Cascajun

Two women from the Puget Sound region, Robin Clark and Sue Dandridge, are rowing the Inside Passage. They departed Ketchikan, Alaska on June 1st and were last reported rounding Cape Caution in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Strait. You can follow their progress at www.backwardsfromketchikan.org.

In today’s Financial Post:

The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling.

[…]

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

I thought climate science was settled and mankind’s CO2 emissions were the driving force behind global climate change. Apparently the sun has some influence…go figure!

I spent a few nights at Clark Island State Park two weeks ago. The island is located in north Puget Sound, west of Lummi Island and east of Orcas Island. A popular destination among sailboaters and paddlers of the Cascadia Marine Trail System, the entire island is a Washington State Park and accessible only by boat.

Click the map link on the left to view detailed metrics for the trip including time, distance, and speed.

I left Fairhaven Boatworks around 10:30 in the morning on Thursday, 5/31. The conditions were not that favorable, with winds from the south-southeast at 9 mph against a strong ebb tide. I decided to give it a try, despite the conditions and warnings from a discouraged boater at the dock who said he couldn’t get past bouy #2 in his power boat.

I soon realized the difference between a 4-day load and 2-day load in terms of weight and how it affects my boat’s performance. I didn’t have the bouancy and freeboard to take the 2 to 3 foot chop I began to encounter. Water was slopping in faster than my self-bailing valve could remove it. I decided it wasn’t going to happen when the water level in my boat was touching the bottom of my sliding seat rig’s I-beam. I turned toward shore, got to a little clamer water, and bailed my boat free and took a southernly course towards Chuckanut Bay.

Nearing the north end of Chuckanut Bay, I again tried heading west across Bellingham Bay. The results were no better than my first attempt. I soon turned back to the south, tucked into a cove at the north end of Chuckanut Bay, and again bailed the water from my boat. It was apparent that I would have to wait for the early afternoon slack to cross the bay. So, I headed over to Chuckanut Island (Dot Island?) and spent an hour or so there for lunch.

Sure enough as the tide slacked the chop settled down a bit and I was off on a beeline for the southern shore of Eliza Island. As I approached Eliza I could tell the flood tide was beginning and could see the rips and eddies forming up as the incomming tide pushed around the island. I passed between Eliza’s south shore and the large rocks there and spotted a sea lion there basking in the sun. What an enormous beast! I was able to clearly see it’s sillouette even after I was a half mile away.

After rounding the southern tip of Lummi Island I got a visual on the west end of Lummi Rocks to my north and fixed a course for them. I soon noted that I was rowing in some ‘confused water’ as it seemed to be going in a variety of directions. Looking further out, I could see there was a better flood current and adjusted my course to bring me to it. Sure enough, as I moved out away from the Lummi shoreline the current became stronger and my speed increased. The winds were calm and I was soaking up the scenery, basking in the sun, and really enjoying a beautiful afternoon on the water. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions to cross the wide open and busy shipping lane in Rosario Strait. I got a visual on Clark Island, adjusted my course, and continued on.

Soon I was near the turning bouy that’s near the center of the intersecting shipping lanes between Orcas, Lummi, and Sinclair Islands. I was impressed with how much the bouy was leaning to the north and could hear the sound of water rushing past it even though I cruised by a good 500 yards to the east. I checked my speed on my GPS and was impressed to see I was going over 7 mph! Wow, what fun I had as I got into a smooth cadence. Fun is good, but it nearly distracted me into making a big mistake. I glanced around to check my position and realized I had quickly covered much more north distance but had not gone far enough west. I was running the risk of overshooting Clark Island, my destination, and rowing north out into the Strait of Georgia where I could see no land all the way to the horizon….

My mood suddenly changed as I became concerned about my situation. I even started feeling foolish. What if I don’t have the energy to pull myself, cross-current, the mile west I stll must make? I had already covered 18 miles in an single day and didn’t know how much I had left. I mustered the energy, changed course to due west and gave it all I had.

I was pretty proud of myself when I reached the calm waters between Clark and Barnes. After a short rest selected a campsite and settled in for a quiet evening. The late afternoon and evening views of Mount Baker to the east are spectacular. I took this photo of a south bound oil tanker and it’s tugboat escorts as they passed between Clark and Lummi Islands.

John Raughter of The American Legion Magazine interviews General Bryan “Doug” Brown, leader of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Gen. Brown on the Special Forces organizational unit, the Operational Detachment Alpha (ODAs) or “Special Forces A-Teams”:
(emphasis mine)

Q: How do Special Forces A-Teams operate?

A: We have all of the components of Army, Navy, Air Force and now Marines in Special Operations Command. But probably the heart of all Army special operations is the Special Forces A-Team. It’s a 12-man team commanded by a captain with one warrant officer and 10 NCOs, and they are culturally trained. They are language qualified. They will not graduate unless they have a language capability, it doesn’t matter how well they do, how many push-ups that they do or how tough they are. They will not graduate from the qualification course unless they speak the language. And so they go on a battlefield.

I spent Christmas at an FOB (forward operating base) a couple of years ago that had a special-forces team on it. They did the wide range of activities. They trained the Afghan national army from a small outpost where they were out there all by themselves not close to any other American supporting forces. They were running a medical clinic for the locals. They had just finished a new school where 135 children were attending. They had made friends and were building a relationship with the people in these three small villages. They went out on patrol every day with the Afghan National Army, providing security from the Taliban forces in the one valley that they were living in. I went out with them and met some of the local Pashtun tribal leaders with whom they had excellent relations.

And so what happens? This one 12-man team that was culturally trained, had the language capability, were experts in not only the indirect side of warfare, but they can do the direct attributes as well, and built these relationships. The local people wanted them to stay. It showed validity in the local government because they started seeing human services provided. It showed education alternatives for their children. It showed medical care and how they can be successful in the future by improving their medical capability. It also showed security because these guys were out on the street … If you put all that together from one 12-man A-Team, what you have is a small area of stability and security and locals who will tell you where an IED or a weapons cache is because they want you to stay there. And that is how a Special Forces A-Team is highly successful.

Q: How successful have the psychological operations and civil-affairs teams been?

A: While I was up there at this camp there was a psy-ops element and a civil-affairs team. They had broadcast a radio call-in show with a local mayor and were using a small radio transmitter with an antenna on top of a hill. The entire message was being broadcast off an IPOD. It was then turned over to the locals so that they could begin broadcasting throughout the country.

The civil affairs guys, I could not say enough about them. They operate in small teams on very dangerous roads. They bring validity to the local government. They categorize those infrastructure improvements that are necessary to eliminate human suffering. They build schools. They open medical clinics. They build relationships and quite frankly what we think is incredibly important at SOCOM is the indirect form of warfare and the heart of that is our C.A. and psy-ops. These elements are under our command and control. We are the proponent for psychological operations and civil affairs in the Department of Defense.

Heh! Do you suppose Afghan radio listeners can tune in the weekly A-Team podcast?

Here is a partial transcript of a John Edwards YouTube interview where he categorizes items as rights or privileges.

Question: A college education?

Edwards: Right.

Q: Health care?

E: Right.

Q: A livable wage?

E: Right.

Q: Owning a handgun?

E: Privilege.

Q: American citizenship for someone not born here but has worked here for one year?

E: Working for one year? That’s a hard one, because I think people have to earn citizenship. I think I would have a period be longer than one year.

Q: Five years maybe?

E: Five years for sure.

Q: Access to the Internet?

E: That should be a right.

Wow! The only item that Edwards thinks is a privilege, and not a right, is a right found in the Bill of Rights.