"His home, his digital photographs, film negatives, family heirlooms, clothes and everything he owned is gone."

The recent fires in Washington and Oregon have devastated so many. As an Oregonian, I watched in horror as complete towns became engulfed in flames, entire regions laid bare. The Pacific Northwest’s surf community is small and tight and I discovered, yesterday, that the legendary PNW surf photographer Mark McInnis had lost everything as his house burned to the ground.

Chris Burkard, who recently appeared on Dirty Water and is very near a saint, set up a Go Fund Me for his good friend, writing:

Friend & photographer, Mark McInnis, has brought joy to many with his images of distant waves and remote landscapes. He recently moved back to his home in the PNW only to have the recent Holiday Farm Fire completely decimate the community of Blue River, Oregon. And with it, his home. The salt in the wound is that this tragedy occurred just prior to finishing a year long project of backing up his entire collection of images offsite. He was left with nothing. His home, his digital photographs, film negatives, family heirlooms, clothes and everything he owned is gone. We are talking well over six figures of loss. The harsh reality that Mark’s cameras and entire library of images and backups were all set ablaze is a learning lesson for any creative person, especially when your livelihood depends on it. My hope is that we can give back to Mark to get him back on his feet and hopefully repay the joy that he has given all of us through his photographs. And, for the record, Mark refused to set this up himself. It took some harsh words from a friend for Mark to realize that we are grieving as he grieves and that the way we heal, is to help. So while he may not ask for help, but he genuinely needs it. Furthermore, in true McInnis fashion, Mark is insisting on donating 10% of all donations over the $30,000 mark to The Upper McKenzie and Volunteer Firefighter Relief Fund. Thank you in advance for supporting my great friend, a valued member of the photography community and an inspiration to us all.

If you have every enjoyed McInnis’s beautiful work, or care to help, please click here.

And thank you.

Extremely troubling.

The end of humanity is just over the horizon, without a doubt, what with pandemic, climate change, an increasingly belligerent China, a looming Joe Biden and/or Donald Trump presidency etc. but I feel we have our eyes on these threats and will handle by hook or crook.

It is the sneaky terrors that will undo us. Tik Tok, for example, or pods of Killer Whales carrying out orchestrated attacks on our boats.

But let us travel to the Spanish/Portuguese coast where nine orcas are wreaking, reeking, wrecking havoc and causing very much alarm.

Sailors in those waters have made multiple distress calls in the past two months and let us read Victoria Morris’s account. She happened to be on a 46-foot delivery boat and says that the whales continuously rammed it for over an hour, spinning it around and breaking the engine.

“The noise was really scary. They were ramming the keel, there was this horrible echo, I thought they could capsize the boat. And this deafening noise as they communicated, whistling to each other. It was so loud that we had to shout.”

Days earlier, Nick Giles was out sailing his 34-foot yacht when the wheel suddenly jerked and he heard what sounded like a sledgehammer.

“The boat lifted up half a foot and I was pushed by a second whale from behind.” While he was resetting the cables an orca hit again, “nearly chopping off my fingers in the mechanism.”

On yet another delivery boat, a crewman’s shoulder was nearly dislocated after an attack.

Researchers are very confused as this behavior is not common. Ruth Esteban, who has also studied the region’s orcas extensively, told a local newspaper that it was unlikely multiple orca groups would display such unusual behavior and that a single group was therefore most likely responsible.

A gang.

A gang of toughs.

Street Killer Whales with devil may care attitudes, smoking cigarettes etc. Making lewd comments at passing Killer Whale dames.

And you are certainly aware of T.S. Eliot’s famous phrase from The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Wrong, I suppose, and should be re-written:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a horrible echo.
I thought they could capsize the boat.
And this deafening noise as they communicated,
whistling to each other.
It was so loud that we had to shout.