By JIM WHITING
For the Review
Late tomorrow morning, Bainbridge resident Mark Powell plans to slip into Rich Passage from the Fort Ward boat launch, swim in a circle and come back out.
The swim will mark the completion of a project that began last October: to swim around the island in one-mile increments, wearing a mask and breathing through a snorkel to see the underwater world beneath him.
Having covered an estimated 40 miles in 38 separate swims, Powell is ready to celebrate. He has issued an open invitation to islanders to join him and his friends for an impromptu picnic in the Fort Ward picnic area when he emerges from the water between noon and 1 p.m.
“I got the idea late last summer,” Powell said. “I felt disconnected from the town and the island. I am local but didn’t do any local work. And my butt was tired from sitting in a chair all day.”
Like many islanders, Powell was a telecommuter, working for Washington, D.C.-based Ocean Conservancy. The job was a logical outgrowth of his life experiences.
“I grew up with the ocean,” he said. “My earliest memories are fishing with my dad. I even had a short stint as a commercial fisherman.”
After graduating from Reed College, Powell did graduate work at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. He eventually wound up teaching marine science at the University of Connecticut.
“I got tired of documenting the decline of things I care about,” he said. “There was no support for changing things. My department head even said, ‘I’m an ecologist, not an environmentalist and you should be too.’”
In order to become an environmentalist, Powell moved back to his native Oregon, then came to Bainbridge about seven years ago.
The idea for the swim likely began germinating during his frequent runs through Fort Ward State Park, going to and from his home on the heights above the park.
“I ran past the boat ramp at least a thousand times,” he said. “I’d seen the water in all conditions. I could feel the underwater too.
“I wanted an ongoing project, something more than a series of one-day trips. It just seemed like an obvious thing to try.”
Nevertheless, he had reservations.
He wondered if he should make careful preparations, secure the right gear, consult charts, and so on. There were safety issues as well. The thought of swimming alone made him nervous. He also wasn’t sure if he might find predators lurking near the salmon farm just south of the park.
“Then I realized if I waited until everything was just right, I’d never do it,” he said. “So I decided to get in the water and see what would happen.
“My gear (a full body wetsuit over a shorty) is pretty floaty, and I always stayed fairly close to shore.”
In addition, he has extensive experience in open water swimming and windsurfing.
Any lingering concerns quickly vanished as soon as he began swimming.
“Within a couple of days, it became incredibly compelling,” he said. “I’d go out once or twice a week, depending on conditions.
“A lot of the fun is seeing the bottom and the animals there. That usually meant going out when it was calm and sunny. Otherwise the bottom would be stirred up too much to see.”
He realized that he wouldn’t be covering every mile of the island’s coastline. In places such as Blakely Harbor and Eagle Harbor, he’d swim until the water became murky, then come back out.
Those less-than-stellar experiences were more than balanced by what he termed “some really incredible coast.”
Point White, for example, “was fantastic. Boulders, kelp forests, tons of fish, tons of crabs. I’d part the kelp with my hands to see what was inside.”
Powell also enjoyed Restoration Point, Wing Point and the small park just north of the entrance to Blakely Harbor.
One of his most memorable outings occurred when he was swept along by the current in Agate Passage with the incoming tide.
During the counter-clockwise circumnavigation, he had numerous close encounters of the marine kind which remain etched in his memory (as well as on his digital camera’s photo memory card). They included:
– Acres and acres of sand dollar beds;
– A pair of mating crabs;
– Two crabs fighting over a piece of fish;
– “Fried egg” jellyfish;
– Schools of perch among eelgrass beds.
There were surprises.
“Overall, conditions were better than I had expected,” he said. “Though I didn’t see as many fish as I had thought I would.”
Powell maintained a blog of his experiences during the swim. Now that it is over, he is considering writing a book.
“When I started, I didn’t know if it would all work out,” he said. “It wound up having more significance than I anticipated. Going full circle around the island coincided with going full circle with some other things.”
