"I have to think like an adult here." This is the response I was given by a friend of mine recently when I suggested to him that he should send an entry in to the IR Vacation to Hell. Don't get me wrong, this is a friend who I respect. The reason this stuck out in my mind is because I realized that I would never say something like, "I have to think like an adult here," and I certainly would not rationalize why I couldn't enter the IR event because of my adulthood, or lack thereof. This was one of his reasons for not being interested in the event. Now, if being and adult consists of restricting yourself from things such as the aforementioned then I have another quote for you from one of the greatest punk bands ever, The Descendents - "I don't want to grow up." My son agrees.


Sincerely,

Adult, Spencer Cooke

Here are some of my best friends "thinking like adults."

Recently Chris Gragtmans and I took a kayaking trip to BC's world class Skookumchuck wave. We had an awesome trip but were greatly disappointed that logging may drastically and negatively change the environment there.

Click here to watch the Skook Video from Effort.tv




Citizens of Egmont (Skookumchuck), BC and a group of concerned kayakers are making efforts to stop a logging operation that will threaten the water source for the town and no doubt leave a nasty eye sore for paddlers and other tourists to see. Please take a moment to write the forestry rep in Egmont, BC. THE DEADLINE to write IS JUNE 6th.

Please read this letter to kayakers from the Skook locals:

An Open Letter to all White Water Kayakers


The village of Egmont, BC, is asking for the help of all kayakers who have ridden (or aspire to ride) the waves of the Skookumchuck Rapids. We have learned that a logging company has acquired the logging license in this area. The logging plans involve three huge clear cuts on the local watershed with one that extends right to the Skookumchuck Trail within the Provincial Park. Also, there is a planned cutblock that would mow down the trees along Egmont Road from Highway 101 to North Lake; a huge cutblock off of Maple Road; and another cutblock on the watershed at the north end of Ruby Lake. As well, the company plans to log Sechelt Nation Reserve lands just inside the Sechelt Inlet just past the rapids.

The residents of Egmont asked if the logging company would take a sustainable logging approach but they said no and so the area's residents have said no to the logging company. We now ask for your support to keep the logging out of this area. We ask that you email the forestry rep before a June 6th deadline at
cam_forrester@dccnet.com
and copy that email to us at skookumnarrows@yahoo.ca

Please address your email to:

Cam Forrester, R.P.F., Consulting Forester
6231 Sunshine Coast Highway, Sechelt, BC V0N 3A7
Tel: 604-885-7142, Fax: 604-885-7112
Email: cam_forrester@dccnet.com


We will be posting all information about this proposed logging and our efforts to stop it on our blog at
www.saveourwatershed.com. We look forward to your support.

Sincerely,

Friends of Egmont

Click here to watch the Skook Video from Effort.tv including information regarding the logging.

And incredibly majestic scene.


If you have been to Skook you know how beautiful it is and that its beauty is worth preserving. You can make a difference by sending a short email protesting the logging operation.

Thanks,

Spencer Cooke, Effort.tv

so last night i had a surreal dream that i was at the green race and it was at the new river dries. everyone was getting ready for the race but there was this huge wave that looked awesome but it was diagonal so nobody could stay on it in a play boat. i'm not sure why they were in play boats for the race. then, jud watkins shows up in his international surf boat and starts ripping it up, doing all sorts of stylish tail slashes and blunts. the many spectators were impressed. later on chris gragtmans and i were getting ready for the green race in some house upstream from the wave and i looked down and saw some other guy in an ic boat surfing it up on the wave. for some reason i think it was some older british guy. not sure who but the reason i think that is because he was in one of those double dutch ic boats. then things go even more weird. somehow chris and i ended up going paddling somewhere else and suddenly realized that we missed the green race. chris was devastated and i told him not to worry about it because he could just tell people that he decided to skip a race so that he could train up really good for the next year. i'm not sure if he bought that but he didn't argue. after that i was suddenly paddling out in a surf break. i kept paddling through waves and just making it past each one but i could never quite get to the outside of the break. there was some kind of machinery driving up and down the sidelines of the break. i think it was one of those machines that paints the lines on highways. there was a guy standing on the side of he machine looking down. anyway, it was weird that there were sidelines. suddenly i was on what seemed to be a football field, but there were still waves and i was still in the break. only now the waves were coming through the ground so when a swell was moving toward me it looked like the mound of dirt that flies up in front of bugs bunnie's head when he trowels through the ground just under the surface. or like that creature in the movie tremors. or you know when the space ship crashes at the end of the movie men in black and all that dirt is flying up in front of it. that's kind of what it looked like, and the waves were really huge. i was paddling my butt off trying to make it to the outside of the break. i wanted to surf one of these giants so badly. they were shaped perfectly and looks so beautiful, all covered in grass and dirt. meanwhile there was a sports team, i think it was football, practicing on the field as well. every wave that i made it by was followed by another even larger one. finally when i made it to the outside of the break the waves subsided and now they were rolling up the astro turf and closing the stadium. the last thing is that i was sitting at the top of some stairs in a house. i thought i was at the top of a wave about to drop in but i turned out to be this staircase. it was kind of a suburbia house, like in christmas vacation. so i'm sitting there and i asked somebody (maybe it was clark w griswold) if i could catch this last wave before they rolled up the carpet. they said yeah that's fine. so i decided to drop in but all i really did was slide down these carpeted stairs on my butt, bump bump bump bump bump. i guess i was surf kayaking, not board surfing because the sitting down part makes sense. i woke up this morning once i got to the bottom of the stairs. i was dreaming hard and for some reason all of this stuck with me today so i decided to write it down.