Leif and Natalie

Buddha, excited about Skook. As graduate students, Natalie and I have the best of both worlds: school vacations AND salaries. While most working stiffs got maybe a four day weekend to celebrate american thanksgiving, Natalie and I got a full 9 days, and then we even skipped out a day early for maximum slacking. Life is good. We used these precious days for a trip to the land of awesome; the pacific northwest. (The Slave was frozen over, so we couldn't paddle there.) First we drove through the night to Skook, and spent four days getting up before dawn to catch the good tides. The first day was particularly special, since we had misjudged the timing by at least half an hour, and ended up paddling in to the wave while it was still pitch black. We made it safely to the eddy above the wave, but even after getting out of our boats on shore it was too dark to see the wave. We paddled with Will Parham, Megan Harpam, and Natalie's brother Russell. Good times were had by all. Rus