Current Projects

Remember when we started making surfboards? Well we finally finished them! Months ago. Sorry for the very delayed blog updates. So where did we leave off...?

In between shaping the foam for the body of the surfboards, we also worked on shaping some fins. I decided to go with two fins and Mary decided to go with three. We cut the basic shape out with a jigsaw, clamped them down, and then got to sanding! Here are the finished products before glassing.

 Then we put in the final sanding hours to shape our boards. Lots of hours into this project already, but it's going to be worth it!

 Looking pretty sleek!

 We were very excited to be done shaping our boards! Now the real work begins.

The next steps began taking place in Mary's brother's garage. It was going to be getting chilly soon and we would have to be ready to fiberglass in a warmer environment than outside! We decided on color schemes and design ideas. I wanted to try some colorful resin swirls while Mary decided to go with a colorful floral fabric inlay.

 Getting ready for fiberglass layer #1!

 Mary's board, draped in fine silk and ready for some epoxy.

 Let's do this!

 Meanwhile, Amy was thinking her fins looked a little sad, so she decided to do some doodling on them.

That's much better. Mary painted her fins a bright red to get them ready for their fiberglass cloth.

Then we got ready to do fiberglass layer #1 on Amy's board. All taped off with newspaper to avoid having to clean up at least a few of the resin drips that were bound to occur.

 The colorful resin swirl that I envisioned did not occur on attempt #1. This first layer looked more like a kid throwing up pink and blue cotton candy at the carnival (sorry for the visual). I would have to try to remedy this during fiberglass layer #2!

Here is our work space. A bit cramped and messy, but it got the job done. We were happy as clams to be working on new creative projects after the end of our trip. I'm sure these won't be the last beach rides that we try our hand at!

Fiberglassing the bottom of my board turned out better than that awful 'new baby's room color scheme' that happened on the deck...

 A nice turquoise resin swirl!

 Mary went with baby blue on the bottom of her baby board. Beautiful!

 Now to try to fix the top of my board - let's cover the light pink and blue splotches with RED!

Oops, that red turned my board into a watermelon color scheme...

 Here are our boards after the initial fiberglassing. Now time for fin placement and a final hot coat!

 One fin, two fin, red fin, blue fin...

 Final hot coat - don't forget your respirator!

 Looking good, Mary!

And now we wait...with the cold temperatures and slow cure epoxy that we were using, there was a lot of down time waiting for our boards to be dry enough to sand between the layers of fiberglass.

To fix the new watermelon color scheme dilemna, I decided to tape off the rails and apply some light turquoise tint. We worked on this portion of the project in Mary's kitchen and living room. We'll work wherever we can!

 One of the last steps was adding an attachment place for our leashes. Instead of a leash plug, we created some leash loops with extra fiberglass strings twisted and coated in epoxy.

 And the final step was applying a logo. Every surfboard needs a logo, right?

 We used our logo from our trip of course! 

 Annnnddd now they were finished! I present to you Pudge the Puffer and Gidget the Fidget.

We have always wanted to submit our wacky water quiver to Korduroy.tv - they have a fun "show us your quiver" portion of their site where people submit pictures of their surfboards and other essential belongings. So we decided to do a fun photo shoot with our newly made boards! Here is our submission, that was actually chosen as their 'Quiver of the Week.' Cool! Too bad we didn't fit Makeba and the Blue Heron in the photos! Next time.

We finished our boards in late November. Unfortunately, the lake was getting pretty chilly by this point. I still need to get some warmer booties and mittens to go with my wetsuit to be able to handle the coldest Lake Michigan temps. And now the shelf ice is forming on the southern shoreline of Lake Michigan! Pudge the Puffer and Gidget the Fidget will have to wait until spring to see the water!

Other than surfboards, Mary was recently able to road trip to TechShop Detroit to punch out some more laser cut topographic maps of Lake Michigan. It was at Techshop San Jose that I was able to make my original maps, so it was nice to get back into the workshop and cut a few more various maps for those of you who have been requesting one of your own.

All of the materials were bought ahead of time making my job a little easier. With the extra hours the staff allowed me, I was able to put in 8hr days of nonstop laser time. Oh how I wish TechShop were closer! There are so many other cool things to be made!

Using a CNC machine is just like riding a bike.

Stocked up on both negatives and positives of the lake, the car was a lot heavier and a lot smellier for the trip home. Everything smelled strongly of bonfire by the end of the 3 day laser-cut marathon.

This time, I was sure to make plenty of extra maps.  So if you think you might be interested in buying a map of Lake Michigan, be sure to e-mail! marycatterlin@gmail.com

I was also able to punch out a personalized map for each of us and etch two matching coffee cups with our crew logo. These will be blissfully enjoyed whilst working on our book and documentary.

Paddling, Talking, and Rope Gymnastics

In the fall, we were finally able to enjoy a paddle with our friends in the Northwest Indiana Paddling Association. Every year they host the Sandhill Crane Paddle, and you know we love sandhill cranes. Hosted on a portion of the Kankakee River (or the Kank, as we like to call it, though the name has yet to catch on) paddlers leisurely traveled down river 8.6 miles from point A to point B. Once we arrived at the boat launch we had the chance to greet the club members and grab a bite to eat before heading off to Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area to watch the annual migration of sandhill cranes.

Our drift speed on the river equaled a fast paddling pace for us on Lake Michigan. Such a dramatic difference in difficulty gave us new perspective on our hard-earned-short-mile-days aboard Makeba.

Mary, posing dramatically on an extremely easy but fun paddle. Also, note all of that extra space in this normal sized canoe! We felt so far away from eachother.

Amy in the bow of the boat as per usual. Paddling hard, or hardly paddling.

Here is our good friend Kenneth in his spectacular orange sea kayak, complete with a orange traffic cone sitting on his stern. There was quite a range of crafts at the landing spot - canoes, kayaks, wooden, fiberglass...but no dugout canoes were present.

After some food and chatting, everyone headed over to Jasper Pulaski to see the cranes land at sunset.

There were cranes coming into the field from every direction. It truly is a sight to see if you have never witnessed it. The highest crane count recorded this year was on November 26th when 21,074 cranes were counted by volunteers!

There was quite a crowd including many photographers with huge telephoto lenses to try to capture that 'million dollar shot.'

Click, click, click! We will definitely be back next year. And if sunset is this amazing, I wonder what sunrise is like? Imagine that many cranes taking off from the field in the early morning light!

We also got to try out some Traditional Greenland Rope gymnastics following the guidance of our friend, Tim.

Here is Tim demonstrating the beginning position of Key-vee-too-sar-nuck. A real toughy that racks up the most points if performed successfully in competition. You can tell that he's a seasoned veteran at these maneuvers.

Okay, now Amy you try the Pah-skloo-shin-nook!

Yeah, kinda like that.

But not.

Okay. Why don't you try just sitting on the ropes for a while? Rope gymnastics are incredibly difficult and require a strong core.  Mary didn't participate in these activities due to her still suffering lumber jack back.

And of course you can't try rope gymnastics without some slacklining thrown into the mix! 

Other than playing outdoors, we've also been pretty busy giving presentations about our trip. Our most recent talk was given at the Michigan City chapter Lion's Club. It isn't often that we're invited to sit at the head table!

And it isn't often that we see our presentation advertised out on the road! We were invited to present at a tiny library in Niles, Michigan.

Cass Library, you shouldn't have!

One of our larger recent speaking engagements was at the DNR Parks and Rec Division Training Conference in northern Michigan at the Treetops Resort. What a lovely resort to host a conference at! And what great company to be speaking to so many outdoor enthusiasts.

We gave our usual presentation but there were lots of rangers that were very familiar with Lake Michigan...One ranger raised his hand at the end of our presentation and asked if we had stopped at 'Sis-shwa' Point....(What did he say? That didn't even sound like an actual word...)

Amy- "Um, can you spell that, please?"

Lots of laughter. 

Mary- "We didn't pronounce anything right around the UP." 

Eventually we made the connection that he said Seul Choix Point 

(Sis-shwa is the phonetic pronunciation - this location is the only harbor of refuge in a long and dangerous stretch of coast; the translation of the French name is "only choice") Ah, yes, we had indeed stopped there. We just may not have known that we stopped there, at least with that French pronunciation.

During our talk we were supposed to give out Ronnie Bucks if anyone asked a good question in the audience. Ron Olson is the Chief of the Parks and Rec Division of the Michigan DNR. Seul Choix man definitely got a Ronnie Buck. 

Later in the evening, there was a dinner and silent and live auction.

Upon seeing this display as we entered the banquet hall, Mary wondered if she could try a bite of these desserts that were just sitting by the door. Luckly, Amy pointed out the fact that this particular set of Tupperware contained trail dirt samples. We were at a DNR conference afterall. Mary would have to wait until dinner to eat actual food.

Ronnie Bucks from the session seminars could be used to lower prices in the silent auction. And we even got to sit at a table with Ron! We didn't have any Ronnie Bucks to our name, but we decided to vote on an auction item anyways. A two night stay in a YURT in Muskegon, paired with a winter package for snowshoes, ice skating, and cross country skiiing! Who wouldn't vote on this?! Amy wrote her name down. Little did we know that the auction was ending in about 5 minutes...So we won the package!

So, when you do the math, Amy and Mary got paid in yurt. Good deal if you ask me! Thumbs up!

Of course we had to stop on our way out of town at the local elk viewing area in Gaylord, MI.

They walked right up to the fence!

Yep, that's a huge elk 3 feet away from us.

We never know what we are getting ourselves into when we agree to a speaking engagement. It's all part of the fun!