Volume One Number One

-9 pages, 5,061 words -

Hello from rainy/sunny/cool/warm/windy/calm Washington state! I have come home from Lake Charles, Louisiana for two weeks to help my parents move. Developers are taking over the neighborhood and will replace 7 houses spread over 50 acres with 192 houses. Mom and Dad are moving 120 miles south to Chehalis, a neat, quiet area an hour north of Portland, Oregon. It’s been nice to be home, see the folks and drive my hot rod.

This is the first installment of “Jake’s Adventures,” a rather ambitious title for a series of mass emails from a guy who can’t seem to find the time to write his esteemed friends and family members individually. I have received many encouraging responses to my “Red Suspenders” email; I’m glad that I had the experience to share.

This edition of the “Adventures” will include compelling accounts of bliss and agony from my cycling and diving trip in New Zealand, and the drama of my initial experiences with Friend Ships. In addition in this edition, you will see random deleted scenes not shown in theaters. Hang on for the ride!

If you would like to unsubscribe from this series, please reply with the subject line “buzz off.” I’ll buzz one last time to confirm compliance with your request. It turns out that this edition is insanely long - nine pages in Word, 12 pt, single-spaced. It might help to print it out, or set aside a weekend to read it. It just kept flowing, you know?

Part One: New Zealand

I flew from Seattle on January 30th and arrived in Auckland while my bike ended up hanging out in Los Angeles waiting for a flight. Who needs a bike for a bike trip anyway? I set out across the Canterbury Plains of the South Island on a bike graciously provided by Nature’s Highway, the company that planned my trip and lugged my luggage (www.natureshighway.co.nz). I did not ride with a guide or a group, but my meals and accommodations were all taken care of.

A word of advice for those considering a long distance, multi-day bicycle trip: get in shape first. I had been riding regularly on Guam while the ship was undergoing repairs there, but I didn’t pedal much during the last month at sea or the next month at home, which was December. Sit yourself down on a bike seat for a couple hours a day and see if you don’t do quite a bit of pedaling standing up. Wisely selected, the first three days were comparatively short, between 30 to 45 miles, and mostly flat. The soft saddle of the borrowed bike even turned out to be an unasked for blessing.

The Canterbury Plains from Christchurch through Greendale to Methven and Geraldine were a vibrant, lush green following the wettest December in 60 years. There really are more sheep than you can imagine. For reference, if you desire to get a sheep’s attention, I found that meowing like a cat seemed to have the best affect. (Remember, I was riding alone.)

I was able to ride my own bike on the fourth day as I started into the foothills on the east side of Mt. Cook. It was a fairly challenging climb to Burke’s Pass, 965 meters or 3165 feet above sea level, but worth every pedal stroke. The long, gradual descent from the pass was flanked on each side by a carpet of lupines of every color of the rainbow. Touring by bicycle presents the distinct advantage of traveling at speeds just right for absorbing the countryside. Not only were my eyes delighted with dark blue and stark white and creamy yellow lupines, but my nose was happy too as I reveled in the wonderful fragrance.

I rode toward Mt. Cook into a headwind and discovered that a sour attitude was an indicator of insufficient hydration or nutrition. Let me try that sentence this way: If I was hungry or thirsty, I got grumpy. I stopped for a Powerade at a store along the way and met Marcus, a 28 year old German mechanical engineer dude on a bike, and we traded the lead into the wind for the last 30 miles to Mt. Cook. The weather was fabulous that evening, a rarity there, and I took some great pictures of the mountain.

My tail was dragging the next day, so I slacked and rode in the van with my luggage to the next night’s lodging. I did do some hiking around the base of Mt. Cook in the morning and since I would have been retracing much of the previous day’s ride, I didn’t feel too bad about taking a day off.

Most of the places that I stayed the night were primo B&B’s, something I really came to appreciate as I tried to get to sleep in the first exception to this rule. I was staying at a “backpackers,” what we in the states would call a hostel. I did have my own room, but so did the pair who shared the next room and the paper-thin wall between our beds. They were a little, ahem, frisky, and boy is that kind of noise hard to get to sleep with. My next day was the longest yet, so at 1:00 am I banged on the wall a second time and asked them to simmer down.

The road to Lindis Pass was fog bound, a long, gently winding climb to 932 meters, or 3056 feet. Screaming down the steep backside, I reached speeds of nearly 45 miles per hour. My hands were frozen in the cold and tears streamed from my eyes into my ears with the high speed. The road began to rise and fall, and in order to maintain my speed, I would stand and pedal on the climbs.

At one point, my speed having dropped to about 25 miles per hour, I stood to pedal over a rise and the bike started shaking violently. Miraculously, without crashing, I brought the bike to a stop to investigate. I thought that my wheel had tacoed, but it turned out that my fork busted on one side right above the wheel hub. Providentially, the police officer that I had passed three hours earlier on the other side of the pass came down the road not two minutes later. That was the first time I’d ridden in the front seat of a police car.

Halfway through the trip I stopped in Queenstown, “The Adventure Capital of the World,” but not until I pedaled over the highest pass in New Zealand. The road to the Crown Range pass was almost ten miles of tough climbing to 1072 meters, or 3516 feet. The low gear didn’t seem low enough, but I refused to walk. The view from the top made me forget the effort and soon I was burning up my brakes down 2 miles of steep switchbacks.

The Kawaru (kah-war’-oo) Bridge, just outside of Queenstown, is where bungee jumping began. In the few days that I had for rest in Queenstown, I took advantage of the opportunity to relax from 43 meters (141 feet) above the water and plummet blithely into space. Oh, I forgot to mention that one feature of primo B&B’s, beyond quiet rooms and privacy, is good food and plenty of it. At the weigh in for the bungee jump, it was determined that I needed the Big Boy bungee, an elastic cord almost three inches in diameter. Not even five hours of cycling a day could burn the calories I was consuming! Whoo boy!

Boing! I made the jump and have a T-shirt and DVD to prove it, but I think I want something a little more exciting next time. I saw someone bungee jump from a parasail that must’ve been five hundred feet in the air, falling for at least three seconds before being yanked up short and launched back into the air. Now that sounds like a good time!

While in Queenstown I also took a jet boat tour into Lord of the Rings country and balked at the high prices of outdoor gear and food. I was ready for the wet West Coast, my legs rejuvenated after a good stretch, and my mind set for the second half of the trip.

One thing I had not counted on was over 70 miles into a 20 mile per hour headwind. Maybe it’s just headwinds that make me grumpy, because I drank about three gallons of water and sports drinks and ate plenty of food in the eight hours I spent fighting the air, but I was still growling and murmuring. This was another time when it was good to be riding alone; I turned the air around me blue.

Over Haast Pass, a pidly 586 meters (1922 feet), onto the West Coast, the rain fell continuously and the vegetation grew thick and green. Washington’s own Olympic rain forest which receives 12 feet of rain a year, would be jealous of the over 20 feet that New Zealand receives on the west side of the mountain divide. Squishing and dripping into my room that night I was glad that I had spent so much money on rain gear because it kept me looking good while I was getting soaked to the skin. You know how stylish cyclists look, too.

Black flies, also called sand flies, but inaccurately so, are New Zealand’s answer to the mosquito. They’re quieter, though, and the bite stings a little more at first. Stopping in black fly country is not recommended, but I still did it for a photo op under a large replica of a black fly. It was fitting, I felt, that very soon after stopping for the picture, accelerating and breathing hard, I inhaled one of the replica’s relatives. He didn’t go down easy, either, and as he struggled and fought to keep from being dragged into my lung, I choked and gagged and almost fell off my bicycle. Eventually I won - that is - I inhaled the fly and stayed on my bike.

Only 16 days into the trip, my fitness was finally improving. The short day from Fox Glacier to Franz Josef Glacier saw two climbs from sea level to 2000 feet and one easier climb to 1200 feet. The weather was really improving and a few birds serenaded me and encouraged me as I pedaled up the hills. I hiked to the Franz Josef Glacier and took some farout pictures at the base of the big dirty ice block. Big dirty ice blocks are something everyone should see.

The last few days of cycling were bittersweet. The roads flattened out again and the scenery was great, but I was mindful of the approaching end. Most of the rejoicing came from my bum, but my legs had never felt better or stronger and I often found myself checking the grass just off the road for signs of a tail wind, I was pedaling that effortlessly. I took over 500 pictures with my digital camera, and that was just while riding my bike and meowing at sheep.

I took a train across the mountains to Christchurch and flew to Invercargill on the way to Bluff where I would join the Breaksea Girl, a 66-foot sailing motorboat. (www.fiordland.gen.nz/bg.htm) I thought that I was going on a “dive trip,” but it was so much more. In six days on the boat I was underwater four times, but I don’t regret a minute of my time above the surface. It was an eco tour with diving thrown in, and I learned a great deal about the wildlife and plant life of New Zealand’s South Island and Fiordlands. (check out www.fiordlandunderwater.com)

I learned to dive in Guam while the ship was on holiday, and before leaving MSC I was able to dive in Palau when we visited for a Thanksgiving liberty call. I had never dived with a wetsuit, or so much weight, and even now have less than thirty dives. I was under close scrutiny during the first few dives to see if I would get the approval for the last dive.

Sailing out of Bluff I stood the first half of the mid-watch. It was a pretty groovy deal to be rolling on the swells under a waning gibbous moon, the imagined salty sailor at home on the sea. We rounded Long Reef and Windsor Point in the morning, pulling into Preservation Inlet for the first dive and the first of many great nature hikes. I plunged into some mid-calf deep mud pits on the trail and from that day forward took the advice of wearing gumboots instead of hiking boots.

I felt much better about controlling my buoyancy on my second dive. Sue gestured with appropriate fanfare to the strawberry holothurians at the end of the dive for which the dive location - Strawberry Fields - is named. They are small red underwater life forms that look just like strawberries and blanket the rock walls of the fiords in this one particular spot. They are quite rare and not seen in such concentrations at such shallow depths anywhere else in the world. Each dive had some new life with a similar tale. The tannic stained fresh water floating 15 feet deep on top of the salt water creates a singular underwater environment that rivals even Palau in my mind.

The third dive was near Seal Island, appropriately named. One seal was not watching where it was going and collided with me underwater. It felt like being grazed by a torpedoing tree trunk, a surprise considering the gentle appearance their large puppy dog eyes lend them above water. We then motored around Resolution Island and I saw firsthand some of the places that Captain Cook had explored. I bought a book about his voyages and was reading it while in New Zealand; it was neat to make the connection.

Depending on whom you ask, there are two different penguins that get labeled the “Rarest Penguin on Earth.” I saw both of them, so I guess it doesn’t matter which one is first or second arest. The first one that I did see was a Fiordland Crested Penguin on Breaksea Island, the island for which the boat was named. It was a farout little bird with feather tufts on the side of its head like Mercury, from Roman mythology.

The highlight of the boat trip, and even the whole New Zealand trip, I think, was the time we spent in Doubtful Sound. The rock walls of the fiords plunge from thousands of feet above sea level almost vertically straight into the water. There wasn’t much rain while I was there, but waterfalls and evidence of waterfalls could be seen everywhere. Groovy Doubtful Sound dolphins spent some time surfing our bow wave, much to the inexpressible delight of one avid dolphin fan on the boat.

"The Gut” was the final dive and I had passed the tests because the hard and fast rule of 40 dives minimum was broken for me. We descended to over 100’ to see the bottom of the fiord scattered with sea pens and the lower walls covered with black coral. Black coral is white, of course, and enjoys a nearly symbiotic relationship with certain starfish. Both were active, the coral spawning and the starfish gently preening. Closer to the surface, at about 80 feet, there were crayfish the size of a tall male cyclist’s lower leg – that’d be – as big as my calf! The feelers above their faces were at least 18 inches long and they looked menacingly at me when I zapped them with my flashlight beam. Large fish cruised around the kelp and seaweed, starfish and sea urchins filled every nook and cranny and I fought to keep from grinning so that the seal of my mask would stay intact. I love diving; that’s all there is to it and I’ll dive in the future anytime I get the opportunity. I do think that New Zealand will remain among my favorite places.

After the dive trip I took a ferry to Stewart Island where I visited Ulva Island, a sanctuary for the native birds of New Zealand. Introduced weasels, stoats, possums and rats have obliterated most of the birds, but they are coming back on Ulva Island where the predators have been removed. I was able to identify most of the birds by sight and even learned to recognize them by their song. I took some blurry pictures of where they had just been perching too.

Nearly five weeks later I was ready to go home. I spent one last day on a driving tour of the Catlins, the southeast corner of the South Island. It was here that I saw the other “Rarest Penguin on Earth,” the yellow eyed penguin. I wandered around Dunedin until I found a McDonalds and then crashed to sleep in my hotel. Five days after returning home I was on a plane to Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Part Two: Friend Ships

I first heard about Friend Ships in ‘97 or ‘98 while attending the Merchant Marine Academy. A classmate of mine volunteered with them when she was a cadet and mentioned the possibility of volunteering with them again after graduation. I scoffed loudly at the idea. What kind of crazy person would go to sea for no money? Making money was high on my priority list and the idea of volunteering for anything seemed the height of insanity to me.

Fast forward to the spring of 2004. I had been promoted rapidly, too rapidly if you ask some, and was struggling to hold down the fort as Chief Mate during a yard period in Hawaii. I was making excellent money, but I didn’t have much job satisfaction. I thought money and job satisfaction went hand in hand, but I could not have been more wrong. I started looking around for other jobs and the idea of Friend Ships entered the picture.

I began corresponding with Kippin, a girl who worked in the personnel office at Friend Ships. I scheduled a visit during my vacation in the summer and flew down from Seattle to see what they were all about. I found people with good hearts and an organization where I felt I could help. I was still wrestling with the idea of being a non-paid volunteer, but eventually I decided to keep sailing with MSC until I had enough sea time for my master’s license and then take a step of faith in a new direction.

Most of the crew was on the Spirit of Grace on a mission to Haiti when I arrived in Port Mercy in Lake Charles. I spent the first few weeks with the warehouse crew palletizing cargo and storing it in the warehouses on the property. The pace was relaxed and most folks in Lake Charles were looking forward to the return of the ship from Haiti.

The ship returned toward the end of February and once the trucks and now empty containers were discharged from the ship, I was sent to Biloxi, Mississippi. Keesler Air Force Base was renovating one of its barracks buildings and the hazmat rip out contractor had been given salvage rights. He was donating 95% of the contents of the barracks to Friend Ships.

For a month three or four other guys and I drove to Biloxi on Monday and back to Lake Charles on Thursday. I was even clean-shaven the whole time; it’s just easier to look like an active reservist than needing to explain the whole merchant marine individual ready reserve group scene each time I hold up a military ID card while sporting a full beard and shaggy locks.

I passed the Biloxi leadership baton to another volunteer for the last four weeks of furniture loading in Mississippi and joined the crew that was working on constructing the helicopter hangar at Port Mercy. A cute little Bell helicopter (my reference being the US Navy CH-46 and MH-60s) was donated to Friend Ships for disaster response missions and it needed a place out of the weather.

We stacked two sets of forty-foot containers 37 feet apart and built heavy-duty roof trusses to span the distance between them. We also framed in a shed roof extension on the back of the hangar for additional storage space and offices. Pallet racks were set up in the middle to create two bays, one for the Kenworth and one for the helicopter. Work was progressing nicely when I was told to pack my bags for California; we were trading one of our ships to another ministry.

The Fearless is a 180-foot former USCG buoy tender. She was tied up in Stockton, California and her sister ship, the Papaw, was tied up in Houston, Texas. Canvasback, owner of the Papaw, was based in Benicia, and it made sense to trade the two vessels rather than pay the expense of a long sea voyage and transit of the Panama Canal.

Our mission was to prepare the Fearless for sailing and deliver the ship to the new berth. It took a week to get the ship underway and another two weeks to find a berth. It was a nice change of pace and I was glad to be on the water again, even if it was brown and the ship was only a toy.

Upon returning to Port Mercy, finishing touches were being made on the hangar and I set up the forms to pour concrete for an entrance ramp. It was a new experience for me and I learned a great deal with both physical and spiritual applications. The hangar essentially completed, it was time to start loading cargo for our next voyage.

The port of Ashdod, Israel is our next destination. We will be carrying furniture and clothes for Jewish and Palestinian refugees. Many Jews arrive in Israel from Russia and Eastern Europe and Northern Africa with little more than a suitcase. Many Palestinians have been displaced from their homes and need the same sort of assistance. Nearly everyday more cargo comes in for Israel; I feel most in my element on the days we load the cargo in the ship.

It’s such a thrill for me to see the pallets stacked in neat columns all the way to the overhead. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make the most of the space available and fit every piece in just so. I’m gaining skill with a forklift as I drive one now instead of holding a clipboard in one hand and pointing and gesturing at the drivers with the other. It has given me a greater appreciation for the skills in others that I used to take for granted.

I have had many positive experiences from volunteering with Friend Ships and I’m just getting started. I have a tremendous sense of peace about where I am and what I’m doing. I consider the future and plan for it, but I’m not worrying about it anymore. I am actually living one day at a time as it comes.

I have been given many opportunities to learn humility. I am an ardent supporter of the ministry, but sometimes I find myself thinking that if I were in charge, I would be doing things differently. I have been given some tasks that could be considered menial, but I can’t stamp my foot and pound my chest and declare my rights as a licensed chief mate. I believe there is value in learning to submit myself to another’s authority and come up alongside them to support them and push together with them toward one goal.

I have been given many opportunities to learn patience. I feel most comfortable working under a certain amount of deadline pressure and I generally seek to speed up any work process in which I’m involved. The environment of Friend Ships is, in my experience, considerably less deadline driven. We spend time waiting for God to make a way; I am learning that He is faithful to provide that way at just the right time.

I am also making some great friends among the crew. I have never worked in an environment where everyone is so dedicated to pushing toward the same goal. I have not seen any backstabbing or political maneuvering; there is almost never any complaining. I have seen one person offend another and very shortly after seek forgiveness and reconciliation. People of every generation from every walk of life have volunteered at Friend Ships and that diversity is beneficial to the health of the organization. It makes for some unique friendships as well.

My plan for joining Friend Ships was to stay until the summer of 2006 and then begin seminary at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Don Tipton, the founder of the ministry, talked with me before I came home on June 3rd. He wanted to know my plans so that he could make plans. He presented me with the opportunity of being the captain of the Hope and the Mersea our two buoy tenders. (The Mersea is the new name of the Papaw, the ship from Houston.) They would be used for disaster response, I would have a crew responsible for keeping the ships ready to go at a moment’s notice, and we would sail promptly to natural disasters in the Caribbean and on the US Gulf Coast. Of course I would need to get my master’s license from the Coast Guard, but I would also need to commit to staying beyond next summer. I don’t know if I’m ready to make that commitment or if I want to move on as planned.

The next few months should present a more adventure oriented set of experiences to report. Sailing to Israel, transferring the cargo while there and sailing back should be pretty exciting. There may also be opportunities for disaster response, though in truth, I hope not. I do hope to regale you with tales of triumph over incredible odds and stories of faith rewarded as my experiences shift from discovery to outreach. This is just the beginning!

Special Features

Pictures

Photographs are available upon request. I took nearly 750 pictures in New Zealand. I imagine that it might be hard to ask for pictures that you’ve never seen, but you might like to select from different types of pictures. I have scenery from the road of mountains, plains, flowers, sheep and deer. I have pictures of myself, self-inflicted, with road signs in the background that indicate my elevation at a certain pass. There are pictures of me with my bike taken by someone else, but before you request one of those, remember that I’m well fed and wearing spandex. I took some close up macro photos of flowers including about 60 of different roses at the Queen’s park in Invercargill – tell me which color you’d like. I took some funky black and white pictures with an emphasis on shapes, lines and contrast. I actually did get some good bird pictures, but not many of wild mammals, unless you count me.

I also have some pictures of my experiences at Friend Ships, but it’s more like my job than an adventure right now, so the library is limited. I can take pictures upon request of the ships, helicopter, hangar, forklifts, and maybe an alligator or a Louisiana bayou sunset – kind of like an Australian outback sunset.

The pictures I most want to show off are of my girl, Fannie. It has a new coat of red paint and is lookin’ HOT! (What, am I the only guy who has named his car?) I have been having a great deal of trouble resisting the urge to floor it from every stop and out of every corner. Well, I haven’t really been resisting at all. The motor has been rebuilt with a higher torque cam. A new ignition system and ‘glass packs with side dumps just beg me to pour dollar bills through the four-barrel and out onto the road. VahROOMbah!!! Wouldn’t you just love to see a picture?!

Master’s License

There has been a breakthrough with the Coast Guard concerning the counting of my sea time toward my captain’s license. The National Maritime Center has approved my sea time and referred the issue back to the Seattle Regional Exam Center. Here’s where I get confused. The woman who is now reviewing my application is writing a letter. I have no idea to whom the letter is written, or what it is about, or why she must do it, but “it looks good,” she says. Uhhh, okay. I’ll keep you posted if I receive my license in the next fifteen years.

Gratitude

The primary reason that I am volunteering for Friend Ships is my gratitude to Jesus Christ. I used to live in rebellion against God, seeking my own agenda above His, and I still struggle with this tendency. I have lied, making me a liar; I have stolen, making me a thief; and I have looked at women with lust in my heart, which Jesus says makes me an adulterer. A day of reckoning is coming, and I had no hope of standing before God in my own goodness. In spite of my wickedness, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for me and legally justified me before God.

At Christ’s resurrection from the dead, He emerged victorious over the grave and offered me that same victory. I yielded to Him, turned from my evil rebellion, and now live each day in submission to Him with fact-based hope in eternal life in heaven. That same hope is available to every person reading this right now if you will reject your selfish ways and cry out to God with your voice for His forgiveness, believing in your heart that He has heard you. I would love to answer any questions you have about this or rejoice with you if you have just come to know the peace that being found right before God brings.

Please let me know either way or if you have any specific prayer requests. I promise that I will pray for you. Please be in touch and I’ll do my best to get back you personally. Until next time,

In Christ,

Jake