2018 IN REVIEW: PICTURES OF THE YEAR

And so for a time, it looked as if all the adventures were coming to an end, but that was not to be.---C. S. Lewis

It's that time of year again when I look back on some of my best images of the last year. Like always, it's difficult to narrow it down to just a dozen. I have so many favorites,  involving an anecdote or recollection behind each image captured while at the river or lake. From those fast times on the Lower American River to the slow-motion days at Sly Park each photo has its own story. So Yes it's hard to pick just a handful of pictures that stand out above the others.

A bent rack

"Someone once said that wherever I am is the perfect picture," long-time famed sports photographer Walter Iooss Jr told WPB Magazine, "I didn’t like the way it sounded but I believe that. It’s not that I’m positive of it deep down inside, it’s that I have to believe it. When you make that decision – ‘This is the place to go’ – you’ve got to live with it. There’s no alternative.”

As a young photojournalist, I followed the career of Iooss, the undisputed maestro of sports photography, boasting an exceptional career that spans over four decades. His iconic photographs of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, the memorable “catch” by Dwight Clark during the 1982 NFC Championship Game, and dazzling portraits of basketball superstar Michael Jordan have been showcased in Sports Illustrated where he has over 300 covers to his credit.

Eppies Great Race training

“Photography is not a job. It’s a way of life,” he told WPB Magazine,  “I live it, think it, and feel it. It’s just in my DNA. I’ve always felt the moment."

I feel the same way. I just love taking pictures of special ripples in time and telling stories. For most of my life, I worked as a photojournalist in both print and broadcast media in a daily grind of trying to provide storytelling images or video to the folks reading the paper or watching their local TV news. At the end of every year, I would usually gather up my best of the best pictures or TV clips and send them off to an array of contests and judgings.

50+ plus paddle with Current Adventures

I won a few awards but never lost. As Iooss has said, the real joy of photography is in the discovery and magic of the moments like shots of Current Adventures' John Weed providing protection while shadowing a young paddler through his first rapid, an anniversary kiss on the water and an Eppies racing smile.
There is one of a lone paddler in the smokey veil of a wildfire and another of my wife Debbie paddling past the remnants of a past fire. There is fun on a glow paddle with Bayside Adventure Sports but also the slog of a portage back up river.

The Lower American River

“Passion, curiosity, excellence, the drive to always want to do it well,” he said Iooss, “You have to reinvent yourself. You can’t stay in one spot.”
So as 2018 draws to a close, I look back at some of my favorite moments I had kayaking with this past year.

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Current Adventures Kid Classes

Current Adventures Kid Class

Eppies Great Race training

Lake Jenkinson

Stumpy Meadows

Lake Natoma

Duck photobomb

Glow Paddle with Bayside Adventure Sports

The Lower American River

SEEKING THE STRAITS OF ANIAN

Darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. -- J.R.R. Tolkien

It's a gray day along the coast. In the distance I can see a pair of sea kayakers, just specks silhouetted against the silvery sky and water, dipping in an out of sight with each heave of the ocean.

“A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it," wrote American writer Stephen Crane in his classic tale The Open Boat.

Kayaking in La Jolla Cove

Closer to shore, waves one after another pound the rugged rocky coastline in a rhythmic display of rolling crashing curls, foam and spray. It's pure reverie to watch from my panoramic view from a seaside cliff overlooking La Jolla Cove north of San Diego, California.

At low tide, this rocky beach reveals fascinating pools of water with full of strange and mysterious sea life. Nearby is the Children’s Pool, a seawall built to protect kids from incoming waves, but now it has been taken over by the local harbor seal population during annual seal pupping season. They rest on the beach with little interest to the tourists taking cell phone pictures. I'll walk out along the well-worn path of the seawall for a close-up view of this marine world.

The Children's Pool in La Jolla

It's a crossroads in a way. A place of safety and trust inside the protected cove, while just to other side of the seawall there is an inspirational and yet formidable view of uncertainty where the future rises and falls with each wave. It's almost summer and big adventures are what lay ahead, but only after leaving the security of the cove. The journey awaits. You can look, but there are no shortcuts.

In June 1542, Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo departed from the West Coast of Mexico and sailed northward along the coastline of the Pacific in search of the Strait of Anian, the mythical all-water route across North America, a cousin in sorts to the legendary Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Since Columbus' voyages, Europeans had hopes of finding a shorter route to the Orient. Once, realizing that North America was not India but an entirely different continent, the explorers still thought that an elusive all-water navigable route through the New World might be found.

Hugging the coastline and repeatedly sailing east into any promising bay or cove that would hopefully lead to the Strait of Anian, Cabrillo became one of the first Europeans to explore what would become California's coastline. He is credited with the discovering San Diego Bay, Santa Catalina Island, San Clemente, San Pedro Bay and Monterey Bay, yet totally missed the fog encased San Francisco Bay. He got as far as the Russian River before turning back.

Portaging on the American River

Cabrillo died after a wound became infected by gangrene on the return voyage and
his discoveries went unnoticed because all of the expedition records were lost after his death.
Of course, he failed to discover the Strait of Anian. That southern shortcut linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would never be found.  It would take another 363 years before an Arctic explorer would make the first all-water crossing over North America. Cold and far too treacherous it was hardly a shortcut to the Orient.

I look out over the horizon of the ocean at the end of the seawall. From this point, I can feel the ebb and flow of the sea run through me. The salty air kisses my lips and the ocean spray licks my feet. I imagine Cabrillo expedition sailing past me and exploring the bay. I know the magic of travel by way of water. It’s that time of year again. The water is calling, beckoning us to come on out and explore and search for the quickest route. But beware, as J.R.R. Tolkien, warned, “Shortcuts make long delays.” Until then, be smart, have fun, and be safe!

The American River

Here is a look at some of my favorite images from this year so far. 

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Lake Natoma

North Fork of the American River

The River Store

Stumpy Meadows

Paddling with Current Adventures

A sunset paddle on Lake Natoma