A few months after we awarded a Lakie to the Inland Seas Education Association's boat, the S/V Inland Seas, Juliana Lusk reached out to me to say that they’d be doing some programming in Chicago over the summer and to invite me onto the boat to record an episode. Juliana reached out over email, which means her note went into the steaming dumpsterfire that is my inbox, so naturally I didn't see it for a long time. But Juliana was patient and understanding and we made a vague plan for me to come by when they were there in July.
And then this summer happened. For various reasons, it's been a challenging few months at TMATGL World Headquarters. Pro tip: to see how my life is going, check our release schedule. When we're missing deadlines or re-running too many old episodes, it means that Real Life or The Actual Parts of My Job That I Get Paid For are starting to pile up. This summer has been very much that.
So when it came time to wake up at 4:30 Eastern to make sure I made it to Chicago for an 8:30 Central boat launch, I wasn't feeling it. Energy was low, etc. Ever the consummate professional, though, I got in the car and headed up to meet the Inland Seas team and co-host Renie Miles. As soon as we got on the boat, though, all of the negativity was gone. We we sailing! On Lake Michigan! In a schooner, of all things! With kids from the Boys and Girls Club who were an absolute joy to be around and really seemed to love the experience!
It was a perfect-weather day, an absolutely lovely time with the (nearly all female, which we discuss in the episode) crew of the Inland Seas. I learned a lot and was able to forget some of the temporary challenges of life for a few hours. This was one of those special moments where I couldn't believe that I was getting paid to do this and it couldn't have come at a better time.
Sometimes, it's good to remember that saying 'yes' can be really rewarding.
Once we left shore, Renie and I realized that we didn't really have a "game plan" for how to make the episode happen. I had absolutely now idea. Renie, a pro, gently suggested that we should walk around and interview the Inland Seas team, which struck me as a good idea. So we did that, with a vague idea of how to string it all together to something semi-coherent. If we had an NPR budget and/or a reasonable amount of time, we could do something really cool with the sound. But we have a shoestring budget and were recording the day *after* the episode was supposed to be released, which is not ideal. So we just dumped the pile of recordings on our editor Quinn's desk and said..."Help? Please? And quickly?"
This episode is the result. I have no idea if it's broadly interesting or not, but it's a really nice document of a really nice time. Thanks to the Inland Seas Education Association for letting us on the boat and for doing such great work to help people appreciate the Great Lakes and Great Lakes science.
Questions or comments about the episode? You can use the comments feature on Substack or reply to this email. As an enticement, I'll even leave one brief story from the boat as the first comment on Substack; click through to read it.
Episode embeds are below, or you can check it out in your podcast app. As always, thanks for reading, and keep greating those lakes!
As promised, here's one story from the boat. Lily Heyns is the captain of the Inland Seas and, as such, she was kind of a serious person (at least at work). When I mentioned to her that they had won a Lakie award, she asked me "What does that do for us?". "Well, not much, I guess" I said, "It's just kind of a fun thing that we do."
So I described the different types of awards we give out (Great Lakes News of the Year, Great Lakes Science of the Year, that kind of thing)...as I was doing that, I realized that I didn't remember what they had won a Lakie for. So I looked it up on my phone as I was talking to Lily...scrolling through Science Podcast of the Year, Great Lakes Fact of the Year, etc., finally arriving at their award. The S/V Inland Seas had won a Lakie award for the...Great Lakes Non-Animal of the Year. Lily didn't break character when I told her this, but I also think she never looked at me the same way again.
Sigh.