When I moved to Pacific Beach in April of 1970 they were still talking about it: the epic swell of winter 1969. To the locals I had just missed the swell of the century. A swell whereby three separate North Pacific storms merged to create near-hurricane force winds blowing across a broad stretch of the North…
When I was a young surfer I read about the first surfers to ride Waimea Bay in 1957. Surfers at that time were too afraid to surf Waimea, and for good reason.From the beach Waimea appeared too big, too fast, too steep and just generally too treacherous to ride. Add to that a raging rip current, sharky waters, and the presence of a church on the point and a Hawaiian heiau in the valley and it all added up to a scary, forbidden place.
As the world’s environmental problems expand the challenge is to keep up with the increasingly larger scale of the issues. Decades ago we worried about individual beaches, now we are focused on whole coastlines, and indeed entire oceans are at risk. To keep pace marine biologists and oceanographers have deployed huge arrays of sensors across the…
“What’s your depth?” echoed down from the surface radio, unanswered for the third time in a row and sounding increasingly desperate. It was 2002 and I was riding inside the scientific submersible Delta, heading towards the seafloor off Anacapa island in an area known simply as the “footprint,” a deep-water fish, coral and sponge hot spot…
Crystal Pier, 1966 In the long arc of my surfing life my early years remain indelibly etched on my psyche, as is true of most surfers. Why is simple: we are pulled in by the ocean’s allure, rapidly learn her inner-most secrets, measure our courage against her power, but are ultimately humbled by fear. It is the beginning of…
College, the eternal rite of passage. It stands before us as the ultimate challenge of our lives. We go, we conquer, we go on to great things. Or at least that’s the story. But does college make a difference? It is just another institution, a step along the way, one of many things we “must”…
Sydney Nelson Patton (1882-1976) was born into the world of another era. During his life he arguably witnessed the greatest change of any generation: when he was young he rode horses, trains and read by candles but during his life he saw the advent of electricity, radio, cars, airplanes, TV and he watched men walk on the moon. During his lifetime the world grew from 1.2 billion (1880) to 4 billion people (1975), he saw the US engage in five major wars, and he lived under 17 US presidents.
The idea of the Kraken appears in Melville’s Moby Dick in 1851; played a major role in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870; and appeared as the Watcher in the Water in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, lurking in a lake beneath the western walls of Moria. The truth is that the giant squid, which may have been the basis for most of these myths and legends, has a real-life story almost as mysterious as unicorns and dragons.
Nothing beats a good prime rib and one cooked in a Pit Barrel Smoker is absolutely magical. Tender, juicy, a nicely favored crust and a touch of great smoke results in a melt-in-your mouth experience that you will not forget. My recipe is simple: I use a good cut of beef, a salt-thyme-garlic dry rub then apply a pepper-mustard flavor paste before…
When I reflect back on my life as a marine biologist, as a college professor, I’ve had a wonderful life. I have always loved the ocean and as a marine biologist I couldn’t have a better job. But something was missing. Something important. What is the bigger story of my life?