Jul

A Ticket to Surf (No Fear)

by Eva Boynton on July 11, 2016

A shark fin in the ocean, prompting creative thinkers to invent shark repellent (image © DIgitalStorm/Thinkstock).

The shark fin—native to its ocean habitat and symbol of horror films.
© DigitalStorm/Thinkstock

Creative Thinkers Invent Shark Repellent

Ahhhh. A beach vacation with adventure—

Catching a wave in Australia

Diving in Hawaii’s coral reef

Kayaking the coast of California

You won’t be alone . . . dunah . . . dunah. That’s right, there will be other tourists there too! And of course, marine life, possibly sharks.

Surfers, who decide to play in the playground of a predator, are used to taking a ration of fear along for the ride. But now ocean enthusiasts and other creative thinkers have teamed up to develop a shark repellent that relaxes the mind and eliminates the fear for surfers.

And it just might provide an answer for coexisting with sharks, who are essential animals in the ocean environment.

A beach full of people, showing the need for a shark repellent by creative thinkers (image © Blackeyedog/Thinkstock)

Beach tourism is no longer two chairs on an empty beach.
© BlackEyedDog/Thinkstock

Too Much Fun In the Sun?

Why are shark attacks on the increase? The number of people in coastal waters has skyrocketed. For example, Toronga Conservation Society of Australia reports this population increase for Australia:

1900 = 3.7 million
1950 = 8.3 million
1990 = 17 million
2011 = 22.7 million
2014 = 23.5 million

Of course, more people going into the water will result in a higher chance for contact with marine life, including sharks.

A person giving surf lessons at the beach, showing the reason for creative thinkers to invent shark repellent (image © Anthony Ong).

Where there is an ocean to play in, there are surfers ready to play.
© Anthony Ong

The recent rise in shark attacks has set in motion reactions from governments, organizations, scientists, surfers, and other ocean enthusiasts.

The goal: reinstate a relaxed vibe by protecting ocean goers. Meeting this goal can manifest itself in government plans for shark culling—the trapping and killing of sharks—or lenient policies on hunting sharks for their fins. Even as shark numbers are decreasing, 100 million are being killed annually for shark fin soup in Asia.

But, what about the sharks?

Step into the Fins of a Shark

Sharks get a bad rap for simply surviving in their habitat.

Consider Hollywood horror movies like Jaws, Jaws 2, Cruel Jaws, and Jurassic Shark. In my opinion, they are due for a required disclaimer:

Beware! Side effects may include an irrational fear of the ocean and demonization of the shark species. Watch at your own risk.

In a real shark attack, the media often portrays the survivor as hero and the shark as villain. But it’s not that simple.

In reality, humans depend on sharks for keeping a natural balance in the ocean.

A shark swimming in the ocean, showing why creative thinkers invented shark repellent (image © Ajlber/Thinkstock).

Sharks are to be revered and respected in their blue home.
© Ajlber/Thinkstock

Sharks have been on earth for over 200 million years; humans, 200,000 years. We need sharks around because they eat marine animals that are sick and weak, leaving a healthier animal population in the ocean for the food we eat. Humans, as it turns out, are only accidental prey.

Graffiti of sharks and a sign against shark finning, showing why creative thinkers invented shark repellent (image © Nathan Garrison).

Graffiti in Wellington, New Zealand, protests shark finning and illustrates the first smiling shark.
© Nathan Garrison

Elyse Frankcom, who was bitten by a shark while guiding a scuba tour, supports shark protection. She explains that government money is better spent on investing in a solution that not only thinks about human safety but will also “preserve the wildlife in the ocean that’s a natural beauty and belongs there.”

Like-minded people began asking, “Might there be a way to protect both the ocean enthusiasts and the sharks?” That’s when the creative thinkers got going, and the idea of shark repellent was born.

The Science Behind Shark Repellent

Surfers, scientists and ocean enthusiasts put their heads together to invent products that allow people to have fun in the sun while protecting sharks living in their natural habitat.

How do the products work? Sharks use electroreception, an electrical signal detection that can spot prey without using their eyes.

An illustration of how sharks sense their prey, showing the danger to surfers and why creative thinkers invented shark repellent (image © Shark Shield).

How sharks sense prey
© Shark Shield

New products from both Sharkbanz and Shark Shield repel sharks by overriding that sense without causing long-term effects to the shark.

A woman surfer wearing a shark repellent bracelet, showing the invention of creative thinkers (image © Elyse Lu).

Shark repellent does not come in a can. It comes in a stylish Sharkbanz wrist band.
© Elyse Lu

Sharkbanz, a band placed on the wrist or ankle, sends out magnetic waves that disrupt the shark’s electroreception, and the shark abruptly turns around. Dr. Stroud, senior chemist for, a company researching shark repellent technology, explains it this way:

It is “like a person suddenly shining a very bright light in your eyes in a dark room, and it’s not pleasant.”

A spear fisherman swimming with shark repellent, showing the invention of creative thinkers (image © Jose Debassa).

“Save a shark. Use a Shark Shield.”
© Jose Debassa

The Shark Shield comes as a cord attached to the ankle or as an antenna connected to the grip pad of a surfboard. These send out electrical waves that cause short-term muscle spasms in the electroreceptors of sharks, also repelling them. They dart away into the blue.

Although Sharkbanz and Sharkshield cannot confirm 100% effectiveness as a repellent, they are absolutely effective in reducing the fears of surfers, divers, kayakers, swimmers, and spear fisherman.

As Dean Gregory from Perth in Western Australia says:

“It takes that little niggle out of the back of my mind, helps you relax and just surf.”

Protecting Surfers, Protecting Sharks

Lindsay Lyon, CEO and managing director of Shark Shield, explains,

“I’d say the biggest ‘Oh, I see’ moment in the business was realizing that selling on fear was a very bad thing. Our brand is about ‘enabling’ our customers to enjoy their adventure sport, it’s not about selling fear, this is the wrong approach.”

Reducing the fear also reduces the need for harmful action against sharks. A win-win for sharks and humans.

Those who enjoy using the ocean have a responsibility to preserve the habitat for all living things. Shark repellents are encouraging us in that direction: to find solutions that work for humans and for the animals in the natural environment we play in.

A surfer wearing shark repellent, showing how creative thinkers have found a solution (image © Josh Letchworth).

“Get out there. Surf without fear.”
© Josh Letchworth

Perhaps these Hong Kong children, creative thinkers themselves, said it best when they showed their respect for sharks on Kids Ocean Day:

Thank you, Lindsay from Shark Shield and Nathan from Sharkbanz, for providing me with information and photographs about shark repellent, and thank you especially for your conservation efforts.

Educate yourself about sharks and shark safety at Taronga (Conservation Society of Australia).

Check out shark myths at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton Comments

Adventure Travel/Innovations/Rides (Land, Sea, Air)/Worldwide Sites

Jun

When the Catch of the Day is a Cultural Experience

by Eva Boynton on June 13, 2016

The tail of a fish, symbolizing the fishing lessons that provided the writer an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

The catch of the day
© Eva Boynton

Fishing Lessons to Share

Travel is a sea of opportunity, but often one in which people and places come and go in a kind of “catch and release” game. And yet, travelers who take the time to dive into local waters, engaging with people from within the culture, often go home with a rich sense of satisfaction, anchored in the authentic cultural experience.

I know. I learned about that during an “Oh, I see” moment in Mazunte, Mexico, when fishing lessons from Melchor, a local fisherman, turned into a bigger catch of the day.

The local fisherman, who gave us fishing lessons, walks down a trail to his favorite fishing spot near Mazunte, Mexico, the site of an authentic cultural experience that enhanced the writer's travel memories (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor on his way to catch a fish
© Eva Boynton

Fishing for Local Knowledge

In Manzunte, my travel companion stumbled upon a group of local fisherman and struck up a conversation. Her show of interest and inquisitive mind were enough to land an invitation from Melchor to a day of casting the line ourselves.

“Hasta mañana!” we said, and the next day we were headed down a gorgeous trail to a rocky perch that overlooked the blue horizon of the sea.

A view from a cliff to a fishing spot by the ocean in Mazunte, Mexico, showing the site of fishing lessons that provided an authentic cultural experience for the writer. (image © Eva Boynton).

Local knowledge got us to this beautiful perch.
© Eva Boynton

We had arrived at Melchor’s local fishing spot, a place beyond any guide book, discovered through trial and error, tested and developed over time. The kind of place you get to only through “local knowledge.” Such places are windows to a culture’s customs and daily life, a gift to the traveler who reaches past the English-speaking tour guide.

Learning the Local Technique

Another gift of an authentic cultural experience is the insight that there are many ways to accomplish the same goal.

Take fishing, for example. Melchor and his family used a simple and effective technique. No fancy fishing pole. No net. Just a hook, bait, fishing line, and a cloth wrapped around the index finger and thumb for protection from the line.

Two people stringing fishing bait together, showing the fishing lessons learned from an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

The first step? Ready the bait.
© Eva Boynton

Through this technique, tools are simplified, the mind more creative and focused on the practice.

A hand holding fishing bait on the end of a hook, demonstrating part of the fishing lessons learned during an authentic cultural experience while traveling in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Hooked to cultural encounters
© Eva Boynton

With bait on the hook, the hook on the line, and the line wrapped around the fingers, Melchor and his family were ready to fish.

They swung the baited line around their heads, helicopter style. Then—one, two, three, swoop!—the line soared towards the sea.

Reeling the fishing line in has a specific form and precision as well. Both hands hold the line, one hand brings the line to the other, forming a swift and constant crossing motion. This technique reels in the line without getting it into a tangled mess.

Melchor and his family were experts.

A boy throwing a fishing line into the ocean, as he demonstrates part of fishing lessons learned during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

The pro at work
© Eva Boynton

Trying Our Hand

After watching from the shade of the rocks, it was time to apply our fishing lessons. We stepped into the sun and took a stab at fishing with the local technique.

After her fishing lessons, a girl throws a fishing line into the ocean, during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

My friends give it a go.
© Eva Boynton

Sure, it may sound simple—fishing with only a string and bait—but we soon hit the rocks, literally.

A local fisherman gives us fishing lessons as he demonstrates setting a fishing line free from the rocks and teaches the writer a lesson during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor works his magic to free
my line from the rocks.
© Eva Boynton

I threw my line into the sea. That went well.

When I felt my first mighty tug, I began pulling in my line haphazardly, using the local crossing-arm technique. I expected to pull out a sizable fish.

But the pull I felt was nothing more than my novice hands reeling too slowly and unsteadily, and the bait lodged in a crevice between two rocks. My catch of the day: a sizable boulder.

Fishing line, we also discovered, is one hundred times harder to untangle than a box of last year’s Christmas lights. With untrained hands, we often reeled the line into microscopic knots.

Melchor and his family patiently helped us out of trouble. We were no longer just travelers passing through. We were students gaining local knowledge from Melchor and his family, our teachers.

A boy untangling fishing line as he offers fishing lessons during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor’s brother offers his practiced, agile hands to untangle my knotted line.
© Eva Boynton

Catching More than a Fish

At the end of the long day of fishing, we triumphantly returned to our campsite with a 3-foot-long blue beauty. Melchor had caught the fish, the only one that day, and handed it over to us so we could experience the local cuisine.

The head of a fish caught during an authentic cultural experience in which local fishermen offered the writer fishing lessons in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

Melchor’s generous gift was bigger than a big fish.
© Eva Boynton

On our small camp stove, we cooked fish tacos, thankful for the local flavors that had spiced up our dinner and our lives. We had learned the power of engaging and exchanging.

A pan of cooking fish, the result of some fishing lessons that were part of an authentic cultural experience in Mexico (image © Eva Boynton).

A tasty exchange
between cultures
© Eva Boynton

Our willingness to meet and learn had given us new friends, unexpected skills, insights, and a tasty meal. The cultural experience enriched our trip and deepened our connection with Mexico.

From their fishing lessons, Melchor and his family gained in the exchange, too. Sharing local knowledge is an empowering opportunity to teach others about your culture and daily life. And that’s no fish tale.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 5 Comments

Crossing Cultures/Mexico

May

The Travel Sketchbook

by Eva Boynton on May 23, 2016

A hand holding a travel sketchbook on a hike, illustrating that many an aha moment waits inside. (image © Kolby Kirk).

Sketchbook in chest pocket, Kolby Kirk is always ready to draw on the trail.
© Kolby Kirk

There’s an Aha Moment on Every Page!

For me, it’s impossible to start a trip without this one essential item: my travel sketchbook. It is my eyes, my memory, my inquisitive mind on paper. Together we take on the world.

It is in the act of drawing that I learn to look, listen, perceive, and remember. In fact, I have not experienced a place fully unless I have sketched it.

Drawing of a jungle collection and inside of a house, showing an aha moment within a travel sketchbook (image © Eva Boynton).

For travel sketchers like me, there is something powerful in the act of drawing—the magnetic draw to draw. The gift back is a travel sketchbook that offers surprises, discoveries, and a souvenir collection of aha moments.

OIC Insights about Time

It was during a train adventure from Chicago to Los Angeles that Ken Avidor sketched the changing landscape. In the process, he realized he could record the passage of time on a single page—something impossible to find in a snapshot.

Roberta and Ken Avidor may be the ultimate sketching duo, always set to travel! They live in an apartment at the Union Train Station with no car and two folding bicycles. At a moment’s notice, they hop a train with travel sketchbook in hand to discover and draw.

A drawing in a sketchbook of scenes from a train window, showing an aha moment about capturing time in a travel sketchbook (image © Ken Avidor).

Travel is about movement and each travel sketchbook captures the changing frontiers. Ken Avidor explains, “The thought that often occurs to me is I am the first person to sketch this. . . . It’s kind of territorial, like a dog marking a tree.”

Roberta had another insight about time. Unlike photographers, she was able, through her drawings, to invent, erase, stylize and organize how things changed in front of her eyes. On this page of Roberta’s travel sketchbook, she captures the transition from city to country.

Drawing of New York City apartments fading into Indiana fields, showing an aha moment in the travel sketchbook (image © Roberta Avidor).

OIC a New Strategy for Preserving Memories

In the pages of Suzanne Cabrera’s travel sketchbook, she embeds clues to preserving memories. Like a detective or archeologist, Cabrera often sketches single details that connect to a story (or create one!) and forever solidify a memory.

Drawing of a stapler, showing the aha moment of a travel sketchbook (image © Suzanne Cabrera).

A drawing of a bag on the ground, a clue to a aha moment (image © Suzanne Cabrera).

Cabrera says, “Ask me what I did this time last week and I may not have the slightest clue. Ask me what was going on in any drawing I’ve included here—even one that dates back years ago—and I can tell you everything.”

For her, the small and unremarkable provide powerful connections (like pieces in a mind puzzle) to a particular experience or story. Often Cabrera’s travel sketchbook reflects her perusing mind. It offers a blank page to clarify her personal thoughts.

Drawing of a man, showing an aha moment in a travel sketchbook (image © Suzanne Cabrera).

In her sketchbook, Suzanne sees clues to her travel memories. I see clues to an aha moment: drawing creates narrative, an illustrated autobiography of the sketcher’s memories, perceptions at the time, and later reflections.

OIC So Many Ways to Sense a Place

When Fabio Consoli packed for his world bicycle trip, he made sure to find space for an important tool: the travel sketchbook. Pedaling on bicycle creates an intimate connection to a place, experiencing the elements of the environment first-hand. Consoli found a similar experience with his travel sketchbook.

A drawing of a bicycle and cycle kit, showing the aha moment of the travel sketchbook (image © Fabio Consoli).

While perusing the souks (markets) of Marrakech, Consoli discovered a red pigment that he could mix and use as watercolor. Then he happened upon a bigger discovery: the use of local materials in his travel sketchbook gave him an even greater sense of place. The smell and taste of his materials instilled a memory of his travel moments in a way that an image cannot.

Scene from a travel sketchbook reveals the artist's aha moment. (Image © Fabio Consoli)

Consoli talks about his many travel destinations: “I don’t choose the places because they are interesting to draw. In reality, it’s the place that chooses me.”

And Consoli brings home a bit of each place in his sketchbook. He now uses local fruit, coffee, soy sauce, and wine for color in the location he is drawing. His sketchbook not only serves as a visual memoir but an ongoing sensory experience of the places he has visited.

OIC a Great Way to Slow Down and Focus

If you decide to walk the forests of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) or hike the steep stairs to Machu Picchu, you might run into Kolby Kirk sketching a tree, a bird, a noteworthy leaf, or an ancient ruin.

A journal with writing and drawing of a campsite, showing the aha moment of the travel sketchbook (image © Kolby Kirk).

In 2001 Kirk backpacked around Europe, all the while sketching and writing. His aha moment came at the Temple of Apollo in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy. While drawing, he was flooded by a herd of tourists who snapped photos and rushed on to their next site.

Kolby Kirk explains, “I realized that the act of sketching—paying close attention to the details of the scene—was etching this moment into my long-term memory. I can still remember that day, that moment even, now nearly fifteen years ago. I wonder if the same could be said by those tourists?”

A sketchbook with drawings of Pompeii and writing, showing the aha moment of the travel sketchbook (image © Kolby Kirk).

In Kirk’s sketchbook he gives time and appreciation to a place and, thus, sketching becomes an act of compassion giving him time to look, draw, and study his surroundings.

OIC Power in the Travel Sketchbook

Each mark made in the travel sketchbook absorbs the artist’s experience of a place and imprints its memory.

Drawing of a cactus by an eight-year-old, showing an aha moment uncovered in a travel sketchbook (drawing © Charlotte Conk).

While cycling in Mexico, I met a family of cyclists who were traveling with their sketchbooks on a trip from Canada to Panama.

I asked eight-year-old Charlotte Conk what she had learned from drawing during her travels. She replied with a smile:

“That the arms of people do not go on their head.”

Her travel sketchbook is a portfolio that shows a developing eye.

Charlotte’s aha moment—learning to look a little harder—is powerful in its simplicity, providing an insight that she’ll use the rest of her life.

Thank you to Roberta and Ken Avidor and Jefferson Lines, Suzanne Cabrera, Fabio Consoli, Kolby Kirk, Charlotte Conk, and all the other artists who offered photos from their sketchbooks. Thank you for inspiring me to continue my travel sketchbook!