Befriending the Waves
Last summer, I fell in love - with the California Channel Islands. They've been sitting out there, just off the coast, for all the time I've lived here, but it wasn't until I took Emma to Carpinteria last June that I really took an interest, like the proverbial special someone who's been standing next to you all along but you never noticed. Now I'm hooked. I want to visit as many of them as I can, and I've got the beginnings of ideas for stories about them (my "literary 401K," I call them, since I could be retirement age by the time I get around to writing them).
There's just one little, itty-bitty problem. Boats.
Unless you're wealthy enough to afford an airplane, the only way to reach the Channel Islands is by boat. Well, they are islands, after all. I made my first voyage onto the open seas back in 2012, sailing out to Anacapa Island and back with my boss and some other people from day-job land. I did okay going out because the wind was in my face, but once we turned around I was done for. People still remember me barfing all the way back to shore. But I've persisted, and little by little I'm learning how to survive on the water. I've got "sea bands" now, and I keep ginger candy close at hand. And I've picked up some tips from unexpected places. Like an anime series called Interviews With Monster Girls.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to explain that one.
Interviews with Monster Girls is a surprisingly clever show about respecting each other's differences and being sensitive to those with disabilities. It imagines that legends about supernatural creatures like vampires, succubi, etc., are exaggerations about real people. That is to say, there really are succubi who have an aphrodisiac effect on men but don't steal their souls or anything, and there really are vampires who drink blood, but they can see themselves in the mirror and they're not afraid of crosses and so on. The series features a biology teacher in a Japanese high school who befriends some of these "monster girls" who are his students, and also one of his fellow teachers who's a succubus.
Still with me?
One of the characters is a "dullahan," a girl whose head is detached from her body, like Washington Irving's Headless Horseman. She has a crush on the teacher, so she and her vampire friend concoct a plan to have him carry her head around town for an afternoon, holding it in his big, strong arms. Except - she ends up getting motion sickness, and there's a discussion for several minutes where she and the teacher try to figure out why that happened. Their conclusion is that when her own body carries her head around, she instinctively knows how to make small adjustments to keep her head steady. The teacher doesn't know how to do that, of course, and so she got sick.
And yes, that actually helps me. It ties in with something Emma wrote after our trip to Santa Cruz Island last July. She said she rode the waves as if she was riding a horse, keeping herself in rhythm with the sea. I began to think that if I could learn to keep my own head steady (even with it on top of my body like it's supposed to be), maybe I'd do better at getting through the journey.
That brings us to yesterday, when I again boarded a boat for Santa Cruz Island. (More about that in future entries.) I planted myself right at the front of the boat, to make sure I could get the most air in my face. And as we traveled and began to hit some choppier conditions, I discovered an extra benefit to being up front. I could see the waves coming and prepare myself to move with them. One other thing I learned is that I can't take pictures the way I normally do. More than a second or two of trying to focus my gaze on the little camera screen is really bad. I'll just have to point in the general direction and shoot in "sports" mode, hoping for one decent frame in an entire batch. Another important lesson I learned was that I need to bring a warm, water-resistant jacket. Standing in all that wind may have helped with seasickness, but it was really cold, and on the way back I got splashed with spray coming over the side of the boat. I'd tried to pack light for hiking, but in the future I'll just have to carry the extra load.
The good news is that I made it to the island and back with no barfing or even the threat of barfing. I'm still going to need more practice if I want to make it to some of the other islands, though. Santa Rosa Island is twice as far as Santa Cruz, and San Miguel is even farther. But now that I'm figuring out how to get along with the boats, I think it'll be okay.
There's just one little, itty-bitty problem. Boats.
Unless you're wealthy enough to afford an airplane, the only way to reach the Channel Islands is by boat. Well, they are islands, after all. I made my first voyage onto the open seas back in 2012, sailing out to Anacapa Island and back with my boss and some other people from day-job land. I did okay going out because the wind was in my face, but once we turned around I was done for. People still remember me barfing all the way back to shore. But I've persisted, and little by little I'm learning how to survive on the water. I've got "sea bands" now, and I keep ginger candy close at hand. And I've picked up some tips from unexpected places. Like an anime series called Interviews With Monster Girls.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to explain that one.
Interviews with Monster Girls is a surprisingly clever show about respecting each other's differences and being sensitive to those with disabilities. It imagines that legends about supernatural creatures like vampires, succubi, etc., are exaggerations about real people. That is to say, there really are succubi who have an aphrodisiac effect on men but don't steal their souls or anything, and there really are vampires who drink blood, but they can see themselves in the mirror and they're not afraid of crosses and so on. The series features a biology teacher in a Japanese high school who befriends some of these "monster girls" who are his students, and also one of his fellow teachers who's a succubus.
Still with me?
One of the characters is a "dullahan," a girl whose head is detached from her body, like Washington Irving's Headless Horseman. She has a crush on the teacher, so she and her vampire friend concoct a plan to have him carry her head around town for an afternoon, holding it in his big, strong arms. Except - she ends up getting motion sickness, and there's a discussion for several minutes where she and the teacher try to figure out why that happened. Their conclusion is that when her own body carries her head around, she instinctively knows how to make small adjustments to keep her head steady. The teacher doesn't know how to do that, of course, and so she got sick.
And yes, that actually helps me. It ties in with something Emma wrote after our trip to Santa Cruz Island last July. She said she rode the waves as if she was riding a horse, keeping herself in rhythm with the sea. I began to think that if I could learn to keep my own head steady (even with it on top of my body like it's supposed to be), maybe I'd do better at getting through the journey.
That brings us to yesterday, when I again boarded a boat for Santa Cruz Island. (More about that in future entries.) I planted myself right at the front of the boat, to make sure I could get the most air in my face. And as we traveled and began to hit some choppier conditions, I discovered an extra benefit to being up front. I could see the waves coming and prepare myself to move with them. One other thing I learned is that I can't take pictures the way I normally do. More than a second or two of trying to focus my gaze on the little camera screen is really bad. I'll just have to point in the general direction and shoot in "sports" mode, hoping for one decent frame in an entire batch. Another important lesson I learned was that I need to bring a warm, water-resistant jacket. Standing in all that wind may have helped with seasickness, but it was really cold, and on the way back I got splashed with spray coming over the side of the boat. I'd tried to pack light for hiking, but in the future I'll just have to carry the extra load.
The good news is that I made it to the island and back with no barfing or even the threat of barfing. I'm still going to need more practice if I want to make it to some of the other islands, though. Santa Rosa Island is twice as far as Santa Cruz, and San Miguel is even farther. But now that I'm figuring out how to get along with the boats, I think it'll be okay.
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