Got some ground to make up

A little ways down the page you will find a picture of where I am sitting as I put together today's inclusion to this delightful little diary. It's an absolutely gorgeous day here in Brooklin. It was foggy and cool this morning, but now it is a perfectly clear day, sunny and about 75. Drew and I got to the boat shop this morning around 7:40--I've been waiting for a long time to say "boat shop" and mean it--and we made good progress on his kayak. The hull is assembled, dookie schmutzed, and glassed. Tomorrow we will do the same with the deck, and Thursday is the day we put it all together. He is doing a great job, and I'm having him do as much work as he can do. I assist whenever he needs help, and I'm doing my fair share, but he will absolutely be able to say that he built this kayak. The guy working next to me today said to me, kind of on the DL, "He's a really good kid, isn't he? He just works, smiles, and never complains." And I said to him, "He definitely is a great kid. He's also a straight-A student, one of the best athletes in his class, and he's popular with the ladies, much to his dismay."

Friday is our last day to work; we can come in on Saturday if we so desire, and we still may depending on how far we get, but we have to be out of the cottage by 11:00. Friday evening is also a lobster bake down at the marina here at the WoodenBoat School, so we're looking forward to that. The fam is driving to Rockland on Saturday because that is the weekend of the Lobster Fest!

OK, I have some ground to make up. I am going to post pictures from 4 days, so I will have to somewhat limit my writing or I'll be here all night. It's about 6:00 as I write, and Drew is off climbing an apple tree because he finished up working about 30 minutes ago.

Friday, July 27; Boston, Massachusetts

On Friday we slept in, had breakfast at a Dunkin Donuts, then the kiddies and Dad swam for about an hour. We spent the rest of the day walking the Freedom Trail in Boston. We took the subway downtown to the Boston Commons, which is evidently a favorite gathering place now just as it was in antiquity. The area was beautiful, and there were lemonade stands and t-shirt shops galore. We bought matching shirts that are green and say Boston in Red Sox script. I have to confess that I also bought a Red Sox hat. It seemed like the thing to do in Boston, and it's comfortable.

This is the Park Street cemetery. There's something a little morbid about including a cemetery, but there are lots and lots of famous dead people buried here that you may have heard of. You know, people like Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, the five men who were killed in the Boston Massacre, people like that. By the way, I need to amend the date I told you about the earliest gravesite at the cemetery in Medford. It was 1725, not 1625. Alex wanted me to make that correction because she was the one who found the stone, and we knew that Uncle Mark would know that 1625 was crazy talk. The Freedom Trail wound for 3 miles around Boston, and the kids all did really good. We hopped back on the subway at 8:00, so they walked for almost 7 hours as we wound our way around.

Saturday, July 28; Boston to Stonington, Maine

Remember the other day when I reported in the blogo that it rained hard as we were driving from Boston to Stonington on Saturday? Well, I wasn't just whistling Dixie. Heck, I don't even know how to whistle Dixie. I do know a lady named Dixie, but that's neither here nor there. The road was like this for about 3 hours as we were driving. It is interesting to note--at least to me, and this is mine--that while there is a semi in this picture, for whatever reason there were virtually zero semis through New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and very few in Maine.

On the way to Stonington we stopped for a rest break, and to urinate, in the delightful little town of Belfast, Maine. We drove the downtown area and found this neat little bookshop, then stopped at a fast food place to go to the bathroom. Braden asked me to include this picture in the posting about Saturday.

This is Grandpa's Cottage. We got into town late enough that the light was fading and the fog was rolling in off the harbor. It's a neat old place, and I need to make sure I include this here and you catch it--everyone is adjusting nicely! The kids really enjoy staying there, I definitely like staying there, and Valerie is feeling much better now that Drew and I have wheels.

Sunday, July 29; Stonington

This is the view from our front porch. We can see directly into the harbor. There wasn't much activity on Sunday, plus the fog didn't lift until almost 10:00, but on normal days these lobster boats run most of the day. I don't know how clear it is from the picture, but we are probably 200 meters or so from the harbor. There isn't a beach area in Stonington proper, because the harbor all the way from the east end of town to the west end of town where we are located is an active fishing harbor. There are three or four docks where the fishermen come in and unload their catch.

As noted before, we did not make it to church on Sunday morning because we did not have hot water to get cleaned up until about 10:30, and the service started at 11:00. We had lunch at this outdoor cafe right on the harbor, which was very nice. There is usually a nice breeze blowing, and the harbor does not usually have the fishy smell I anticipated it would. I may have posted this already, but Valerie and I had the special of crab rolls and blueberry pie, Drew had sausage and sauerkraut, Alex shared chicken nuggets with Braden, and Brenna had a grilled ham and bacon sandwich.

The excellent new camera has a timer feature, so I took this picture of the fam sitting on a rock in the harbor with no hands and no help. Note the Red Sox hat on the mister. Stonington has its name because it was at one of the time a world leader in the granite industry. That was from about 1870 to about 1960 or so. Even now the granite quarries are active and do a brisk business around the world. The countryside reminds me a lot of pictures I have seen of Ireland. Very hilly, very green, and boulders sitting around everywhere. Of course, they are all granite, which is pretty cool. So we've got that going for us.

This is the store at the WoodenBoat School. Right now I'm sitting beside the big window under the porch. The computer is being tempermental with the pictures, and Drew is getting hungry, so rather than chance losing this post after an hour of work I think I will post it and move along. Hope you are enjoying our journey, and thanks much for checking in! Y'all come back now, hear?!

WoodenBoat School

Aaaah, the WoodenBoat School of Brooklin, Maine. That's not a [sic], by the way. It is Brooklin, not Brooklyn. The y place is in New York. This is certainly a whole different kind of Brooklin. The year-round population is about 700, and it swells to around 1,200 in the summer. There are lots of folks here who do the go to Florida in the summer thing. The water in Eggemoggin Reach is always cold, which means it is great for lobsters, crabs, and sharks. Two things that pinch and one thing that bites. Anybody catch the special about the USS Indianapolis on Discovery last night? Sharks are amazing creatures, but they seem to be mostly teeth. As we learned in our kayaking classes on Beaver Island, it's best to keep the bumpy side up.

We left the hotel in Boston on Saturday at around 11:00. Our original plan was to stay two nights in Boston, then drive to Portland to spend the night, cut down the drive, and catch a ballgame. We loved Boston and Gloucester so much (and the hotel) that we decided to extend our stay there to a third day and skip the night in Portland. That gave us a drive to Stonington of 5 hours and 7 minutes, according to the sickos at Mapquest. It might be 5 hours and 7 minutes if you're making the night shift drive, but not when we came through. We made it to New Hampshire in great time, then ran into a brick wall. The part of New Hampshire we passed through is only 12 miles wide, but it took almost an hour! I can't sit in traffic more than a few seconds without wondering what the delay is. I have this theory that if there was some way to get everyone to tune in to the same radio station, they could broadcast a message at a precise time--there would have to be a countdown of some sort, which would be fun, everybody counting down together--instructing everyone to speed up to say 65 mph at a given moment. If everybody did it, traffic would instantly be moving again. But you just know there would be one stick in the mud. "Oh, boy, I don't know. I just think it would be best to just be patient and see this thing through." Then there would be a giant pileup. Probably wouldn't work. So anyway, it turned out that we were sitting in traffic because all 75,000 cars had to go through a toll station. And the worst part of the whole thing was that the stinkin' toll was only one measly sawbone! By golly, if I have to wait that long in that much smelly traffic, they ought to at least charge me something worth collecting.

But we finally made it through the toll station and were on our merry way again. Then it started to sprinkle. Then it started to rain. Then it started to downpour. The wipers worked fine until schnauzers and wiener dogs began pelting the windshield. After about an hour of this I pulled over to see if by chance there were any gopher wood trees in the area.

We ate lunch in a little town in New Hampshire that was real easy to get into, but near impossible to leave. We went under an overpass on the way in, but on the way back out that part of the road was flooded--true story. We had to stop where we did, because New Hampshire is only twelve miles wide and we had to urinate...Mengel rules of travel etiquette. Alex had a hot dog, and the dog was about 10" long, but the bun was about three times that size. The bun itself would have been a meal. Probably the restaurant owner also owns the bakery.

Back on the road. We made it to the Bay area in good time, then rediscovered that oldest of tricks that the road plays on you. Just because you are 40 miles from somewhere doesn't mean it will take you 40 minutes, and just because you cover that 40 miles doesn't mean you are there! The last 25 or 30 miles before we got to Deer Isle were probably at one time a Deer Path. Rather that flatten or straighten it out, the masochistic civil engineers decided to just widen it. It was a beautiful drive, and I'd love to do it on a motorcycle sometime, but you know how it is when you've been driving for quite a while, through traffic and heavy rain, and you have to pee, and you're hungry, and you've been watching (or for those of us in the front seat, listening) to Barney Fife whine for so long that even he has become annoying? You know what I'm talking about, right? We made it to Deer Isle a little after 7, but that's not the end of the drive. Stonington is all the way at the southern tip of Deer Isle, and the roads were, if anything, curvier and hillier and not as wide and bumpier. Anyhoo. We found Grandpa's Cottage at piled out of Blue Van around 8:00.

The cottage is, how do you say, interesting. Personally, I like it. We are one block from the harbor, so we hear the fog horns, we see the lobster boats anchored in the harbor, and it's just very quiet and peaceful. Valerie isn't so thrilled. It has a bath but no shower, so to quote Erika, we'll all have to bathe in our own filth. The stairs must have been built by an Everest explorer. I swear I had to have Drew climb up, tie a rope off, and belay the rest of us. I'm learning how to rappel this week to make getting down less treacherous. Braden likes it, but I suspect one of these days I'll be posting something about the severity of his brain injury. We would feel more comfortable if there was a railing all the way across the top of the stairs, but there is a short section that is open. There is a bench across the front of it, which just means that Braden can fall from a greater altitude. On Sunday night Valerie tried sleeping in at least three different places. Two of them were two hard, one of them was too soft, and none of them were just right. Me, I prefer to sleep on the floor, so a firm (read, hard) bed is right up my alley. We're getting by.

The kicker, however, is this--it turns out that the WoodenBoat School is almost 45 minutes away from Stonington. I know what you're all thinking, or at least what you should be thinking. "Great job, Mike. You paid $1300 for a cottage that is dangerous, dated, and distant." Well, you're right. We spent quite a while fighting about exactly how Drew and I were going to get to school every day without one of three things going on:
1. Valerie and the young'uns being stranded without a vehicle
2. Valerie and the young'uns poking around Brooklin all day while we're in class
3. Valerie and the young'uns driving a total of 3 hours every day to bring us to class and pick us up afterward

Oddly enough, none of those options was appealing to Valerie and the young'uns. And let me tell you, we had a good tussle about it. The fur did fly. One more thing I should tell you. We didn't make it to church yesterday morning--Mom, I know you're wondering if we did or not--because the house didn't have any hot water until almost 10:30. I don't know what the story was there, because we had hot water on Saturday evening, and we had hot water at 10:30 on Sunday, and we had hot water on Monday morning. But for whatever reason, it was at best lukewarm when we were trying to get ready for church. I had a pleasant sounding Baptist church on Oceanville Road picked out. Probably the devil resides in our water heater.

By 1:00 we had the whole picture, so I called the rental place to find out if we had any options. I left a message with a person, not a machine, but didn't get a call back until almost 7:00, right in the middle of a meeting our kayak building class was having. I hate it when people's cell phones ring at times like that, but to my undying embarrassment, this was one call I had to take. The nice lady called to see exactly what I was talking about. To get down to brass tacks (what does that mean? Why are brass tacks any more concise than other types?), we can't get out of the lease, but they did refund a big chunk of our rent, so Drew and I caught a ride to a neighboring town today during our lunch break and I rented a car. This should work out fine, and now I get to drive a Mazda 6 all week. Pretty sweet deal.

Now, if you are an intuitive person, and most of you are...a few of you I have suspicions about, but most of you seem pretty sharp...you're probably thinking that things are in the toilet. Let me put your mind at ease--we're doing fine. Stonington is absolutely beautiful, the rental car thing is going to work out great, and Valerie seems to be talking to me again. When we talked on the cell while Drew and I were heading back to our class after lunch break, she sounded positively friendly! And that's good, because our 15th wedding anniversary is on August 1st and I'd hate to spend that day/night in the doghouse.

Things are settling down, working out, and all is good. The kayak class is simply outstanding. Drew did a good job picking colors for his boat, and it is going to be really neat. He's fired up that his kayak will be 12" longer than mine. Brooklin is a great place to visit. I would highly recommend a boatbuilding class to anyone out there, and this is the place to do it. The store on campus is chock full of stuff I just gotta have, and if anyone wants me to pick up a t-shirt or sweatshirt for you, I'd be happy to. You can see their stuff online if you do a search for the WoodenBoat School store.

I'll get some pictures up tomorrow so you can see that everyone is still smiling!

I'm Baaaaack

Many apologies for the lack of blogging over the past two days. We made it to Stonington and to our cottage, but it does not have internet access and we couldn't find a hotspot in town anywhere. Right now I am sitting in the WoodenBoat School store, and the signal is good.

Drew and I are getting ready to go to Ellsworth to rent a car, which I will explain later. Dad, Lorna (not sure of the spelling) is taking us up there on her way to Bangor. She is the lady whose brother goes to your church.

We got a good morning of work in, and the experience I have to this point has been helpful.

More later--thank you for your faithfulness!

Gloucester, MA, the home of fishing in America

Gloucestermen began fishing in the early 17th century, and Gloucester is still a fishing town. The harbor area is long, and the whole town pretty much revolves around the fishing trade, including lobstering, in some way.

Perhaps you've been wondering, "Why did Mike decide to drag his people 1,000 miles to the little town of Gloucester? I mean, Boston, sure, that would be a neat place to visit, but how did he ever hear of Gloucester?" The town is pronounced Gloster, by the way. Ever heard of the movie The Perfect Storm? There's your answer. I don't know why, but I really like that movie, and the book by Sebastian Junger is even better. In the movie, Bobby Shadford's mom was a barmaid at a little dive bar called the Crow's Nest that pretty much was a place for fishermen to come and blow their hard-earned wages. I'm also hooked on the Discovery channel show Deadliest Catch, and in that series they make it clear that, just as portrayed in The Perfect Storm, most fishermen--and we're talking about men who go out in boats for days or weeks at a time and bring back thousands of pounds of fish, crabs, and lobster--don't particularly like being out. They like making money, and when they come back with a pocketful of cash (often several thousand dollars if things go well; on a recent episode of Deadliest Catch one boat brought back so much Opelio crab that each crew member made $47,000 for seven days work) they usually just drink until it's gone, then they go out and fish again. Much to my delight, the Crow's Nest is a real place! I didn't patronize the establishment, but I did take a moment to snap a photo.

The Gloucester harbor lighthouse is still a working light. As I said, Gloucester and the entire Cape area is a fishing community, and the area is notorious for horrendous storms. More on that later and its effect on the fleet.

Lobster boats go out fully loaded with lobster pots, which they bait and drop to the floor of the ocean. The water depth in the harbor area is around 60', and the lobstermen drop pots in water up to several hundred feet deep. In order to find their pots again, the pots have a small floating bouy with a flog atop it so it can be easily spotted. Each lobstermen has his own distinctive color scheme and also has the last four digits of his SSN on each bouy. The lobster pots are around $100 each, plus whatever might be in the pot, so if you're looking for a quick way to make an enemy, run over a pot, steal a pot, or cut the bouy. I asked a Gloucesterman if there were fines and such for that type of activity, and his answer said it all, "Yeah, there are fines and legal stuff. But the fleet pretty much takes care of that on their own."

These boats were tied up side by side, and they are typical of boats used for long-lining, gill-netting, or dragging. These particular boats are trawlers used for gill-netting, as you will see from the view of the same boats from the stern in the next picture. This is the type of boat the crew of the Andrea Gail sailed in The Perfect Storm. They are big boats, often 80'-100' long, with enormous engines and huge holds. Depending on what they are fishing for, the crews of 4-8 men may be out for several weeks or more. The usual setup is the boat owner gets half of the net after all expenses are paid (food, bait, gear, maintenance, fuel, and so forth), the captain gets a triple share, and the full share deckhands get a single share. Greenhands, new or inexperience deckhands who require a lot of supervision and training, get a partial share until they prove they can take care of themselves and fully contribute to the success of the trip.

Stern view of the same boats tied up alongside the pier. The gillnets are coiled on the stern decks.

This is a lobster boat that is geared up and ready to roll. It is about as big as the long-liners, which as far as I could tell from what we saw at Gloucester is unusual. Likely this guy fishes lobster at times and other fish at other times, perhaps depending on the market. When we were in Gloucester the lobster boats were getting around $5 for a pound of lobster, and you know what those babies go for in restaurants. Like everything else, the guys doing the hard and dangerous work aren't the ones getting rich! Most of the lobster boats I saw in Gloucester were small boats with low rails on the stern of the boat. They don't go out very far from shore, so they don't have the same need for a huge boat that can handle a really bad blow like the longliners. They also don't haul anywhere near as much gear as the longliners or gillnetters. The boat in this picture, including fishing gear, communications, an ice machine, and all the odds and ends is worth several million dollars.

Gloucester has a beautiful seafront area with walking paths, monuments, and so forth in the area of the monuments shown below. As you can see in the picture, the tide was out at this time of the day. The flags extended about a half mile down the seafront--beautiful.

According to the scrolling info at the end of The Perfect Storm, the town of Gloucester has lost 10,000 men to the sea over the past 3-1/2 centuries. Yes, you read that right--10,000 men lost since about 1650 or so. I had to rewind the DVD twice myself to make sure I read it right. The monument plaques shown in this photo and the next have the names of all the men who were lost to the sea. There are 10 plaques full of names and the print was maybe 1/2" tall. The first plaque had a synopsis of the losses, and they placed the number of dead at more like 5,600. While still a staggering number of men to lose to the fishing trade, that's a lot less than the number put forth in The Perfect Storm. Don't know what the deal is there. These plaques were erected in 2002, and they are still losing men to the sea to this day.

Many years went by without a single loss, but there were also years of devastating losses. Often, everyone who was killed were on boats sunk in a single horrific storm that devastated the fleet. There was a storm in 1879 that sunk over 20 schooners, with a loss of life of 169 men. Imagine the devastation that would have done to the town of Gloucester. Surely every family would have lost someone.

In 1862 a man named James A. McKay was lost a sea in a devastating storm that killed 120 men and sunk 16 schooners. Many, many of the men lost over the years were Irish, and it was sad to see many of the same names over and over again. It was common then, and still is today, for the sons to follow their fathers into the the fishing trade in spite of the danger.


This is a photo of the famous statue The Man at the Wheel. The inscription reads, "They that go down to the sea," which is a partial quote of Psalms 107:22-23. Beautiful statue.

Back to my Perfect Storm quest. The movie is based on a real event that occurred in 1991. The fishing vessel Andrea Gail, an 80' longliner fishing for swordfish, was lost with all hands in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland that was called the perfect storm by a meteorologist named Bob Case. Three separate meteorological events converged with deadly consequences. Several boats were lost to the storm. Much of the movie is based on two things: first, the scarce information that was available to the outside world about what was going on aboard the Andrea Gail. Second, some of the events in the movie really happened, but to people other than the crew of the Andrea Gail. In the commentary to the movie, Sebastian Junger talked about how difficult it is for people who lose loved ones to the sea in the manner of this boat. There is never any closure, because there is no way to know what really happened. There were enough reports from the Andrea Gail to know about where she was, but beyond that, nothing is known. Apparently they lost their com gear, or else the captain and crew were just too busy dealing with the storm to let anyone know what was going on. After the storm boats in the area and the Coast Guard performed a search and came up with a few barrels marked with AG, but nothing for sure can be known. There is no crash site, and there are no bodies. In the movie the boat encounters a rogue wave that pitchpoles the Andrea Gail. Rogue waves certainly do occur, and pitchpoling is certainly possible in that type of scenario, but in this particular case that has to be a case of artistic license. One way or the other, captain Billy Tyne, Bugsy Moran, Murph, Sully, Bobby Shadford, and Alfred Pierre never came home.

As mentioned in yesterday's blog, we went on a whale watching tour, which was absolutely stunning. This is the boat we were on. The Privateer IV was about 80' long, and she was fast and beautiful!



The gal on the bridge talked on the intercom through the entire whale watching experience. Alex visited with her when we were on the way back into harbor and learned that she was originally from Ohio, so there is hope for Alex too! She was very knowledgable about the whale's behavior and added a lot to the whole experience.

The Privateer cruised along at about 17 knots at flank speed. A knot is about 15% faster than mph, so the boat was moving right along. I was amazed at the boat's wake. While you can't tell from the picture, the stern wake was probably 10-12' deep. Drew and I talked about what it would be like to be in a kayak when these waves get to you--yikes!


Now for the fun stuff. The first whale we found must have been put in place just to entertain us, and she put on quite a show. Here she is floating on her back with both flippers in the air. As mentioned in yesterday's blog, each flipper is around 12 long and weighs about a ton. There are marine biologists on every whale watching tour boat that goes out, and they are even more excited to see these whales than we are. Humpback whales are endangered, so the research provided by the tours is invaluable. Just like our fingerprints, humpbacks are uniquely identified three ways: by the dorsal fin, and by the markings on the flippers and tail flukes. Researchers don't know exactly why humpbacks do the flipper slaps, but it may be for communication purposes--sound travels four times as fast in salt water as through air--or it may be just to entertain people on whale watching tours!

The big beauty also gave us a good look at her rear end. The tail flukes are massive. She pulled this manuever over and over. The humpback pokes her tail out of the water, and as she's sliding under the water she slaps the water with her tail, which results in a thunderous SMACK!

Here you get a good look at the dorsal fin. Each humpback has a unique dorsal fin. Som are straight, some are curved as this one, some are just rounded, some have markings, and so forth.


Our second encounter with humpbacks was during a feeding frenzy. While it's certainly not the frenzy one associates with sharks or piranha, the idea is the same. Imagine, if you will, 30 sharks feeding on a dying whale, slashing in and out with tremendous speed and power. Now, replace that image with six or seven humpbacks weighing about 80 tons moving about as fast as an Olympic swimmer, and you have a humpback frenzy. They certainly do work together. Here you can see the dorsal fins of two humpbacks working side by side.

This is a good picture of the bubble curtains the humpbacks blow to maximize their feeding. They go deep, blow these bubble curtains, then swim up through them with their mouths open, scooping up whatever might be there. Notice the dozens of seabirds flying around the bubbles. They also take advantage of the buffet line.


Here is a shot of a humpback swimming up through a bubble curtain with mouth fully distented. The bottom of the mouth has folds of skin that extend much like a pelican, so given the size of these suckers you can imagine how much food they can scoop up in a single mouthful.

This is a shot of the first whale on her back, and you can clearly see the folds I mentioned in the last description.

This is the grand finale. The one thing we all really wanted to see was a whale breaching. By the grace of God we had that joy. The first humpback who put on such a show for us before quietly going away provided us with that memorable experience. She went under, and it appeared that she was probably gone. But suddenly, there she was, swimming nearly vertically, and propelling over half of her massive body completely out of the water. How many horsepower is required to lift 40 tons of humpback 30' into the air? Truly, truly, incredible.

I'll take a humpback whale in a cannonball contest any time!

Now That's a Big Fish!

Jonah I ain't, but I been close to where he went.

Since we are gluttons for punishment, Valerie and I decided to get the fam up at 6:00 this morning so we could drive to Gloucester for a whale watching expedition. (Let me say here that I'm not going to have any pictures in this blog of the whales because I haven't pulled them off the camera yet. I will put up a separate blog for those pictures.) Alex has this idea that she wants to train dolphins and orcas when she grows up and gets big. She is our easiest child, and it's easy for us to overlook her. Alex is very content to go with the flow, and she does a fabulous job of helping out with Braden. For those of you who may need this down the road, she is going to be a wonderful babysitter in a few years. She will be 10 on August 9th--hard to believe, huh? Anyway, in spite of the fact that we live in landlocked Medaryville, Indiana, she wants to be a marine biologist (much like George Castanza, only with actual education) and train these wonderful creatures. When Valerie and I saw the brochure for the whale watching tour we both knew that Alex would absolutely love it. There was an 8:30 a.m. tour and a 2:30 p.m. tour. Not knowing which time of the day would provide optimal whale activity, we decided that we could get everybody up and around early if we also got to bed at a decent time.

With that in mind, we made sure to have the kiddies in bed and settled down by about 11:00. I guess the intent was there. When Braden is being silly, it's hard for any of us to ignore him and settle down because he is so funny. I've taken to calling him Puerco, which is spanish for pig, because he is such a ham. He's a lot like Uncle Ed Fetla--when he knows you're laughing at him, he just goes on and on. He usually goes overboard and winds up crying, also much like Ed. Military officers--what a bunch of sissies. Just kidding, Fetlas!

According to the 7 Seas Whale Watching tour brochure, they offered a guarantee that we would see whales. The lady on the intercom told us that sometimes they only see a whale or two lazily swimming along, other times they see incredible aerial displays of dolphins and whales, and most days are somewhere in between. If there was a rating scale of 1 to 10, with one being a trip with nary a whale, and 10 being the aerial variety of trip, our whale watching experience would have been a 9. God blessed us with an incredible display of the power, beauty, and majesty of the humpback whale. I'm sure there are people who believe the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale is ridiculous, because no whale could swallow a person. Let me tell you, folks, the whales we saw today could swallow a dadgum Volkswagon van.

We skipped along through the ocean at about 17 knots for an hour, then slowed so the captain and crew could look for blowholes. You can see the spout from a humpback whale from over a mile away. Somebody spotted a blow, and we tore off in that direction. We came upon a single humpback that, I swear, God must have put in that location just to show us a good time. That sucker rolled over on its back, flopped its flippers, slapped its tail, and even breached once. There are few things that compare with seeing a 40' whale that weighs about 20 tons propel itself halfway out of the water. The nice lady on the intercom told us the flipper of a humpback whale is about 12 feet long and weighs almost a ton. That whale floated along on its back with both flippers in the air, then it would slap the water on both sides, which made a thunderous SMACK! The crazy thing stayed in the same spot and put on this display for close to half an hour. I took almost 150 pictures with the new EOS. It has a setting that lets you take pictures rapidly by holding down the button, just like an automatic rifle. My hope was that if I fired off six or seven shots, one of them would be good. I will allow you to be the judge of that when I upload some tomorrow, but I am satisfied that the camera worked well and the strategy was sound.

An effective way to spot feeding whales is to look for seabirds, as they feed on the leftover bits that feeding whales invariably strew about. After the first whale display came to an end, our guides spotted intense seabird activity off in the distance, so we made our way over there, and once again we were blessed with an incredible show. At some point in time during the next hour, our Lady of the Intercom told us that they very rarely come across that level of activity. Over the next hour we watched as many as seven or eight humpbacks, minkes, and finbacks feeding all at the same time in the same place. Their techniques are impressive. Often they submerge, blow a ring or line of bubbles, and swim up through the bubbles with their mouths open to engulf a huge amount of their food of choice. They take in enormous amounts of food and seawater at a single gulp, then filter out the water using the baleen in their mouths, because whales can't swallow saltwater any more than humans can. Humpback eat small fish, krill, shrimp, and so forth. Their favorite thing to eat is a small eel about six or seven inches long that swims about is enormous schools of millions. Another method humpbacks use is to swim along the surface with their mouths open in a technique called snaking. They also slap the water with their tails or flippers. Apparently the impact of the slap stuns their prey in the area, allowing the whale to swim through the impact area and enjoy a veritable fishy buffet. Humpback whales take in between 2000 and 3000 pounds of food EVERY DAY! Humpbacks only eat six months out of the year. They migrate to an area about 800 miles off the island of Haiti for breeding and calving every year, and during the six months they spend migrating and enjoying themselves in the Caribbean they do not eat anything.

I don't know what more I could say about the whales, and I know any type of description I could give will not do them justice, nor will pictures. They are incredible, beautiful, powerful creatures. I feel sorry for those people who just have to believe that humans and whales have a common ancestor because both species are mammals. It must be incredibly frustrating to believe something so strongly that has absolutely not a shred of evidence. When a person chooses to believe that God does not exist, and therefore the Bible of necessity cannot be right, they are pretty much compelled to latch onto any theory that might explain why God is wrong.

Folks, I am going to take a moment here to speak to any of you out there in cyberland who have not yet made the decision to allow Jesus Christ to take control of your life. God loves you, and the proof of that is that He sent His Son, His only Son, His Beloved Son, to die for you. Sin is anything you say, do, or think that displeases a Holy and Just God. Being holy, He cannot tolerate sin in His presence, and the mark He set for us to get into heaven is perfection. By our human nature, we miss that mark on a daily basis. As such, the penalty we earn--yes, even deserve--is an eternity apart from our Creator. But God does forgive sin--the requirement He has to overlook and forget about our sin is blood. In the days of Moses, God allowed His chosen people to sacrifice animals and sprinkle their blood on the altar, whereby God would forgive their sins and restore them to Himself. They had to do it continually, over and over, always knowing that they had this requirement. In time, God remedied this situation by sending His Son to earth. Jesus Christ lived a perfect live, never sinned, and yet was hated by the religious elite of His day. As a result, those men convinced Christ's own people to demand that His life be taken on the cross. Pontius Pilate, the Roman authority in Jerusalem in that day, initially refused to carry out the punishment because it was clear to him that Jesus had done nothing deserving of punishment, much less death. Pilate's own wife told him to have nothing to do with the judgement. But, fearing an uprising by the people, Pilate condemned Jesus Christ to die the typical Roman death for people convicted of capital crimes--crucifixion. And this was God's plan. From the very start, that was the script that God had in place. The proof of that is the 300+ prophecies in the Bible that pointed to the very event. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, shed His blood so that anyone who chooses to believe that He was God's Son, and His death on the cross was sufficient to cover your sin, can be forgiven. When you choose to trust Christ, God sees your life through the blood of Jesus Christ. The devil, that great accusor, stands at the throne of God and says, "That stinking Mike McKay is a liar, a thief, an idolator, a cheater, and he has broken every one of the commandments thousands of times over. If anyone deserves death, it is he." But here is the beauty of Jesus Christ. When the devil accuses a believer, Christ is there to say, "You are wrong. I took his sin upon my shoulders on the cross, and my blood covers it all. I choose to see Mike as holy, just as I am Holy."

The world wants you to believe that being a Christian is stupid. Only a fool would choose to believe that the Bible is anything but an alagorical set of tales. But here's the deal--1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us this, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." It does indeed seem foolish to the world that a person would choose to believe that a man who died 2000 years ago could make any difference to anyone in 2007.

But to me, friend, it is far more foolish to believe that I am a cousin to the mighty humpback whale. For God to be wrong, the world has to be right.
Please, please, consider that God's way is the best way! It's not hard to become a follower of Jesus Christ. You don't have to start going door, or go to the mission field in South America, or blow yourself up to prove your faithfulness. Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

Even more than I want to continue on this trip to the WoodenBoat school, I want so desperately for my friends to come to love Jesus Christ. For many of you reading this, I have prayed for years that the truth of the gospel would become real to you, and you would want to know Jesus Christ as your Saviour even more than you want air to breathe or water to drink. If you have questions about what I have written, please send me a message to mike@timmservices.com, or give me a call at 219-954-0063. I guarantee you that I will drop whatever I am doing and give you my full attention, because there is nothing more important in this life.

This blog went a direction I never anticipated, but I know that God works in funny ways, and when He gets ahold of you, give Him the wheel! God is not my copilot...He's the pilot.

Day 4 of The Big Trip

Well, it's day four, and we all hate each other. Drew spread peanut butter in Alex' hair today at breakfast; "I didn't like the way she looked at me." Alex knocked Brenna into the pool before she had her floaties on. Brenna pushed Braden down a flight of stairs. Braden bit Valerie on the nose and drew blood. Valerie made me sleep in the hallway because of my night terrors.

None of that is true! But admit it, you all thought it was possible, didn't you? In actual fact, we are getting along very well. A few things are clear by now:

1. I don't believe Brenna is ever quiet for more than 45 seconds at a time. Seriously--that's not an exaggeration. Even when she is under punishment of death, like when we're in just crazy Boston traffic going through a tunnel at 70 mph while looking for an exit that has to be coming up in the next 10 seconds even though we can't see it yet. Valerie bought each of the kids a CD player with headphones for those times when we need it be quiet for a few minutes...Brenna sings along. She also asks for a piece of gum about twice per hour.

2. Braden has done well in the vehicle, especially when he's asleep. He's fine-tuned his sonar, so just as our other three kids did, he has an amazing knack for falling asleep about 25 minutes before we get to wherever we're going. He doesn't want to each much of anything outside of french fries and waffles.

3. Bringing the spray and the Readers Digest for the bathroom was genius. Now that makes me feel like I'm at home!

4. People from Indiana get excited about the littlest things.

5. Everyone from the city is in a hurry. We were at a light in Buffalo, and I was first in line--again, little things excite us. The moment the light turned green, and I mean the first millisecond, the guy behind me began honking. As it turned out, he made it past me, but we both got stopped at the next light. And he was first. So guess what? That's right, baby. When that light turned reddish-green, I just stood on the horn. Valerie was horrified, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the kids thought it was funny too.

6. When it comes to hotels, we really don't care too much about the comfort of the beds or any such thing. It's this: do they have waffles or B&G for breakfast, how warm is the pool, and how big is the TV?

I mentioned in an earlier blog that we switched hotels after we got to Boston, so I won't go into that again in any detail except to say this--we are very happy with our current location. The room is great, the area is just so much fun, and (again, small things rev our engines) we get to ride the elevator a lot. It also has underground parking. I will say, though, that the breakfast stinks. Bagels and cereal. Hrrumph. Not one single blessed artery-blocker.

After getting settled in yesterday (I'm writing this post about Wednesday, day 4 of The Big Trip on Thursday evening) we walked about town a bit. There wasn't really a lot to do necessarily, but it was a very pleasant afternoon and Medford is definitely the kind of town that feels homey in spite of the fact that it's on the outskirts of a huge city. To this point I have to report that Boston seems like a place I could enjoy visiting over and over again. It was only going to be about $500 for the whole fam to take the Amtrak round trip, which was my original plan for our mode of transportation for The Big Trip. We completed out walkabout of Medford at Papa Gino's--fantastic pizza. I may have a new favorite. I should also mention that one of the first things we came to was a cemetery that made me say, "Some of those stones look really old." Uh, yeah. Understatement. The oldest stone we found was a man who died in 1625. There were a bunch from the 1600's and 1700's. Many of them, from the dates, probably were killed in the Revolutionary War. A fellow came through and said there were several burial sites from one family that came over on the Mayflower whose descendants still live in Medford today.

After supper I got on the computer and punched up directions to a local Best Buy because our digital camera was acting funny, and we absolutely want lots of pictures of The Big Trip. After looking through the various options we made a command decision to invest in a new SLR camera for our anniversary present, so we bought a nice Canon EOS. Massachusetts has these crazy things called rotaries where traffic enters somewhere on the circle, goes around, and exits at any of the two or three other streets that connect with the rotary. There are similar accident-makers all over the place in Quito for those of you who have made that trip. Eventually, almost by accident we found our way back via a stop at the grocery store to pick up some soy milk for the boy. At times the traffic/rotary situation was so disconcerting that we were laughing like Bob Krohn was in the car. At one point I yelled this, "I don't want to get back on 93. I can do this!"

Much to my chagrin the Red Sox are out of town this week and pretty much all of the next two weeks as well. I would be willing to pay a lot of money for a couple of tickets to Fenway Pock. By the by, I know I spelled the word park wrong. I chose to spell it as these good people say it. I do enjoy the accent in this part of America.

We're having fun. Thank you, Uncle Eli.

Make-up Blog for Tuesday

Pretend you are reading this on Tuesday, July 24th. That way I'll have accomplished my goal of keeping up with the blog every day. Unfortunately, the place we stayed in East Greenbush, NY (just south of Albany), while very nice, did not have WiFi. We knew a trip to Best Buy for a cable was in order, but we got it done one day too late. Oh well.

Tuesday was a simple day--slept in, enjoyed a breakfast of waffles, cereal, and fruit, then made the 4-1/2 hour drive from Buffalo to Albany. The only wrinkle was the incorrect directions we downloaded from Mapquest to get to our hotel. It was one of those deals where we knew that the map clearly showed East Greenbush on the south side of Albany, but the Mapquest directions had us taking 90 North. So we're driving and having this discussion, "We're through the toll booth and I have to make a decision right now. Are we supposed to go north or south?" "The directions say to go north on 90." "I know that, but clearly East Greenbush is on the south side, right on 90. I have to make a decision now, where are we going?...Where are we going?...Which way should I go?!" "It says 90 south!"

Fortunately, we only went about 20 miles before we decided the directions had to be wrong. We called the hotel number and indeed, the directions would have been correct if we had gone south on 90. Right about then was when I gave myself the "screw the directions, trust your instincts" speech. Hey, what could go wrong there, you know?

Only three quick things about this day:

1. We found a town on the way called Halfmoon, which made us think of Chris Krohn. Only a few of you will appreciate that, and it's better that way. Some inside jokes need to stay inside.

2. The hotel was very nice. The yahoos enjoyed the pool, which they utilized for about 3 hours. I know the picture of Braden makes it look like we hit the nightclub in the hotel, but seriously, there wasn't one...otherwise we might have. Nothing like knocking back a pint then eating Chinese!

3. We decided to slum it a bit and ate supper at a Chinese buffet. Every single Chinese buffet in North America must be owned by the same Chinese man, because the menu, buffet setup, and prices are the same everywhere. This one did have one crazy wrinkle, however--Jello on the dessert line, which Brenna decided to eat with her fingers. Now that is rollicking good fun. Is that how you spell rollicking? Maybe it's rollocking. Or maybe rallicking. Or maybe rauillocking.

Hmmm...