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The FOGHORN
ROTARY CLUB OF HALF MOON BAY
JULY 25, 2024
Mike Powers
50 Years of Ocean Kayaking
Article by Steve Wilson
Photos by EP
(NOTE from Steve - Well, Rotarians, you shoulda been there if you weren't (see program notes below)
Mike Powers, a longtime Coastsider and friend of Pres. Irwin, then presented a riveting talk and vivid slides documenting almost 50 years of ocean kayaking, mainly on the Pacific Coast and stretching all the way from Alaska to Antarctica.
Mike's companions were mainly from the locally-based Tsunami Rangers, a fearless group of ocean kayakers. In the course of the talk, Mike explained the optimal equipment for kayaking, the various ways to get into and out of trouble when kayaking, and some of the interesting two and four legged creatures and those with fins (or big teeth) encountered on their journeys.
Some of the more interesting slides depicted the coast between here and Big Sur, areas off Baja California and the wild coast off Southern Chile. The quality of the photography was stunning. Remarkably (considering the riskiness of some of this), they've never lost anyone, a tribute to the experience and training of the Tsunami Rangers (who were also documented by National Geographic). For their trip to the Antarctic coast, they booked a ride on a post-cold war converted Russian "icebreaker" (aka spy ship) which made a business in transporting kayakers from Chile to Antarctica. One chilling slide showed a set of tooth marks from a Great White Shark acquired off the California coast by one of the Rangers when a shark chomped the front of his kayak, then let go. Good thing he let go! Mike held us in rapt attention the whole time and we just wish the meeting allowed him to go longer.
CLUB MEETING - JULY 25, 2024
The meeting was convened by Pres. Irwin and kicked off with the flag salute plus words of wisdom from our SAA John Evans.
Visitors and Guests
We may have had as many guests as Rotarians for this meeting, and the intros were so fast and furious that your scribe couldn't catch them all, nor all the last names. For the second time we had Shirley, who is interested in joining (former Rotary #2, SF); Dianne also announced that a friend, Peggy (not there in person had applied for membership.) Julie Mell, a Lobsterfest sponsor, was in attendance. Stacy brought Doug. Angel Ramirez from Monterra Credit Union (another Magic of the Coastside Lobsterfest sponsor) joined us. Finally, our speaker (Mike Powers) brought a number of guests.
Announcements
Susan presented details on one of next year's major projects, a joint venture with Sea Hugger, which got us a district grant to clean up two coastal creeks for improvement of salmon migration. Our Pilarcitos Creek is one of the creeks. The other is a creek in Pacifica. We will be enlisting Interact and community volunteers to get the job done. There will be enough junk to clean out of these creeks to require dumpsters and special tools. Stay tuned for more details.
Happy News
We had a big item of happy news. At about the same time that we were starting the meeting, Dianne received news that her second grandson had just been born in Brooklyn (Dianne, please include a picture in the newsletter!)
Marble Game
The marble game was uneventful, as Dianne drew a green one, but there are only a couple left, so show up next time and play!
PHOTO GALLERY
