Talking with Whales

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I’ve kayaked seas frothing to the horizons with bottlenose dolphin – babies jumping at eye level across my kayak, squeaking joy with sparkles in their eyes – as they do a 360 spin a half meter before my eyes. (w/ Sharon Sutter, M.P.H.) 


I’ve enjoyed eye-to-eye conversations with mother humpbacks parading their calves between us - only two meters separating our eyeballs. (w/ Gene Kawaguchi, M.D.) 

An adult humpback passes below my kayak, makes eye contact, saying “Watch this” from underwater, then breeches totally airborne only meters from my kayak. (Several times with customers off Diamond Head.) 


While sailing, my Sea Shepherd hat goes airborne. We can’t turn around. Four hundred meters downwind, a pod of humpbacks breaches around the floating hat, jumping with joy. How did they know? (w/ Jerry Jones, Electrical Contractor.) 


Incredulous, I always enjoy, then drop my jaw “Why did you do that?” They always reply “Because we can. We love humans.” 

Cetaceans are the Humans of the Sea. Check out their pectoral bone structure. It’s a human hand. Unlike humans, they know the bond, converse with us – and love it. 


Instinct tells the Family of Man that killing cetaceans is wrong, but like any serial killer, cetacean hunters do it anyway. They represent the worst of humanity. I am embarrassed we share the same genes. 


Anybody who kills a whale, dolphin or porpoise is as demented as a Nazi during the Holocaust – and I do not trivialize those horrible times. 


Basic human instinct says all Japanese, Danes, Norwegians and Icelanders proud of their culture should be ashamed of their compatriots who commit these horrible crimes. 

Create a culture that makes your children truly proud. 

Do you have the pride and the passion to say “Not In My House”, Not Anymore.”? 

Why is this Genocide even an issue?

See you on the water, Ling Yai (Thai for 'Big Monkey') AKA John Caveman Gray

             

US Politics (3 of 3)

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If we ever expect liberalism to carry the day, we have to clean our own house and rid ourselves of the Emanuel’s of the World.  Obama MUST focus his persuasive powers on "Doing The right Thing", damn the consequences.  (In my life, I always select the “Right Thing” over expediency and it has never failed me in the long run.)


Tell the Japanese to forget the American market until they stop the genocide of whaling – bring jobs back to America.  We should also reduce the deficit by starting Class Action lawsuits on the various sins of Chinese imports - tainted goods, computers, intellectual property rights, sweat shop labor and all the rest.  The suits are open and shut cases, and we take the judgments from our current accounts deficit and put them money into the hands of American consumers.  If that starts a trade war, so be it – again, we bring jobs back to American workers.


Doing the Right thing is never easy, especially in the short run, but it’s what built America.  Just look at our historical greats - we remember them exactly because they did the right thing in the face of adversity.  Going to bed with Wall Street and having Emanuel as your right hand man will not lead to the solutions America needs right now.  


See you on the water, Ling Yai (Thai for 'Big Monkey') AKA John Caveman Gray

             

My thoughts to Mee Mee

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Recently a member of John Gray's staff 'Mee Mee' drowned during a kayak tour in Phang Nga Bay. 


Mee Mee drowned after he apparently had a diabetic seizure after diving into the sea during a routine tour of Koh Hong in Krabi.


The comments below are from a post from the Phuket Gazette.

Thanks to everybody for your thoughts, it means a lot. 

After 27 years of extreme kayaking, especially in Hawaii, it was ironic and frustrating to lose Mee Mee in perfect conditions on a sunny, calm day – with four guides standing watch. 

To Phuket Paradise, desk jobs are JGSC policy in these situations, but Mee Mee said he had doctors approval and "love my job so much."

US Politics (2 of 3)

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Health Care "reform" and the rise of Fox News and the Tea party movement - with no effective retort from the Obama Administration (read "Chief of Staff") - spelled doom for truly effective change - now the door is closed thanks to Emanuel's power tripping.  No matter how slick Obama may be, he will always be ineffective with Washington insiders as long as his team includes the Emanuel's of the world.  


The man is a centipede in the World of Politics, and a mental scapegoat for any moderate Republican considering Obama's persuasive powers. Even when "Slick Barack" persuades a moderate Republican, there is a tiny voice in the back of the brain saying "Remember Emanual".  Unfortunately, Israel is full of Emanuel's, which makes a solution to the World's #1 political issue almost impossible.  


Don't get me wrong.  Both sides in this pressing issue have their share of jerks, but Emanuel is so inflammatory it’s almost impossible to find a solution to Israel-Palestine, and impossible if the Emanuel lightning rod remains in the White House.  I certainly hope for a solution in the current negotiations (if we can ever trust Netanyahu, another disgusting character from the same mold as Emanuel).


All this negative energy is exactly what Fox News preys on, and now we have the Tea Party jerks.  If they aren't racist, where were they during Reagan-Bush-Bush? The reality is they are here now thanks to Fox News, and they feed off Democrats like Emanuel and Rangel. 


 you on the water, Ling Yai (Thai for 'Big Monkey') AKA John Caveman Gray

             

US Politics (1 of 3)

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I've been following politics since the 1952 conventions - B&W and floor fights too.  Those were exciting days.  One thing I learned was to "Follow The Money".  The first thing I looked at in Obama's campaign were all the Wall Street campaign contributions.  

Ominous.

Then I "met" Rahm on the Tube. Before he opened his mouth his body language told me “Here is a real Jerk”.  I knew we would win thanks to Obama's charisma (especially after Sarah Palin's VP selection) but I knew all was already lost.  Even behind the scenes, Rahm is such an acerbic, foul mouthed jerk he nullifies Obama's polish.  It also telegraphed to the Muslim world that nothing would change in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and we were in for a rough ride.  


Emanuel was such a bad decision that it brings Obama's judgment into question.  When he stumped on "Change We Can Believe In", in fact it is politics as usual.


Ken Salazar was another disingenuous selection that violated “Doing the right thing.” I'm a naturalist, and wildlife/conservation issues are important to me.  Obama went to school in my Honolulu neighborhood, so I expected far more from him in focusing on Nature.  Many Hawai'i residents consider whaling as Genocide, but Barack has totally ignored wildlife and the environment - very unusual for an "Akamai" Hawai'i resident.  By playing politics with Wall Street, making Washington Insiders and the rest of us endure Emanuel, and ignoring conservation issues, Obama told us that "Change We Can Believe In" was just a campaign slogan.  



See you on the water, Ling Yai (Thai for 'Big Monkey') AKA John Caveman Gray

             

Phang Nga Reality (2 of 2)

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You remember the multi-lingual cartoons Oh displayed?  

I've offered them to all the companies, and the Harbors department, and the TAT - for free to use in their briefings and display on the piers.  It's isn't a brick wall, but the vapors of a mental vacuum that greets the idea.  Nobody cares.  The other companies have briefings.  The only one I've heard was four lines:

"Hey Mister, you go Patong last night?"

"Did your wife enjoy the woman you take?"

"Are you sure that was a woman, and not a Katoy?"

"Don't worry; your children are too young to know the difference!"

Now you know what speedboat owners think of tourists.  Can this mentality even understand quiet in the Hong, or environmental quality, or safety training?

I only founded the industry, and on my 20 year anniversary I was actually invited to be a training guide (they kidnapped 12 of my guides at once to break our quality, so I demanded to be a training guide.)  I got to go on a trip to James Bond (gag me with a spoon). 


There were five other training guides - one a National Geographic Scuba operator - but no kayakers.  When they went to James Bond, I asked my guides if the vendors still had the baby gibbon, and if so, did the trainers complain or at least educate the participants?  "There wasn't just one gibbon, there were four.  Twenty other mothers and babies died before those four survived their fall, but all the trainers just walked by as if it was normal, and never said a word."  

The next day when I gave a 3-hour lecture about 200 attended and were riveted.  They got the message but have no back-up from their owners.  When I talked about how bad it is to feel bananas to the macaques, 50 others walked out en mass, but graduated anyway. 

When I came here, I knew it would be tough.  In Hawai'i, I made more in a week than I do here in a year. and Phuket's cost of living isn't cheap.  I knew I would not see the fruits of my labor in my lifetime, but we have to start somewhere, and if it isn't here, now, we will lose the Planet.

Unfortunately, my 21 year experiment says we aren't going to make it.  We truly are nothing but overgrown monkeys, and the speedboat operators of the World prevail because they have no ethics, but a lot of corruption.  

So what keeps me going?  I've always had the spirit, and the resolve, to make a difference no matter the cost.  And I’ve got a friend who works for the World Bank who shares my ethic.  He's Ph.D. Economics from Berkeley, I'm academic scholarship UCLA.  My friend could be on Wall Street in a cushy office, but he takes on the most difficult assignments.  When we met, he was a Sub-Saharan Africa specialist - the garden spots of Chad, Niger, etc.  He went to Indonesia, and then managed the Amazon Rain Forest Protection Project.  World Bank said five years in that hot seat was enough, so he could take any posting he wanted.  He returned to Indonesia, and now he's splitting his time in Haiti.  

Sure, I'm trying to change the World with "Natural History By Sea Kayaking Since 1983" but my friend, and thousands more like him, contribute far more than I.

I only wish I could get those volume controls introduced - and get the other companies to stop shouting.  They treat the Hongs like they are Patong.  Despite their wealth, or perhaps in pursuit of wealth, my Gift to Thailand is merely Pearls Before Swine.

See you on the water, Ling Yai (Thai for 'Big Monkey') AKA John Caveman Gray