orca: “Hey Aalhus! Get back here you big ‘fraidy cat! I just wanna play….!

“Mekong” Micks Wildass Adventure–Chapter 14: In which boulders rain down around Mick, he loses some cash, and finally gets paddles out of China…

“At the base of Manwan dam the river sprang back to life. The dam had just started to overflow so the water levels below this particular dam were the same as above. The white water was awesome. Four meter plus wave trains were followed by ginormous whirlpools and boils that would surely render a kayaker unconscious should he bail from his kayak. After 6 more hrs of paddling the river again started to back up as we approached the Xiowan Dam. It was the biggest man made monstrosity I have ever seen. Both sides of a huge canyon were thoroughly cemented up to a height of 500 meters. Hundreds, if not thousands of construction workers toiled throughout the site. BANG!! A powerful blast of dynamite scared the hell out of both of us as a section of the gorge wall was blasted into the river.

About 300 meters up the gorge wall on river left a large excavator nudged boulders the size of 40 foot shipping containers into the river. They tumbled, half rolling, half airborne down the near vertical cliff crashing into the river below sending water high into the air. It was an awesome sight. Dozens of workers downed their tools to watch a couple of crazy kayakers sneak along the river right bank above a long class VI rapid caused by the thousands of tonnes of rock that had been blasted and dumped into the flow.

We rapidly made our way through the site concerned that falling rocks or dynamite blasts may put a swift end to the expedition. The sheer scale of the construction site was something that will remain etched in my mind for years to come. We had been warned about photography in the site and could not get our cameras out.

The next day we arrived at the second operational dam in China called the Dashaoshan. We were greeted with a surprise in that US$600.00 had been stolen from my bag while we paddled the previous leg. Brian was forced to make a long and frustrating drive to to retrieve more funds from the bank and ultimately did not manage to return to the river for the final stretch in China leaving me to do the last 140km of previously unboated white water solo.

After a nights rest in Dashaoshan village we drove to the put in at the base of the dam to find that only a fraction of the water entering the lake was being released down stream. The Mekong became a new, medium to large volume river instead of extra large volumes we had previously paddled. We estimated that water flows below the dame were about 75% less than could be found above. I spent the next 2 days paddling various sets of previously unboated rapids including two challenging class V’s. After 140km the waters relaxed and for the first time I came across commercial cargo boats just north of Simao. I took the opportunity to surf their stern and bow waves but the captains were not as fond of the experience as I was.

I also started to notice the locals interacting with the river rather than avoiding it. In most of the Tibet and China sections the Mekong is seen as a dangerous obstacle that should be avoided. Yet now, children swam and played while their fathers fished and women came down to the rivers edge to wash clothes. I had crossed into the Dai area of Southern Yunnan. The Dai are the ancestors of modern day Thais and Laos and are as at home in a hardwood pirogue on the river as they are on dry land.

Finally after nearly 3 months in China I was about to enter the South East Asian lands of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos and a new, exciting leg of the journey.”

Well, that’s all I have from Mick and his Mum for the moment, so “Mekong” Mick’s wildass adventure will take an intermission until a new dispatch rolls in. Stay tuned…



The Big Muddy…

(Photo: Courtesy Lynley O’Shea)

Have A Wetass Weekend…

(Photo: Andrew Chisholm/Surfer: Andy Campbell/Location: Shipsterns. Via BillabongXXL)

The Search For Sandy Irvine On Everest–Some Answers, More Questions: When we last checked in on the EverestNews Mallory/Irvine detectives, they had determined that the body they found on Everest was a Chinese climber named Wu, who disappeared in 1975. Since then, the expedition has revealed that it had a second secret climbing team (the “B” team) at work on the mountain. The idea was to have some climbers who could go anywhere without being watched or questioned. In addition to Wu, the expedition found an oxygen bottle from the 1920s or 1930s, right where a Chinese climber had said he had seen an “Old English dead.” This COULD have been a bottle from the Mallory/Irvine expedition, and if you want to follow the forensic work used to try to identify this bottle (which digs back into Irvine’s diary), click here. What the team did not find, though, is Irvine’s body at the spot where they thought it would be. The spot is open and steep, so if the body slid it would not stop for 6,000 meters. Click here to read the expedition’s final theorizing on whether they had the right place. This is an intriguing mystery, and hopefully these guys will go back next year. But if the body slid, it’s doubtful Irvine will ever be found (much less his camera). And the mystery of whether Mallory and Irvine made the summitt in 1924 will live on. Perhaps it’s better that way…



Irvine’s Grave…

“Mekong” Mick’s Wildass Adventure–Chapter 13: In which Mick contemplates the impact of China’s dams on the people around them, and decides to take a stand…

“The most striking contrast between the Three Gorges Dam project and the Mekong Cascade Dam Project is that the majority of negative impacts from the Mekong Dams will not be felt by the Chinese population but instead will be shouldered by the rural people of downstream nations including some of the most impoverished on earth. Far from offering to build entire cities to assist the worst affected, as yet there has not been any formal attempts at mitigation with the downstream nations. Interestingly, an environmental impact assessment of the dams on downstream nations was not undertaken by the Chinese until after the Manwan was completed in 1993. The controversy continues, as does construction.

On a personal level I was deeply saddened to see such a great and powerful river subdued into a flat and lifeless lake. Over the preceeding months I had the great privilege to become the first person to experience the entire upper section of the Mekong from ground level. I had studied its temperament from its playful folly across the Tibetan Plateau to the violent mood swings that erupted periodically when obstructions attempted to divert the flow. I had gaped in awe at kilometer after kilometer of gigantic gorges and attempted to calculate approximately how many billions of tons the river had eroded away along a single 100 kilometer stretch. My calculator did not contain enough digits!

Until now the river had twice shocked me with lessons in my own mortality and instilled me with a million moments of wonder. Constantly alive and relentlessly transforming the world through which I traveled the Mekong to my mind is in fact a living, evolving entity.

In front of us lay a motionless body of water, devoid of character and strength. It was fed by the Mekong yet it contained none of the traits that I had come to know and deeply respect throughout the journey. On the web news we encountered just before starting this section we read that down stream nations were experiencing some of the lowest Mekong water levels on record, negatively affecting millions of local farmers and fishermen. Yet where we were, just a few hundred kilometers north of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar the river was nearly full. The unfortunate fact was that the majority of the water was being withheld in China to fill the two operational hydropower dams.

I discussed it with Brian and we decided that as a sign of protest against the construction of dams across the Mekong mainstream that will in turn enforce un measured and uncompensated hardships on local peoples in downstream nations, we would not paddle across the man made Mekong Lakes of Yunnan.”

Tomorrow: Dodging raining rock, and pissing off local riverboat captains…



Damn dam…

(Photo: Courtesy Lynley O’Shea)

Wetass Hero–Anne Quemere: This incredibly determined Frenchwoman is in the midst of rowing across the Atlantic, from Cape Cod to France. She’s finally closing on the French coast, which is a relief because she’s been out there–wait for it–83 days! And, believe it or not, she’s not sure she wants to finish. Here’s a report she sent in a few days ago:

“Today, I row happily under a warm sun and a SW wind. I am getting accustomed to the odd oars and I may end up with one arm bigger than the other. The present conditions should allow me to get home quickly, a result I hope for but I fear at the same time. Be with my family, share meals and ideas and rest in familiar places will be wonderful but it also means the end of the adventure. I feel like a runner ready to reach his goal and loosing the charm of the race; Since yesterday, I am surrounded by physalies, thousand of them and I also see strange whitish balls the size of a ping-pong ball. What are they? Can somebody tell me? Anyway, I try to avoid them when I wash my dishes.Exept for these antidiluvian creatures, the sea is empty. No dolphin, no sperm whales, no ship. The sea is empty of edible fish and I am too far from commercial lines. To lighten the Connetable, I drink my water reserve I have been carrying since the USA, it will mean 20 kilos less to pull. If I believe the forecast, but I want confirmation, I should have to deal with NW wind again that may push me inside the gulf of Gascony. In the meantime, I move NE as much as I can and I can see in dream the towers of La Rochelle…”

The French have perfected the persona of the “philosopher-adventurer” and Quemere is a perfect example. Sure, ocean rowing can be a bit boring. But you have to admire and respect the patience, grit and vision it takes to spend almost three months at the oars, alone with your dreams, fears, and blisters. So, here’s to Anne…



Ocean Odyssey…

Wetass Sport #342–Pond Swooping: If just plain ol’ skydiving isn’t exciting enough for you, you don’t have to throw out your chute. Instead you can dive into a wetass variant of the sport in which you plummet toward a body of water, time your landing so that you touch down on the surface at about 70 mph, and then try to skim along like a barefoot water skiier ’til you gracefully step onto land with nary a drop of water on you. Of course, if you mistime things, it could, err, hurt. Anyhow, the sixth annual Pond Swooping Nationals (“If you’re not prepared to get wet… DON’T COME!!!”) just touched down in Gardiner, NY, and the venerable NY Times was there in the person of reporter Corey Kilgannon to make a full report. Here’s an excerpt:

“On Friday morning, they began their runs, swooping down to the water every minute or so – first Sonic, then The Punisher, then Fruitcake – flying over the water in a narrow buoy lane, first curved, then straight.

Just as many competitors in the weekend event skimmed along on their bellies or buttocks, or lost speed and control and splashed unceremoniously into the muddy water, to hoots and jeers from spectators. This is called chowing, and it is as integral to pond-swooping fun as the perfect surface glide.

Splashers get flagged down by the chow judge, Bruce Chapman, which means a big deduction of points from the judges sitting lakeside in lawn chairs. They assess a swooper’s approach, skim length and swoop control. In other events, swoopers try to land on a raft, and show their freestyle skills in an event called canopy expressions.

The crowd watched intently as Clint Clawson, 29, from Perris, Calif., drifted down from the clouds and swooped down on the pond. Mr. Clawson, a top pro on the national Pro Swooping Tour, has won the event at the ranch the past two years. With his black Chuck Taylor hightop sneakers, he traced a graceful arc in the water before landing on the far bank, while mugging for the crowd.”

If you can’t quite visualize it, check out Skydive New England’s excellent photo gallery here. Pond Swooping: Good nicknames, good lingo, a bunch of nutjobs with parachutes, great sport…



“Uh-oh, I think I’m gonna chow…”

(Photo: SkyDive New England)

“Mekong” Mick’s Wildass Adventure–Chapter 12: IN which Mick picks his way through the “Dragon’s Teeth” and runs into his first Chinese mega–dam…

“A five day detour to the Zongdjian horse racing festival gave our bodies some time to recover and one last glimpse of the rich Tibetan cultural heritage before entering a new cultural realm of Lisu, Bai and Han farmers. As expected the Mekong rose several feet in our absence and was less than 2 meters below the high water mark when we set off from the Lincang bridge. As the water volume increased so too did the level of chaos encountered class IV – V runs were followed by class IV – V boils, whirlpools and surges. It was an awesome section of whitewater and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

For a change we actually had a fair idea of what we were in for over the next 160km due to some detailed accounts from previous expeditions posted on the informative Shangri-La river expeditions web site. There were long and detailed descriptions of one particular rapid called dragons teeth. It was located in a sheer sided canyon and was supposedly extremely difficult to portage. Previous boaters had graded it as almost off the scale and at lower water levels it had flipped most of the rafts that dared to run it. With approximately 3 times more water currently in the river we wondered whether dragons teeth would turn into a suicide run.

Late on the first day we noted a large avalanche scar on river right where the northern face of a hill had slid into the river. Peculiarly there was no debris at the base of the scar. The debris had been flushed down stream by flood waters for more than two kilometers, plugging up the entrance to a canyon. It was dragon’s teeth. From 200 meters upstream we could see the horizon line drop away significantly and mist rise up from the violence. We eddied out on river right just above the drop to inspect the rapid and to our relief it looked runnable but with the light fading fast it was best left until the next day. Camp was set in the scenic gorge and we settled in for a night under the stars.

The white water was huge over the next two days but loads of fun. Occasionally we would be lashed by gales that always seemed to blow upstream. At one point we were forced to stop above a long rapid because the winds whipped up so much mist off the surface of the waves and holes that we could no longer visually make out the features to avoid. Suddenly the river stopped dead.

We had arrived at the controversial Manwan Dam. The Chinese are in the process of planning and constructing a cascade of 9 dams across the Mekong mainstream in Yunnan, two of which have been completed and another 4 are currently under construction. The dams on the Mekong combined constitute one of the largest engineering feats ever undertaken. To give an impression of the scale, the Xiowan dam due to be completed in 5 years is about the same size as the Hoover dam in the United States and will back up the water for 170km through the gorges, forests and villages we had just paddled.

The pros and cons of large scale hydropower dams can be debated indefinitely with advocates citing a long list of benefits while opponents cite an arguably longer list of negative environmental and social impacts. In most cases where inequities are obvious and clearly defined dam advocates will attempt to mitigate the situation by offering benefits to the peoples and environments most at risk. Although mitigation attempts associated with the highly publicized 3 dams project on the Yangtze were widely considered by the international community to be inadequate the Chinese authorities did in fact devote hundreds of millions of dollars to relocating the most affected people to purpose built cities.”

Tomorrow: Mick gets bummed out…



Yunnan Landscape: “Hmm, I wonder where I can get some takeout…”

(Photo: Courtesy Lynley O’Shea)

Orange II Final Result–24-Hour Record? Oui! Transatlantic Record? Mais non!: Yup, they were just a half hour out, and spent the last hour tacking toward the finish. What a bummer that must have been, as the clock ticked down. Anyhow, Here’s Mons. Peyron’s summary:

“Looking at it from an overall point of view, there are more positive things than negative to look back on after this adventure. The result is beyond our hopes, bearing in mind that we set out after only a short period of ten days or so on stand-by… We set a new 24 hour record, reached a maximum of 39 knots, and apart from just a few minutes, equalled the reference time, in spite of a course that was much less favourable. The angles to the wind didn’t help us, especially at the end of the race, when we had to tack for an hour: strangely enough, we can see part of this unplanned, extra hour in the final result!

We know that the boat, which we have learnt to control now, is capable of smashing the record… We pushed her all the way, and were ready to take some risks of course, as when you set yourself such a challenge, that is something you have to do: it is surprising that given these conditions we didn’t break anything at all, except for a key on the computer keyboard, and I’d like to say thanks now to the team, who got the boat ready, as they really did a wonderful job.”



Pipped Peyron: “Merde…”

Orange II Update–D’Oh: According to the position reports on Orange’s website, Peyron and his boys missed out on PlayStation’s record by about a half an hour. Ouch. More when the press release comes in…