Raising Charlie: The Lessons of a Perfect Dog

Last week, I finished writing a memoir about Charlie, my golden retriever who died of cancer last year. It was emotionally difficult to write about his life, especially the last three months, after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, but it was also therapeutic. It helped me get over my grief, and it made me appreciate what a perfect dog he was.

I hope Charlie's story is one that dog lovers and others who have experienced the loss of a beloved pet will take to heart. He taught me many valuable lessons during his life, and I owe it to him to share them as a tribute to his memory. I know I am a better person for having had him in my life.

If you are interested in reading Raising Charlie: The Lessons of a Perfect Dog, please click Charlie's image near the top of this page to go to the RaisingCharlie.com website. The book will be published later this year, but you can reserve an inscribed copy now. Thank you.

Update on the Wild Iris Transatlantic Passage

When I saw an email message from Paul Caouette pop up in my inbox yesterday, I expected he was letting me know that he had successfully sailed his Valiant 40, Wild Iris, across the Atlantic and arrived safely in Lisbon, Portugal with his wife Honey and their crew of three. Instead I received a lengthy description of the bad luck and misadventures that have plagued him and his boat since before I went to Miami to help get the boat ready back in January ("Back from Miami").

They haven't made it to Lisbon. They haven't gotten beyond a shakedown sail to Key West and back. And now the crewmembers have returned home. Part of me felt badly for Paul, Honey and the crew, and part of me was relieved that I had not been able to join them as was originally planned.

Here is what happened in Paul's own words:

If you want to learn about the early (mis)adventures of Wild Iris go to http://www.sailingwildiris.com/

Here's my latest....with a caveat

I think each of the crew members has his/her own version of what follows:

Limping Back to Miami after Paul Loses round one in a fight with sciatica.

After we had determined that a run along the Cuban coastline might be misinterpreted by our own government we had some hard decisions to make. First was how to deal with the sciatica that had debilitated the captain, me. Second was whether or not a run up to Bermuda or any place north of the Chessapeake was at all possible. Roger had lost much of his enthusiasm with Kim’s departure. It didn’t take long for him to make the decision any young man in love would make when faced with the choice of either being with his beautiful new love or a bunch of cranky and smelly old folks. He informed us that he was shipping out. That essentially buried any possibility of a northern cruise and we all decided to run back to Miami. So the next day we shove off.

We ran up from Key West without incident. Actually got some sailing in light breezes. So by the time we reached Marathon the count was 10 hours of sailing and ...about 1600 hours of preparation. (this is based on three people working for 60 days ten hours per day, a conservative estimate. Our reason for choosing Marathon as the first port on our run back to Miami was so I could get a second opinion and perhaps an MRI. The very kind clerk at the gas dock even gave me a lift to Fisherman’s Hospital while the crew continued on to the mooring field when they tied up and got the dinghy down to come into the municipal marina to pick me up.

The visit was not very enlightening. No MRI and the emergency room doctor simply and efficiently confirmed what the Key West doctor had told me. "Next." Wow, was I frustrated. I was looking for succor and she was looking for an injury. Conversations with my Denver physician were somewhat more productive and she told me to definitely get to an MRI if I had any further deterioration. We spent two nights. The crew took in a visit to a sea turtle hospital while I convalesced.

On day two we let go of the mooring ball and headed back offshore to catch the Gulfstream..There was no wind whatsoever. Trusty ol Westy, our 17 year old diesel, was rattling away as all good diesels do. Its an old engine but it has never failed to start and runs without complaint for hours and hours. Wish this were true of the other elements of our propulsion system, namely the transmission and V-Drive, the auto pilot, the refer, the charging system, the manually operated flush toilet, the lp stove, the leaking sink, (don't ask me to describe a V-drive I know too much.)

Our plan was to snuggle up behind Rodriguez Key as we often do, an uninhabited key just offshore from Key Largo. There really wasn’t any need of shelter as the seas were glassy and all forecasts pointed to more of the same. By the time we were six miles out we were in a dead calm. Since we had about 2.5 knots of Gulf Stream current moving north to Labrador our 4 knots gave us some good “over ground velocity.” We figured the motor would be running until we the set down about 9 PM. But the gremlin that has taken up residence in this Ol boat had other plans. No sooner had we altered course for a northeasterly run that the engine took on a very noticeable change in pitch. Upward! It sounded like it wasn't working at all, just humming away. The light bulb lit. I knew that sound. A look astern was all I needed to confirm that Iwe had lost forward thrust. That is, a) there was no prop wash, therefore the propeller wasn’t turning. Which could only mean Argh! The infamous coupling problem. Argh! A quick inspection of the prop shaft under the engine confirmed it. Three bald bolt heads were rolling around in a thin soup of oil and transmission fluid. Once again, Wild Iris had chosen to guillotine those three modest bolts that connected the engine to the propeller shaft. Perhaps I make too much of it but all these things breaking smack of a conspiracy.

This was especially exasperating, as we had just dropped one and a half boat units on a new coupling and a complete alignment. Since I was ruined physically I had to take on the role of coach as Roger and Jeff wrestled with the "V" drive and the engine mounts. Prior to beginining the work we set the parachute sea anchor on deck in case a gale came up unexpectedly (fat chance). We then hung out all the canvas to catch the occasional puff of wind and Honey took the helm. trying to. The breeze we did have was more of a rumor. Luckily the Gulf Stream kept pushing us north and east rather than the scant few miles east to the reefs that protect the keys.

It took us (them) five hours of wrestling before we were able to get the problem sorted. Jeff played the pretzel in the engine room prying up the diesel with a timber I had salvaged (never know when you need an occasional timber) while Roger played strong man and arm wrestled a fifty pound chunk of steel on to a delicate transmission spline. Ah youth! We did a seat of the pants alignment of the propeller shaft and the V-drive coupling and fired up Westy. Everything seemed fine when we put the tranmission in "forward." Prop turrned, nothing shook....but I was not willing to trust the repair to be our major source of propulsion. We were still hours away from the only cut in the reef that would have taken us safely to Rodriguez and I was not about to thread through the reefs in the early hours of the morning with an exhausted and somewhat nervous crew....and a sketchy propulsion system.. So we stayed out in the deep water and sailed with what little wind we could find hoping to hit Miami around daybreak.

The wind finally came up around 1 AM along with a beautiful orange moon. We all took turns at the helm since we had no auto pilot and it really was a beautiful sail. We arrived at the Stiltville entrance to Biscayne Bay at 8:30 AM.... still greasy from the transmission work.

The next day we moved to boat across Biscayne Bay to an anchorage off of Dinner Key! And set anchor in about 7 feet of water. Since we anticipate being on the hook for a few days I decided to dive down and confirm that that our 60 pound CQR was set deep into the bay mud. I thought it would be a great idea to dive in with the shorts I had been wearing for the past few days since a bit of salty water might help rinse away some of the grease and oil. So, I lowered myself slowly into the warm waters and dog paddled to the anchor about sixty feet away. Just as I got there I realized I still had my "water resistant" Timex on my wrist. "Oh well." I thought, "One more item broken." Then the light bulb lit.

"If I still had the wrist watch on I must also still have other items that might not fare so well in salt water like...MY WALLET!"

Too late. The pocket was empty. My wallet and quite a few Jacksons were now in Neptune’s court.

Day three dawned with a resolve to not do anything on the boat.... if we weren’t working on it or in close proximity to it nothing would break, right? So we mounted the Honda outboard on the transom of our new dinghy and motored the 1/2 mile into Dinner Key and had a wonderful day and evening.....

At 9:30 we came back to a very crowded dinghy dock and started to look for ours.....nothing familiar was in sight except for a single pontoon that was visible between two Boston Whalers. I made some comment about how the threesome looked like a soggy Coney Island special.....then the light bulb lit (again?) That ain't no hot dog! That's my dinghy!" Or should I say half of my dinghy. The rest of it along with
the Honda outboard motor was underwater...

We spent two hours fishing out the Honda and hosing it off. Then we strapped it to the remaining pontoon and towed it out to Wild Iris. I swear I could hear some chuckling from the rudder when we tied off at the barding ladder. It took me four more hours of flushing and hosing to burp all the foul water out of the Honda. I hit the sack at 2 AM........ so much for recuperation.

The following day we returned the borrowed dinghy (INTACT) to our friend Betty and went off on our next errand; getting tires for the Audi that we had abandoned in Miami. The original plan had been to sell it prior to our European departure but there were no takers. yet. So we were quite pleased to have it waiting for us. ...But it was in serious need of some new rubber.

We're two miles from our destination driving south on US 1. Suddenly a big truck goes blasting by us. Almost simultaneously we get doused with antifreeze. I wisecrack about the fool who is rushing to get to the garage before he loses all his precious bodily fluids. We come to the next stoplight and someone pulls up next to me rolling down his window....not something that normally happens in Macho Miami. I obliged him by rolling mine down. "Excusa." He says and points to my hood. Little geysers of steam were puffing up around the edges.

"Not to worry" I said. I recalled that I had packed extra hoses when Skip and I drove down. I even have a gallon of antifreeze.

I pull up the hood...looking for a split hose...and found....a split radiator!

No wonder Jeff chose to spend his last night in Miami at a hotel close to the airport, and as far away from us as possible.

All this is true...and I have witnesses to confirm it.......although they might not really want to talk about it for a while. Who wants replay a nightmare?

The rest of the week was pretty much uneventful. I saw yet another doctor, this time an orthopedist, who said “sciatica.” (there's a song lurking in that name) We got the outboard running, only to have it quit again yesterday. The diagnosis from our mechanic friend is the little black box that connects all the electrical systems. It doesn’t like to swim. Last night the refrigerator compressor started making funny noises and it stopped sending cold to the refrigerator. …..which lead to some long discussions about the sailing future for Honey and me.

Stay tuned

-- Paul Caouette

Grand Canyon Slideshow

There has been some interest in seeing additional photos from the Grand Canyon trip, so I have put together a 111-photo self-running slideshow: Grand Canyon Slideshow. Depending on your Internet access, it may take a second to start. Enjoy!

Rim to Rim

Out of the blue a few weeks ago, my neighbor Rich asked if I would be interested in joining him and some other guys on a three-day hike in the Grand Canyon. I thought about it for a few days, talked it over with Nan, and decided to go. Hiking the Grand Canyon is one of those big items on the list of things you want to do in your life, and I didn't know if I would get another opportunity.

Rich, his stepson Wes, and Wes's buddies Rich and Jake met me at the North Rim this past Tuesday morning, then we took a shuttle around to the South Rim and started down the South Kaibab Trail. Nan and I had been to the Grand Canyon back in 1994 during a spring road trip and we had hiked a little ways down both the South Kaibab and Bright Angel trails, but the experience this time was even more spectacular than I remembered it, probably because we were going to hike from the South Rim to the North Rim.

One vertical mile and seven actual miles later, we arrived at the Colorado River and crossed the footbridge to the Bright Angel Campground, next to Phantom Ranch, our home for the night. Rich had called ahead to get us on the dinner list, so instead of eating freeze-dried meals, we enjoyed steaks, baked potatoes and beer at the Canteen. We were living large!

The next morning, we hiked seven miles up the North Kaibab Trail to the Cottonwood Campground. After unloading our packs, we backtracked to Ribbon Falls, one of the prime attractions in the Canyon, to cool down. Then it was back to camp for freeze-dried dinners and an early bedtime. We wanted to get a cool, early start for the almost vertical final day.

The hike up the endless switchbacks to the North Rim was beautiful until we passed through the Supai Tunnel. From there to the top, organized mule trips go and up and down the trail, making it a dusty, stinky, fly-ridden experience. We felt bad for the tourists who only go that far. They miss out on the great hiking and clean trails that we experienced for the previous nineteen miles.

Back at the North Rim Visitor Center, we bought the obligatory "I Hiked Rim to Rim" T-shirts and talked about what to do next year. I suggested the Chicago Basin in southwestern Colorado, which can only be reached by taking the Durango-Silverton train and then backpacking in on a steep old C.C.C. trail. But it's the only place in Colorado where you can see mountain goats in the wild and it's home to three of Colorado's 14ers, so it would be well worth it. We'll see...

Sailing the Spanish Virgin Islands, Part 4

It was cool and threatening rain the next morning, a good excuse to sit in Quetzal's covered cockpit and drink endless cups of coffee. Our plans for the day were modest so there was no hurry. We were simply going to sail about six miles down the coast of Vieques, from our current location at the eastern end of Ensenada Honda to the mouth of Bahia Mosquito.

When we were all sufficiently caffeinated, curiosity overcame inertia and we decided to explore our little end of the bay. We maneuvered the inflatable dinghy into the water from its storage location on the foredeck and attached John's new outboard motor, a huge improvement from his oars-only propulsion of trips past. As soon as everyone was aboard the dinghy, it started to rain lightly. Nobody seemed to mind. Getting wet is to be expected when traveling by dinghy. John steered us toward a break in the mangroves, which turned out to be a narrow channel to a tiny circular inlet about thirty yards across. There wasn't much to see except raindrops falling on the water, more mangroves and numerous basketball-sized moon jellyfish floating in the shallow water. John turned the dinghy around and asked what we wanted to see next. Dallas suggested checking out the shoal we had skirted to get into the bay to see if it offered any good snorkeling.

We stopped back at Quetzal to put on swimsuits and grab snorkeling gear, and then motored the dinghy the mile or so over to the shoal. The tide was low, exposing stinky weeds and crunchy growth that John didn't want to risk puncturing the dinghy on, so we anchored in about four feet of water instead of trying to beach it. Dallas, Genie and I went over the side frogman-style and paddled around looking for signs of life. There weren't many, just small bits of living coral growing here and there in the cracks of dead, sand-scoured coral remnants, and the occasional small fish. In the deeper water, the bottom was covered in sea grass. Dallas stuck up his head to voice his disappointment to John and Nan in the dinghy and swam back to climb aboard. Genie suggested swimming the mile back to Quetzal for the exercise and I agreed provided I could keep on my mask and fins. I was glad I did because there were dozens of the moon jellyfish to swim around that I wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. The dinghy paced Genie, which was fortunate because she eventually pooped out.

After regrouping at the boat, we pulled up the anchor and headed out of Ensenada Honda. We put up the sails when we reached open water and aimed southwest away from land to catch the trade winds in a smooth broad reach. John's simple plan was to go out until we were halfway to our destination and then jibe to head back in. In no time, we were at Bahia Mosquito, tied to one of two very exposed mooring balls. It would be an uncomfortable night, but it would be worth it because we were going to see the single greatest instance of phosphorescent phytoplankton in the world.

Everybody except Genie jumped into the dinghy for a daylight excursion to see where we would be going after dark. The water in the channel leading to Bahia Mosquito was very shallow, no more than four feet deep and then no more than six feet deep well out into the bay. As with Ensenada Honda, there was not much to see except mangroves lining the shores. It was difficult to imagine one of nature's greatest light shows happening in this location. The photo above shows Nan scouting the bay from the bow of the dinghy.

We tolerated Quetzal's rocking and rolling as best we could, carefully juggling our plates and cups through dinner and waiting for nightfall. There was still no moon, so it would be very dark again that night. John suggested we get going while there was still a little light. We grabbed some towels and our best flashlight and piled into the dinghy again. Dallas stayed back this time but Genie went along. She was intrigued by the idea of skinny dipping in phosphorescence.

At first, we couldn't figure out what we should be looking for. Would the phosphorescence be similar to the little glowing sparkles you see in a boat's wake at night? As we entered the channel, I looked at the outboard's wake and noticed that it was glowing. I thought it was maybe the whiteness of the bubbles catching the remaining daylight, but it was much more than that. The whole wake was glowing a weird consistent pale green. Just then, Nan and Genie "oohed" and pointed from the bow. The fish we were scaring with the outboard were shooting away in flashes of pale green like underwater meteors. It was spectacular! The trails they left were about six feet long and faded quickly, just like real meteors. I trailed my hand in the water. It glowed like it was bathed in radioactivity.

We pointed the flashlight around until we found a bird poop-covered buoy we had spotted earlier and tossed a loop over it. Everyone suddenly had cold feet about going into the water--it was just too creepy and weird--everyone, that is, except John, who pulled off his T-shirt and did a kind of spinning cannonball into the water. The splash was psychedelic! When the water settled, there was John treading water surrounded by the glow, like some radioactive sea monster out of an old science fiction movie.

Doves in Denver

Nan and I just returned from an extended Memorial Day weekend in Boulder and Denver. Last night we saw one of our favorite bands, Doves, play at The Gothic Theatre, a small converted movie house in Englewood, south of downtown Denver. For me, it was the highlight of the trip.

My friend Dave Beckwith introduced me to Doves several years ago when he gave me a mix CD that included "Melody Calls", a song off Lost Souls, their first album. A few years later he gave me another mix CD that included "Some Cities", the title track off their third album. As Dave would say, I found it "compelling." I picked up the album and couldn't put it down. I bought Lost Souls and then The Last Broadcast, their second album. I even bought Lost Sides, their "B sides" album. It was all eminently listenable. I was a huge fan of the "Manchester sound," a type of dance-oriented music made popular by bands like New Order and The Smiths in the 1980s, and Doves, also being from Manchester, sounded like the natural progression of that music.

The concert started off with "Jetstream" off their new album, Kingdom of Rust, and then went straight to "Snowden" from Some Cities. From there, Doves balanced new material with old for almost two hours. The highlight for me was "Caught by the River" off The Last Broadcast, one of the best and most emotional songs I've heard in the last ten years. It tells the story of a father coming to terms with a son who is beyond his help, and it features a gorgeous acoustic guitar and keyboard soundscape. When people ask me what music I like, I have them listen to that song. The photo above shows the band playing it live.

I read a review recently that referred to Doves as "the best band you've never heard of." Maybe that's why they play tiny venues like the Gothic for just $20 a head. I expect that situation will change as they continue to produce exceptional music and gain a larger following. They certainly deserve the success.

Update on Isla Mujeres

Last week I received this email message, which the sender was nice enough to let me post:

Hi John,

We read your blog today with great interest. We have booked Color de Verano for two weeks in January & February 2010. Our last stay there was 2007 and we fell in love with the place. We are wondering if your friend, Juan Gomez Chan, will have completed his house and opened his restaurant by the time we visit the island. We would like to stop in there if he will have it open by next winter.

I hope you will keep us updated.

Thanks,
Terry & Terry Wilson
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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Here is my response with some updates about Juan and his life on Isla Mujeres:

Terry and Terry—

Thank you for contacting me. It is difficult to say if Juan will have his house and restaurant completed by that time but he sent us photos recently that showed tremendous progress from when we were there last October.

Juan left his employment at Na Balam a few months ago after many years and is now working with his friend Ventura at Brisas Grill near the ferry dock. We’re not sure what effect this might have on his progress. Given the way the beach at Na Balam is eroding, it’s just a matter of time before the Zazil Ha bar and restaurant at Na Balam are washed away, so Juan’s timing is probably very good.

As you know from the blog, we will be spending a month there this fall, from mid-September to mid-October, and staying in the penthouse at Color de Verano. Therese has given us permission to bring our dog Scout, a one-year-old golden retriever, so it should be quite the adventure. One of our projects while we’re there, in addition to taking Spanish lessons, is to work with Paola, Juan’s wife, to put together a “tastes of Isla Mujeres” cookbook in both Spanish and English. If we get it published, I’ll send you a copy.

You can probably tell that we love it there, too. If you’re interested in one of those newer photos of Juan’s house, please let me know and I will send it along. Thanks again.

—John

----------

The photo at the top is one that Juan sent me back in March. If you compare it to the ones I took last October when we were there ("Isla Mujeres, Mexico" blog entry), you can see that he is getting closer to finishing his new house. The restaurant would be located on the left side of the house under the flat-roofed section. That's Juan's brother-in-law out front in the orange t-shirt. Click the photo for a full-size view.

To give a better idea of where all these places are on Isla Mujeres, I have put together a Google Map titled "Isla Mujeres". The satellite image is very dated. It doesn't show either Juan's house or the Color de Verano - Macax, just vacant lots. And it still shows plenty of beach by the Hotel Na Balam, where there is now almost none.

Sailing the Spanish Virgin Islands, Part 3

The afternoon sail from Culebra to Vieques was a quick beam reach due south for a little over ten miles. We passed Punta Este, turned west into a smooth broad reach and started looking for a sheltered bay in which to anchor Quetzal for the night.

The eastern half of Vieques was used by the U.S. Navy for bombing practice from the years following World War II until 2003, and there are still no settlements on that part of the island, probably because it is still littered with unexploded shells. We felt reasonably safe approaching from the water and had no plans to walk around on shore.

A look at the chart showed a large, protected bay called Ensenada Honda, the same name as the bay we had just left on Culebra, about five miles west of Punta Este. We decided it would be a good place to tuck in against the persistent easterlies and made for it.

We carefully skirted shoals at the entrance, keeping to the deep water in the center of the channel to avoid running aground in the otherwise very shallow water. As we rounded the peninsula that forms a natural breakwater and could see all the way to the east end of the bay, we realized that we would have the entire anchorage to ourselves. We went as deeply into the bay as we dared, given the shallow water, and dropped anchor.

John declared Captain's Hour and we all relaxed in the cockpit with cocktails, taking in our new surroundings. There wasn't much to see. The cove was surrounded by mangroves growing well out into the water from shore, creating a green margin in all directions that blocked any other view. There was talk of snorkeling to see what was underwater but we decided to postpone that for morning. After cocktails, it was time for dinner, another one of John's simple but tasty creations.

As evening gave way to night, I commented that there would not be a moon that night so the stargazing should be excellent. John and Dallas seemed interested so we went to the foredeck, away from the cabin lights while Nan and Genie went below to wash dishes. Nan and I live in dry, high-altitude Colorado, where the stars shine brightly, but the stars that night were so numerous that it took some time to pick out even the familiar constellations. Being at about 18 degrees north latitude compared to our normal 39 degrees also took some adjusting.

John asked if I had ever seen the Southern Cross. I said that I had never been in the southern hemisphere so I hadn't seen it. He pointed over the top of the mangroves to our south and said, "Well, there it is." I looked and then looked again. I turned around and looked up at Polaris, the North Star. It was 180 degrees in the opposite direction. John was right. I didn't think it was possible to see both celestial poles at the same time unless one was at the equator, but there they both were. I started singing the old Crosby, Stills and Nash song, "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way..." John and Dallas laughed knowingly.

Kokopelli's Trail

On Saturday, May 2, my friend Jon Anderson and I attempted something I had been dreaming about for several years, to ride Kokopelli's Trail from Rabbit Valley west of Grand Junction to Moab, Utah. It's a 120-mile ride, and we planned to do it in one day.

I was riding my 2002 Yamaha WR426F and Jon was riding a Kawasaki KLR650 he borrowed from a co-worker. The KLR is a rally bike, designed for mostly street and highway use, with occasional off-road use. At more than 400 pounds, not counting the metal saddlebags full of Jon's gear, it is not exactly "flickable," as my riding buddy Andy would say. The KLR's major advantage was that Jon could ride it at freeway speeds on I-70 to get to the trailhead while I needed to trailer my bike to get it there.

We were only going to ride one way, so the plan called for Nan and Scout to drive the "sag wagon" with the empty trailer behind it and meet us in Moab. Along the way, she would drop off some gas and Gatorade at Dewey Bridge, just off Highway 128, since there was a chance I would run out of gas otherwise.

After posing for the top photo (click for full-size views), we departed the parking lot at Rabbit Valley at about 8:45 AM. We headed out the marked #2 loop, which becomes Kokopelli's Trail farther out, and I promptly dumped my bike. I thought I could ride a rocky uphill section in second gear, but my front wheel dropped into a gap near the top and I stalled, falling over on my right side. Jon and I had never ridden together before, so I'm sure he wasn't feeling overly confident about my ability at that point. A few minutes later, we reached another rocky uphill, this time a sidecut singletrack. I was able to make it up with occasional dabs, but Jon lost his momentum and we needed to bulldog the KLR the rest of the way up with Jon pushing on the handlebars and me pushing from behind. By the time we reached the top, the radiator was boiling. Fortunately, the singletrack was soon over and we were able to get up some speed on the Westwater road to cool off the bikes.

The weather forecast called for all-day rain, and the sky to the west definitely looked threatening. It soon started to drizzle, which made the clay tracks of the road extremely slick, limiting our speed. When we reached a stretch of asphalt on the way to Fish Ford, the drizzle gave way to rain and hail, and we needed to stop and put on our rain gear.

We turned west off the asphalt and followed a dirt road down into a canyon and then up and out again to where it ended at the Colorado River, in an area called McGraw Bottom. The trail marker indicated that we should follow a singletrack in the direction of the river, but it was very difficult. I managed to bulldog my bike through big rocks up to a plateau and park it, but Jon didn't even attempt it. He parked the KLR and walked up to where I was parked to see what lay ahead. After a sharp drop off the plateau, there was a steep, loose uphill and then more difficult terrain beyond that. We stood at the top of the uphill section and Jon said, "Y'know, if I lose my momentum coming up this hill, my front brake won't hold me." I tried to imagine that. Jon would need to put both feet down to keep his balance, negating his back brake. If he didn't fall, he would slide backwards all the way back to the bottom. It was too big a risk. We would need to go around.

We backtracked to the turnoff for the Cisco Takeout and then continued on through Cisco and picked up Highway 128. After the McGraw Bottom section, the trail crosses Highway 128 from east to west and goes through Yellowjacket Canyon, but we skipped that section as we rode by and headed straight to Dewey Bridge, or what's left of the bridge after it burned last year. I had not passed by this way since the fire, and I was overwhelmed by the damage. The large cottonwood tree I had told Nan to put the gas and Gatorade under was burned to a crisp, so she had left everything under a different, still living cottonwood tree near a picnic table. We hung out our wet gear to dry while we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and washed them down with cold Gatorade. In Jon's case, everything in his aluminum saddlebags was also wet after the pop-top water bottles he had bought at the gas station that morning exploded from all the bouncing around. As we ate, black clouds and lightning were building to the west. We gassed up the bikes, packed up everything and headed out again just as it started to pour.

The trail went back east up Entrada Road and then forked off to the right to make a shortcut through Cottonwood Canyon, except that the "shortcut" is a serious thrashing through steep, loose, nasty broken rock, as the fourth photo clearly shows. Again, there was no way the KLR was going to make it. We looked at the map and saw that if we had stayed on Entrada Road, we could have avoided this nightmare altogether, so we backtracked a second time and went around.

When we reached the bottom of the second Cottonwood Canyon (Yes, there are two different canyons with the same name.), I stopped abruptly. In front of us was a series of badly eroded sandstone ledges extending up as far as I could see, and they were wet and slippery. I pulled out the map. There it was: "Steep difficult trail." No kidding. Jon parked and walked up to take a look. He started laughing. We both knew that this was the end of the road for us. There was no other way to continue on to the La Sal Loop and Sand Flats sections that end at Moab. We would need to turn around and backtrack yet again.

We passed Dewey Bridge this time without stopping and turned left onto Highway 128. After thirty miles of smooth asphalt, we arrived in Moab. It was 5:15 PM. We had been riding almost continuously for 8.5 hours. I checked my odometer: 136 miles. Nan and Scout were happy to see us. We were happy to be off the bikes.

Later, over Mexican food and margaritas, I asked Jon if he would consider giving it another go sometime with a lighter bike. He said he didn't need to try it again. He was happy with asphalt and didn't care if he ever rode another trail. Not me. I'm trying to talk my neighbor Dale into riding Kokopelli's Trail with me some weekend soon before it gets too hot. I hope this description doesn't scare him off!

Sailing the Spanish Virgin Islands, Part 2

After dodging a few small islands, we set our course for the southern tip of Culebra, the easternmost of the major Spanish Virgin Islands, a little over twenty miles away. Late in the afternoon we arrived at Ensenada Honda, the southeast-facing bay that is Culebra's most prominent feature. We picked up a mooring behind the reef that forms a natural breakwater at the entrance to the bay and then took a moment to marvel at the incredible turquoise blue of the water.

The water was at least fifteen feet deep but the bottom was clearly visible and it appeared to be populated by dark, oval-shaped lumps. Dallas, Genie, Nan and I pulled out our snorkel gear and jumped in to investigate. The lumps turned out to be sea cucumbers, a type of marine animal that resembles a cucumber-sized leech. None of us had ever seen so many in one place before, but we had to admit that they weren't very interesting so we snorkeled closer to the reef to see what there was to see over there. Except for a scattering of small, colorful coral and some tiny fish, the reef was largely dead, a faded, sand-scoured shadow of what it once must have been.

When we were back on board, Dallas, who is an amateur oceanographer, remarked about how little life there was to be seen underwater these days. When he was a boy growing up in Florida, the waters were brimming with color and life. Somebody mentioned global warming and Dallas agreed, but he said that in addition to raising the ocean's temperature through the greenhouse effect, all that excessive carbon dioxide is mixing with water in the atmosphere to form carbonic acid, which is raining down on the ocean and changing its pH. The combination of these factors is wreaking havoc on marine life, he said. As we solemnly contemplated a future without marine life, a giant fish swam under the boat. It was at least six feet long and looked at first like a barracuda, but it was missing the snaggle-toothed smile so we weren't sure what it was.

We celebrated Captain's Hour and ate dinner on the boat while watching the sun set and then retired early knowing the next day would be action-packed. We planned to tour Culebra and then sail on to Vieques, the second major Spanish Virgin Island we would visit.

After breakfast and a brief discussion, it was agreed that the distance from our mooring to the harbor town of Dewey, over a mile, was too far for the dinghy, so we motored Quetzal in as close as we dared and anchored her. We dinghied the short distance over to a restaurant appropriately named The Dinghy Dock and tied up. John told the waitress in broken Spanish that we would be back for lunch, and we set off to explore. Our first stop was a brief reality check at an Internet cafe, where we also lined up a ride to famed Flamenco Beach, on the north side of the island. John stayed on to answer his email while the rest of us piled into a shuttle van for the quick trip to the beach. We agreed to meet later for lunch at Mamacita's, a restaurant we passed that is highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. Sorry, Dinghy Dock.

Flamenco Beach is deserving of its fame. It is a spectacular, crescent-shaped stretch of white sand with bright blue waves breaking on its shore. We walked to the far west end of the beach, where there was a reef to check out. Dallas, Genie and I snorkeled while Nan guarded our stuff--the Lonely Planet guide warned that theft was a problem--and took snapshots of a pair of geese frolicking in the sand. Like the reef near our mooring, this one was a disappointment, but we did spot a good-sized school of tang and I did get to swim through an underwater arch about ten feet down. Further down the beach, there were a couple of rusting military tanks, left over from when this area was used for US military exercises, so Nan and I took a stroll to take pictures of them while Dallas and Genie dried out and kept the geese company.

Lunch at Mamacita's was delicious. The restaurant is located on the canal that cuts through Dewey, close to the drawbridge that is the highest structure on the island. Dewey has a reputation as a hang-out for American expatriates, so we were not surprised that the waitresses and bartender were all Americans. The spicy barbecue and fresh seafood were served with fried plantain crisps, like potato pancakes, and a chutney dipping sauce. Yum!

After stocking up on ice and other provisions, we walked back to The Dinghy Dock, where there was a school of giant fish, just like the one from the day before, swimming around the dinghy. Since the water was only two feet deep, it was easy to see that they were tarpon, not barracuda, and that they were huge. We loaded up the dinghy, rode low in the water and got "douched" on the way back to Quetzal, pulled up the anchor and motored out of Ensenada Honda on our way to Vieques.