It’s that time of year again.  Yep, the holidays, but also my time at home to hunker down and plow through mounds of catch up work while also pulling off all of my Christmas duties and planning for the next year on the road.  It’s like working forward and backwards at the same time, while still having plenty to do in the present.  I don’t want this to come off as a complaint; I’m really just explaining what I have been up to.

            Filling the desk jockey role for the last few weeks, I have definitely neglected my need to be outside for all but two half days and one amazing full day.  That is not much outside time for someone who, for the most part, lives outside, but it has put a few things into perspective for me, and that is what I would like to share.

            Life is short.

            We have all heard this phrase as an inspiration to go do whatever it is that makes us happy or fulfilled.  It seems to reverberate deeply into our most basic understanding of life as a timeline and the idea that what is most important should not be pushed aside for what is (in the big picture) less important.

            I bring this up because a week or so ago, I was sitting at my computer, handling my workload while witnessing a perfect blue sky, 20 mph wind day on the lake pass me by. 

I was going through some files in a storage room when my Mom came in to look for Christmas decorations.  I mentioned what an amazing day of sailing we were missing, which prompted me to ask if she thought my Dad would drop his home repair project for an afternoon on the water.

Always the responsible one, I was surprised to hear my Mom blurt out, “Oh my goodness, ask him, go sailing, life is too short!”

Done.  Life is too short.  It is such a simple phrase, but it does it every time.  Suddenly, nothing was as important as spending a few quality hours in a boat with my Dad.  I asked, and he reacted the same way my Mom did.  He dropped everything and even beat me in getting down to our little 30-year-old J-24.

I don’t need to describe the day any more to let you know that it was completely worth it.  We came in at sunset, warmed up and I hopped back on the computer and worked late to finish everything I had planned for the day.

The next morning, I opened my Facebook account and saw a few comments on my update about sailing and life being short.  It seemed that quite a few people agreed, and the father of a friend even wrote me a note about taking advantage of every moment available, especially with family.  He had just come in from a funeral for his son’s 18-year-old friend who was killed in a car accident.  It is extremely unfortunate, and my heart goes out to the family.

The lesson is, unexplainable and tragic events happen, and we never know when or how, so we must try to remember to live everyday.

The following weekend, I had the opportunity to spend a morning mountain biking with two old friends.  It was a Saturday, and I had plenty to do.  I was hoping to take advantage of time with no business communications (being a weekend) and hammer out other tasks that get set aside during the normal week.

Same thing.  I thought about my afternoon on the lake and the advice from my friend’s father and realized that everything else could and should wait, so I went mountain biking with my friends.

We had a great time, got some exercise and reconnected in a beautiful setting.  And all of that aside, we also shared something that you only get (or maybe I only get) from being outside.  It is a comaraderie among those who experience life outside together in its simplest form.  Everything else fades away when the situation demands only one thing; get up this hill, get through this rapid or over that next ridge.  It is simple, it is pure, and it is beautiful.  Once again, it was completely worth it.

Those are the two half days, only a few hours each, but they meant so much.

The one full day was this last Saturday.  A rainy Friday meant the rivers in the area would be up.  A buddy’s text message and a phone call later and I was set to paddle a “southeastern gem” called Overflow Creek.  I haven’t paddled anything really steep and challenging in months (many months), so I was a little hesitant until my paddling buddy said something that was all too reminiscent of my mom’s life is too short comment.  He said, “Man, this creek is a gem, when it’s running, you paddle it.”

And once again, done.

He was right, the creek is a gem and I was truly lucky to catch it with water and such a great crew.  I was the only one who had never been on the run, but everyone made me feel completely comfortable with it.  Good decisions were made, beta was given, safety was set when we needed it and there were no bad lines (Although I missed two strokes that would have made my life a little easier.  Still, nothing serious.)  Thanks again guys!

Hours later, I met up with some old friends and ended up climbing for a few hours.  I am no climber, but I had a great time challenging myself in something different and clowning around with old buddies.  I honestly cannot think of a better way to spend time with people than being active outside.

Whether it is biking, climbing, kayaking, sailing or anything else, being outside in open spaces actually brings us together.  It shrinks us down and separates us from everything that seems so important when we are inside.  Be it an email, a phone call, paper, proposal or whatever, it is all very insignificant when you are staring down a waterfall with butterflies in your stomach or cruising a wide open lake at sunset with your Dad.

My thought for the day is, do what is really important for yourself and those around you, because life IS short.

As I finished that closing thought, I received a text message from my friend.  It reads, “If I get home tonight and my extra light works do you want to go night riding?”

I answered, “Yep.”

            (Me terrified, keep reading.)

Cray-Z.

One phone call changed my entire situation from traveling in a beater van on Maui one week ago, to my brother’s boat on O’ahu two days ago, to my folks’ house in Georgia today, to a big trip with El Guapo (the van) to Tennessee tomorrow. 

Yikes!

You may be wondering what kind of phone call would make me leave Hawaii in such haste to come back to winter in the southeast, but unfortunately, I am going to have to keep it hush hush for now and fill you in at a later date.

In the meantime, we’ll get caught up on the happenings in Hawaii.

After changing my schedule and realizing I could no longer plan very far into the future in Hawaii, I tried to take a mini vacation.  I say I tried because I ended up shooting during three of my last seven days in the islands.  That said, my time was still very relaxing. 

My good friend and traveling partner, Mike D, and I took a few nice drives, including the infamous Road to Hana.  It was one of two places our beater van rental company told us not to go (because the tow back would cost more than the entire rental), so naturally, we deemed it good and took the risk.  My feet were up, we had freshly picked avocados and starfruit on the dash and I was doing a little bit of Twitter bragging before we ran out of cell phone service.  Of course, as Karma would have it, my envious audience was granted its wish and by day’s end my photo taking, Twitter posting iPhone was nothing more than a paperweight.  No qualms here, I deserved it.

It all came about with a mini expedition up four waterfalls that entailed tossing our gear into a drybag (I never leave home without one) and hiking and swimming our way as far upstream as possible.  We made it to the fourth waterfall, and as I worked through the gear in the drybag, I accidentally laid the iPhone on a towel on top of a very slippery slide shaped rock.  You know where this is going.  I grabbed the towel, the phone went down the slip ‘n slide and off of a very nice ramp and into the water.  The funny / ironic part is that when I made it to the phone, I could see that under three feet of water, I had a voicemail.   It was the voicemail I had been expecting.  It was the one that would change everything or change nothing.  When I tried to check the message, the phone merely dribbled water into my ear.  Yep, I had that one coming.

Losing a phone is not a big deal to most people, but for me, and especially in this situation, it is my lifeline.  I run every aspect of my life and business through my phone, and particularly when I am away from El Guapo.

(When the trail disappears into the water, swim.)

Seeing no immediately helpful alternative, we finished the drive to Hana with old stories, jokes and thoughts of the future, then headed back to town in order to hit up the AT&T store the next day.

Our remaining time on Maui was consumed by one last evening of hanging out and shooting with Waveskier extraordinaire Tyler Lausten at his waveski shop in Ha’iku and one amazing Thanksgiving with great people in Kula.  It was a holiday of all sports.  If there is a backyard game that you can think of, we played it, and we played it with all of the intensity you might expect from a Superbowl matchup.

(Tyler Lausten working on a new board in his shaping room.)

After the holiday of team sports was over, we made our way back to O’ahu where I spent the next two days kiteboarding and teaching Mike some of the basics in Kailua.  After being skunked by wind and adverse conditions for nearly four months, I finally got out on the water with good wind.  The icing on the cake was spending that time under a beautiful sunset while riding full speed only feet above intricate reefs in turquoise water.  It was one of those perma smile experiences that I will not forget.

Suddenly, it was our last day.  I shipped a few reflectors (too fragile and expensive to check w/ my luggage), made some calls, packed my bags and finished off the trip with a last minute one man outrigger canoe shoot.  I had been trying to shoot this during my entire stay, so there was no way I could pass it up for a lack of time.

Always working for a new take on things, I talked the folks in the support boat into letting me jump in the water with my housing.  Of course, I was doing this at sunset in known Tiger shark waters.  Not smart, but I had been talking about this forever and it was time to walk the walk.  After all, if it was easy and less scary, everyone would do it, right?  That’s me justifying a dumb move.

(Kamanu Composites team paddler near China Walls, East side of O'ahu.)

The real fear hit when I entered the water, looked down and could only see blue.  I spend my life in water, but the thought of a predator grabbing me from below while my mind is focused above the surface is just plain terrifying.  I worked my way over to some impressive walls, hoping for shallower water and a nicer background and found it.  Not saying I helped my chances at all, but being in 30 feet of water and seeing the bottom helped my psyche big time.

We shot until the water turned black, then kicked it in gear, showered up and made it to the airport, soaking wet camera bag carry on and all.

My time in Hawaii was shorter and much different than I expected, but that is the name of the game.  If we could somehow expect the outcome of our adventures, then what would be the fun of swimming in the unknown.

A big thanks goes out to John Puakea and Kamanu Composites for making that last shoot happen.  You guys are great, and I hope to meet up with you again sometime soon, maybe in shallower waters.

(SPAM and avocado wrap.  Bad idea.)

(Leaving our mark.)