Cerulean days

“If you think adventure is dangerous try routine. It is lethal.” — Paulo Coelho

I've returned to my habitual routine from adventures in the west but there are still stories to tell.

The blue of the ski mixed with the effervescence of Lake Crescent as I biked the north shore of the glacial lake on the Spruce Railroad trail in Olympic National Park

A post card mid September day: high 70's and as I biked the trail my backpack filled with my snorkeling gear I scanned for a spot to put in.

624 feet deep, 12 miles long and a mile and a half across I had many options for a launch spot and chanced upon a likely staging area to put in

The shore dropped off quickly and the embracing 62-degree water greeted me warmly as I snorkeled past long fallen trees ... Leviathan's stranded in an interval of time.

I explore my way over to the Devils punchbowl an underwater gorge exceeding depths of 100 feet

“Art is long, and Time is fleeting.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Two hours in the water and it was time to find my put in spot, pack up my gear, hop on the bike and ride back to the car.

Perambulate

Perambulate - to walk through, about, or over an area, usually for pleasure, leisure, or official inspection

I felt the need recently to perambulate to see what's around the corner

"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." – Robert Louis Stevenson

My reason to travel is to unplug and reset my reality

To see grand vistas

To see familiar faces

To see new faces

To encounter the otherworldly

To capture classic ocean views

To watch young mariners, learn to sail

As fishing boats wait near by

To not only see but also to embark on a culinary journey

To not just fly over

To ride that train around the corner and find where the sun sets

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" Ferris Bueller

A Grand Island

I biked down the path on a Grand island along the shore of Lake Superior

To my put in point at the old Stone Quarry house built in 1860

Echoes of the past still lingered at my starting point

I slipped into Lake Superior being careful of history

Snorkeling in the 66-degree water I passed oddities, bugs, Rocks and their reflections and Peculiarity's

I flippered back to the launch point to dry off and get warm

Having channeled my inner lizard to warm up on a rock, I set off to conquer more of the 13,500-acre island’s trails

Returning to my camp I grabbed a bite to eat and watched the sun set.

"Even after all this time

the sun never says to the earth,

You owe me.

Look what happens with a love like that.

It lights the whole sky."

Hafiz

Intention and reflection

I take a moment to enjoy the reflection on the calm of the water

I find hidden under the calm fish going about their day

As I flipper on around this 44-acre lake I see the pipewort are blooming

"A pipewort flower (Eriocaulon) is a tiny, white, button-like or spherical flower head that grows on top of a long, thin, leafless stem, these aquatic or wetland plants bloom from late spring to fall in shallow water, bogs, and sandy lake shores"

I pass a long-fallen tree that part of reaches out above the water and notice a fishing spider

"A fishing spider is a large, semi-aquatic spider in the genus Dolomedes (family Pisauridae) known for hunting on the water's surface and capturing small fish, tadpoles, and aquatic insects. They do not build webs to catch food; instead, they wait for ripples on the water or dive beneath the surface to hunt."

I consider it lucky They do not say it captures passing photographing snorkelers

The networking collage of aquatic plants gets most of my photographic attention this day

A turtle recharging in the sun while its shell peels

"When a painted turtle's shell peels, the individual plate-like scales coming off are called scutes"

I compleat my counterclockwise circumnavigation of the lake and the fish go about their day

Tapestry of July

The heat and long days of summer has made me forgetful of the dark icy days of winter

A botanical surge has released a vibrant surge of colors, shapes and symmetry

Venture outside and breathe in the magic, soak in the beauty, witness the wonder

Forest fire smoke filled days

Thick, atmospheric smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away chokes the skies, and I want to capture the beauty in this dystopian mood above and below the water.

I get to the water’s edge and through the smokey haze I see a loon and a fisherman already there

Morning light pierced the haze, casting a rusty glow across the water's surface

I wade into the water and through the smoke-filled air and put on my gear

The fish and the underwater photos seem to be unaffected by the smoke

Moody shadows and hazy air above the water make for surreal photos

I wonder if the fish know what is going on above them

I am not sure I know what's going on in the world around me

Filtered sun light danced on the water

And I snorkel on

I'm one jammy bugger

Out of the house first thing in the morning, my snorkeling gear and camera in hand as I am greeted by a chorus of frogs and two loons. As I make my way into the lake I say to myself -

I'm one jammy bugger.

Jammy bugger: A heavily British and Australian slang phrase meaning someone is remarkably, almost annoyingly lucky

Fully geared and diving in, I am welcomed by darting fish and their mirror images

The bass have laid their eggs

Some have hatched

And the parent fish keeps a watchful eye on the fry

The fish above me look like they are flying in the ski

I focus on symmetrical imagery

And half in the water, half out of the water compositions

I snorkel back to my put in point, the loons still there, their heads in the water looking for me and where I went

They realize we are where we started

I'm a jammy bugger

History, relics, legacy and courtship

In 1894 the Williams Salsich & Co. lumber company started a mill on the shores of Star lake in northern Wisconsin.

This is one of the few times I did not take (opening photo) a photo appearing in my blog.

The sawmill produced over 400 million board feet of lumber before closing in 1908.

118 years later this is what it looks like.

Offshore and under the water can still be found remaining evidence of some sort of surviving framework.

The timber era has ended, yet fish still visit the abandoned relic

And fishermen leave behind their attempts to catch the fish.

When will the fishing line become history?

If the passage of time could speak, what would it tells us?

small fry gather and forage in the shallows

and muskies court where a once bustling enterprise boomed

As another day goes into the history books.

Time travel

Time machines are typically depicted as vessels we board to visit different eras, rather than portals that transport those eras to us.

This thought came to me recently when I was photo'ing at a local classic boat show.

Triggering a sense of mental time travel back to our younger days or the nostalgia handed down from our parents.

A time you read about in a book or saw in a movie when a woman in a wide brimmed Chapeau waits for her distinguished romantic companion.

Or just a picnic with friends and family

If you weren't feeling seaworthy you could watch it safely from shore from your beach cabana

Names from yesteryear like Evinrude, Chris-Craft and SeaHo drifted by

or a modern classic like the Porsche Fearless

The romanticized classic designee could not be overlooked

The more times change the more they stay the same

Just another adventure?

Immersing myself into a streamlet and as always not sure what I will find.

MY gatekeeper for this mornings adventure is a crayfish.

In Ojibwe oral tradition, the crayfish embodies humility, adaptability, and bravery. The crayfish appears in tales to demonstrate how small, humble creatures outwit larger, boastful predators

The rushing water carry's me down stream along with a schooling of golden shiners.

I, in the roll of boastful predator/photographer am humbled by the tiny creatures who's lives I briefly intertwine with.

I head out of the streamlet into the lake that is its source and photo the biproducts of strings of algae synthesizing oxygen.

A tree that once marked time in height and growth rings now marks time in decay and disappearance

Sunlight makes its way through gaps in the trees and into the water making for interesting underwater reflections

As I adventure on, I catch the attention of a lone bass

Flippering my way around a rock bar I am noticed by a school of rock bass, there red eye coloration often becomes more vibrant in adult males during the spring spawn. This can play a role in territorial displays and showing dominance to competitors

The water is cold and so am I and my body alerts me it’s time to get out, a watchman tadpole there to see me leave its world and return to mine

My hands tight from the cold water as I clamber up the bank, I find that nature has left me flowers.

Selfies with fish

I have been trying to master the art of taking a selfie with fish.

The first thing you do is wait

wait long enough and the fish may become curious

Then the fish want it to be all about them - typical divas

They look into my eyes trying to tell me fish to human telepathically how I should be doing this.

Just another day being a photographer.

Time to come out of your shell

Don't swim away come out and play

As the song asks us -

"Are you having any fun?

What you getting out of living?

Who cares for what you’ve got if you’re not having any fun?"

When hints of summer arrive in northern Wisconsin my fun is adventuring and snorkeling in the lakes around me.

the water temperature is in the mid 60's

Pollen from the pine and popple trees has filled the air and landed on the lakes giving the photos a little cloudy look

That has not stopped the bass from making their nests and laying their eggs

And the Spatterdock is emerging from the lakebed

And escargatorie are out foraging

While a musky lurks the day away

and this bass asks me with surprised eyes why I didn't tell it there was a musky behind it

"That you are here—that life exists and identity, / That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

Walt Whitman

Sign of spring

The seasonal pattern is always the same and always changing but it seems like we are stuck in the winter phase - you cant park here move along.

Excitement for the future while the present feels like its frozen in time as the ice and snow of winter methodically transform from a solid to a liquid and a vapor.

A sure sign of spring is the appearance of the silver-gray catkins of the willow waiting to attract bees looking for an early source of nectar

I cannot wait to get into the lakes even though the water temperature is only 44 degrees

Ignoring the bone chilling cold water, I embark on an Ernest Shackleton like adventure summoning false courage to spend brief moments of time camera in hand sans wetsuit trying capture from the edge of ice and water pictures under the ice

All my rational thoughts hiding from a self-induced ice cream headache, without the ice cream I see visions of ...

Spring forward

A crazed and angry blizzard blew across the upper Midwest recently leaving record amounts of wind driven snow and an outbreak of Vernalagnia.

The ice and snow held us tightly in its icy fingers

With out much fanfare Slowly following behind the blizzard was the spring equinox forcing the formidable winter into a shameful surrender

Sunlight sparkled a path of hope across the water

And played around the boulders

If you would like to celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd, come out and see my show Lakes, lyrics and life at Nicolet College

Why?

"Why" did the turkeys cross the road?

According to Merriam-Webster -

"for what cause, reason, or purpose"

So - for what cause did the turkeys cross the road?

the sign says - to get to Arbor Vitae

"Why" do I go out in the snow and subzero temperatures to take photos?

Reason - The age of reason compels me to

It would be easier to take photos from the warmth of my house of the full moon illuminating the frost on my windows

"Why" do alien ice ships voyage the vastness of time to our shores?

Maybe they have no porpoise - and I have no purpose in making that pun

Lets reflect on this for a moment

There is no why - birds do it

And even photographers do it.

Love is like hockey

The heart is the size of a clinched fist weighing approximately 7 to 15 ounces.

A hockey puck is a solid disc of vulcanized rubber, 1 inch thick, 3 inches in diameter weighing 6 ounces

This warning can be used for love and hockey

As you might have realized I have no idea what I'm talking about ... or I'm on to something

But the game goes on be it hockey or love

William Shakespeare said -

"Love is merely a madness and... deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do."

you could say the same of hockey

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" and "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been"

Wayne Gretzky’s

You could say the same of love

Sometimes you just need to shoot the puck - is that not the goal?

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Happy Groundhog Day!

February 2nd is the day the fabled Groundhog prophecies from the sight of its shadow if northern Wisconsin gets 6 more weeks of winter or if it cant see its shadow spring is 6 weeks away, no matter what is seen we will have 6 more weeks of winter.

No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn, despite the forecast, let's live like its spring!

"Earth laughs in flowers." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

So, lets laugh are way to spring

I checked my horoscope for the spring, and this is what it said -

"Sag - twisty roads good news job offers grim reels breaks wild. Horizons chase laughs glue love shotgun impulse tight. Purple roams free vibes lucky pure."

Did I receive predictions of my future from a Yoda-ish Groundhog sending out a Haiku of the collective horoscope for the universe?

If you have thoughts on this, I would appreciate your feedback

Or we can just laugh our way spring.

Brutally beautiful

(All temperature's used in this blog post will be in Fahrenheit)

In the days leading up to this blog post warning's circulated on radio, television and the internet of extreme cold or brutally cold weather and deadly wind chills on their way.

This morning, I dragged myself out from under the warmth of my down comforter to discover "they" were right - my thermometer read negative twenty-eight degrees.

Is this what Shakespeare meant when he said - "Now is the winter of our discontent"?

I looked out the window and the frosty splendor was absolutely breathtaking.

I made coffee and am now back under the warmth of the down comforter reflecting on hike I took a few days ago when it was a balmy two degrees.

The color of the sky was cold blue

the scenery was breath taking, literally and scenically

The moving water of the stream kept it from freezing

Undeterred by the cold, the ducks went about their business as if it were just another day

I stood on the pier and enjoyed the icy elegance

Is beauty born from suffering or do you just get used to it?

Only negative sixteen the high temperature for the day as I upload this post.

knew year knew you

The year fades only to be reborn with the next sunrise

and we head off down the path of the unknown

The universe is always sending us signs so we can find direction in our everyday surroundings

As we beat our wings but go nowhere

And reflect on the fleeting moments of our lives

While the chill of time mixes with light and shadow

Hope's flame endures the winter of the years and time goes on.

Warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season!

Snow laden trees stand like silent robed monks of winter praying at the edge of the creek

Winter's artistry whispered across the forest

The creek could not stand still or it would freeze

Old man winter reached out with Icey fingers on the creek’s reflections

Jack Frost's chilly breath left a delicate, frosted lace on every surface

Witnessing and documenting that interplay of ice and reflection made me feel incredibly lucky and grateful to share with all who view and enjoy this blog.

Glad tidings of comfort and joy from jimsgibberish