Hands across the Sand (show cancelled)

      Well, I’m not sure how to begin this except by saying, “phew.” Friday LEAF left port ,around 7pm  in my trusty little sailing vessel named appropriately “Amphitrite.”  Yes I know it is bad luck to leave port on a Friday, so please don’t even start.  About ten minutes into our overnight voyage to Hands Across the Sand, we noticed our first good omen for the trip, a delightful little waterspout.  A delightful little waterspout you ask?  Yes I’m being sarcastic.  Tommy was excited being that this little gem was his first ever look at a real life funnel cloud, “just like the ones on Storm Chasers!” He exclaims.  J

     Now I have seen funnel clouds at sea and rarely worry too much, not because I’m brave, but because a sailboat is too slow to outrun or out maneuver a funnel so there is no need to think through any possible “what ifs.”  I can simply just be at peace with the notion that I am not in control.  Surrender….  And besides, our concern was not funnel clouds or even rain, but jamming on our boat offshore of an Oil Drilling protest scheduled for 12 noon the next day.  We would have plenty of time to admire mother nature after we rocked out on Saturday, or so we thought.  Mother nature instead had a little pop quiz in marine appreciation 101 planned for us just a few miles offshore.

     After running, which means sailing in the same direction as the wind, offshore for about 8 miles, the squall hit.  This particular squall was one of many that we were trying to weave through in the course of the evening.  When it finally hit us, we felt it.  Swoosh!!! The wind laid it’s palm on the mast and mainsail and the boat heeled over 45 degrees easily.  A quick course change into the wind more and she stood back up straight almost attracted to the wind.  I have learned through experience that my little sailboat loves wind, especially strong wind.  With this course change, the wind swept the boat from right to left, and began to blow the quickly growing seas all over us.  Sending all souls below, who could go below, I turned the boat back into a downwind run and pounded into solid 5-6 foot chop for five hours until we were close enough to shore to be in its lee.  It was wet, and crappy.  

     It wasn’t the biggest storm I’d been in, nor the wettest, but it was somehow harder on me than any other storm.  I never slept that night, not until we had reached a sheltered little spot called “one tree island” in Clearwater Bay.  About an hour of sleep is all I could eek out in the incessant  sticky heat, and my head began to hurt.  JD was in pretty bad shape too, the rough night before combined with a minor seasickness left him in about as sorry shape as I.  You see, in a storm you get all these little bruises from scrambling around the deck raising sails, tightening lines, and grabbing hold all in the pitch darkness.  This isn’t deadliest catch where you can see the waves coming on a floodlight and head for cover. Here it is black.  The waves just look like a darker shade of black, and when they hit you, you scramble to hold on.  When you slip, you get bruised.  And I slipped a lot! 

     With the sea being agitated, we decided that playing a concert on the ocean in a few hours was not going to happen.  Just standing on sailboat in small swell can be a challenge due to the mast and keel acting as counterweights similar to a “weeble wobble.”  Actually playing music and securing speakers and instruments to the deck with all of that motion going on would be pretty much impossible.  So it is with pirate music, sometimes it doesn’t work out.  Next time.

    The trip although musically a failure, was personally a success because I felt that it proved how hard JD and I are willing to go in order to play music.  JD was really there all the way more than I could have asked and that means more than a million concerts.  I imagine us touring around, playing gigs, it would work.  And that’s a wonderful thing to know.   

Building Solar Panels

    Well we are in the construction phase finally!  The solar cells came from Silicon Solar on Monday and we can now begin assembling all the pieces together.  Here's a picture (above) of how the solar cells look when they are shipped.  The goal now is to make panels in leaf shapes.  I started by simply drawing out a leaf shape on a piece of poster board and slowly soldering the cells together to fit into my shape.  This picture shows the layout...

  
    These cells needed tabbing before I could begin assembly, notice the shiny tabbing attached to each broken cell.  A pleasurable yet painstakingly slow process, my leaf began to fill up and take form!!!

                                                      

    We have our first LEAF!!!  As far as how many leaves we will need will depend on how much power we plan on using.  I go into this in depth in our solar blog.  Voltage, amps, and converting AC to DC are all covered in our solar blog.  Go check it out if your heady into this!  And stay tuned for more solar fun.  The next phase will be sealing these cells in epoxy and shaping the leaves to their final form!!!  Wayooo!!!!

      One Love from LEAF.  Http://www.leafjam.com      

Activism... vs. Reactivism

     I have always admired activists.  From my mother, the first activist I knew, to Pete Bethune whom I've never even met, activists have inspired me take my ideals beyond the talking phase.  From Gandhi to Paul Watson activists come in as many different forms as they have differing causes.  From "Save me Jesus" to "Save the Whales," activism takes on a seemingly infinite number of forms.  Some are quite benign in their activism, for example a group of anti-war protesters standing on the side with positive messages of support for peace.  And others meanwhile are much more harmful, like the ones for example whom are in the next story I will tell you.

    I founded a fledgling group in 2010 called Team Blue Florida which was supposed to act as a union for all Florida's marine animal activist groups.  We started a website, scouted for members, and held a couple of protests.  Things seemed to be progressing and with every passing day I found myself more and more confident to speak my mind.  I was seeing the need to protest just about anyone who fished, any place that was connected to shark finning, BP, the list was endless.  And growing longer by the hour.  Truly.  My band Leaf was at the time taking a backseat to all this "activism."  Or was it reactivism?"

    You see I've been into ecology since like 4th grade.  Sticking up for animals was nothing new to me.  The "hip" trends of veganism and so on were just old hat to me.  My Dad was learning to eat vegan while I was learning fractions.  We recycled back when there weren't any recycling programs anywhere.  But when I saw the movie "The Cove", I felt my paternal instinct to protect the weak kick into high gear.  You see this movie exposes the horrors behind captive dolphin programs and shows dolphins being literally slaughtered right before your eyes.

    Well, I reacted.  Swift and strong.  I did all I could to convince others of the truth behind SeaWorld and other similar parks.  I protested, got in arguments with friends, made a Leaf video for dolphins, and burnt some bridges, all in the name of saving the dolphins.  And I made friends.  Some nasty ones.

    My new friends were dedicated, and dependable when it came to animal rights activism.  I got to know a woman in PETA who sent me signs for protests and also some pretty radical people from a group called ARRF.   Now I didn't know this at the time, an general assumption is made about people who protest for animal rights.  "They are all vegetarian"  Well, I'm not.  And at some point the issue came up and bam!  Game on!  I began to get emails from old "friends" saying nasty things.  They sent 6 real postal letters to various members of my family saying even more nasty things.  (All typed up in some CSI fashion to hide the identity of the sender)  The defriended me as a group, 15 or so in all, and to this day I still get comments relating to my personal dietary choices. :)

   Now, unfortunately it didn't work.  I still eat meat.  I wonder, if these tactics ever work?  And I wonder what they are fighting for?

   To act is to be deliberate.  To make choice based on a expectation of an effect.  So if people are wishing "cancer" on my mom because her son eats turkey, what exactly are they acting for?  Or is this an emotional "reaction" to some letdown they may have had about an expectation in their minds about me being vegan.

    I see parallels in my form of reactivism and my "friend's" form.  Both relied very little on wishing to act for an effect, and rather more on reacting to some mental stimuli.

    My reaction was so similar to the vegans' reactions.  Both were full of judgement.  Both were swift and harsh.  And both put zero thought into the actual outcome of our reactions.  I don't think the vegans who react this way to meat eaters really want to "turn off" people like me from eating more vegan as they did.  I know I don't want to burn all the bridges of friends who I know that fish for money or who don't recycle.  These reactions are based on ego, not love.

    These reactions were based on Ego not love.

     I have to repeat that so I don't fall into that trap again.  And also to draw a line in the sand for anyone looking for a place to be a meat eating animal rights activist.  Now that may seem like hypocrisy to you... but only if you obey your "reactive" mind.   If you truly want animals rights, then respect mine, for I am just an animal convinced of my own humanity.  Can you prove your humanity by being civil?  Or will emotions rule your thoughts and control the outcomes of your reactions?

   Action or Reaction?   Activism or Reactivism?    Hate or Love?   Judgement or Compassion?

    One love... Tommy Leaf   http://www.leafjam.com