Foiling Alaska with Sensi Graves & Brandon Scheid | The Foiling Magazine (Ep.151)

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. On this episode we sit down with Sensi Graves and her husband Brandon Scheid for a deep look at their recent family foiling trip to Alaska with Alaska Coastal Explorer. This was an epic trip with lots of adventure and we have included some of their video footage on our YouTube version of the podcast near the end of the EP as a teaser so make sure to check out our YouTube channel.

[00:00:25] The article in the Foiling Magazine and the video for Armstrong Foils is tabled to be released on November 12th. So if you're listening to this episode and you clicked on the QR code in the Foiling Magazine, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. If you're listening to it before, make sure to check out Armstrong Foils and the Foiling Magazine. So we do hope that you enjoy this episode. Next, we want to say a big thank you to our team. We have Frank, Stefan and Pam.

[00:00:54] Thank you for your hard work behind the scenes that makes this show possible. Next, thank you to our sponsors for the season. We have North Foils, Mystic and On Kiteboarding. We ask that you visit foillifepodcast.com forward slash sponsors to learn more about them. Also, if you are already, make sure to check out Exit Water Sports. They got some amazing products that are helping us get on the water, stay on the water longer.

[00:01:21] So make sure to check out Exit Water Sports to learn more about what they have to offer. Now, I hope you enjoy the show. Welcome to Foil Life. Whether you wing, kite, parowing, downwind, pump or e-foil, thanks for being here. Well, my friends, thanks for coming back on the show. It's been a while since I've seen you. Yeah, certainly. I think it was. As well as it was. You're welcome. I think it was last year we caught up about something.

[00:01:52] But we're going to chat about your brand new article in the Foiling Magazine, which is coming out next week. So I just want to give a big shout out. Awesome article. And how did you guys choose Alaska? That place looks epic. I've seen some stuff and some of that kind of back country camping and everything, but I'd never thought foiling. You want to take this one? Okay, I'll start. Two years ago. Was it two years ago? Four years ago. Four years ago. I can't keep time straight.

[00:02:21] We went up there to visit our friends. We have good friends that actually bought a fishing charter business a number of years ago. On Alaska Coastal Explorer. Mm-hmm. Alaska Coastal Explorer. Oh, nice. And they have been running amazing combination fish and sightseeing tours. And they have been like, you guys should come up. You guys should come up.

[00:02:41] And so in 2021, we made the trip up there the first time and had two nights on the boat and three full days catching halibut, going in fjords and looking at these beautiful icebergs and glaciers and just seeing epic Alaska Coastal. And it was one of the best trips we've ever taken. We had such a good time being completely off grid and just in the Alaska wilderness with our good friends.

[00:03:06] And then while we were on this boat, we were seeing all of these epic places that we had gotten a little bit of wind. And one of them was Bear Glacier. And we were like, oh my gosh, this would be an amazing spot to foil. Wow. This would be super cool. Just epic scenery. Brandon's always scheming. We kind of joke he's what's on this one personality called the yellow, which means he's really good at idea generation. And so he's always like, we should do this. We should do this and come in with really good ideas.

[00:03:35] So he was like, we should foil in here. It would be so cool to do a wing shoot here. And we actually in 2021 tried to do it. We brought wing gear and we ended up just going in off of one beach in Seward, which is where our friends are based out of. And barely. Yeah, it wasn't very good. We didn't score. We didn't really score the first time at all. So we were like, we have to go back. Yeah. So we kind of like planned a whole trip since he was how pregnant were you? Six months pregnant?

[00:04:05] I think five months. Five months pregnant. And we were like, we got to get this last trip out before we kind of have to slow down since he needs to stop riding. We wanted to generate some content in media for her sponsorship Armstrong and kind of keep us in the in the scene of kiteboarding. We wanted to do something fun that was memorable for both of us and for our son Flint.

[00:04:28] And we wanted to go visit our friends and try to achieve the wild dreams of foiling in and around glaciers, icebergs, catching fish, like the whole kind of Alaska dream. And so we pulled the trigger and rolled the dice. And you never know in Alaska because things are hard and the place is big and everything is like hard earned. But we pulled the trigger and actually kind of scored a little bit. Yeah, we got a bunch of good sessions and it was actually really good.

[00:04:54] Surprisingly, not surprisingly, but like surprisingly, I guess we had conditions this time. And a little bit of, I guess, drama or things happened, obviously, in the article as you're going to be reading next week. So some pretty cool stuff that's in there. But that must have been a very, should we say it? Should we say what you were filming? Maybe we should wait until they read the article, right?

[00:05:18] Something happened to the beautiful drone and we're not sure what you were filming, but hey, tooted to the article, folks. But how was that? A little stressful, right? To be honest with you. Putting all those pieces together. Well, you also read in the article, I'll let you take this in a second. But the morning of our shoot, our videographer didn't show up. And so we were waiting to go out on the boat to go film. We had two days on the boat. It was very limited time. Two half days was our plan. That's why.

[00:05:47] It's expensive to go out on that boat. My friends would pick this up. But the videographer didn't show up. So we're waiting like an hour and we're like, do we go? This whole thing is going to kind of fall apart without a videographer. Brandon had his drone. And so he was planning on shooting anyway. But then he really had to step up. So then, and then. What? The crash. Oh, that's not even to be worried about. To be honest with you, Alaska is really hard in general.

[00:06:15] Like getting to the location. You know, we find Anchorage is a three and a half hour drive to Seward. Um, the weather windows are extremely limited. Um, typically Alaska in the summer is real coastal. Alaska is very marine layer hit or miss. Um, you can have rain. And honestly, the forecast when we were getting ready to get on the plane looked terrible rain. Forties like, oh, we're like, okay, we're going into Alaska.

[00:06:43] And so freeze right out of the gate. It was already hard earned. We're like, oh man, we don't have good weather. We don't, we have to get to Seward. We got to Seward. The videographer didn't show up. We're kind of frazzled. Um, just a lot going on in general in life with a two year old, a pregnant person, a person with a brain injury, um, all the dynamics of, of couples integrating into someone's life. They had some pet issues. Everything was going wrong.

[00:07:10] And then on top of that, I crashed my drone trying to be David Attenborough and filming my own nature documentary. Really, um, just locked in on some stuff on the screen and forgetting that you need to remember what's around you when you're flying a drone and smash that thing into the cliff. And that lives in Alaska forever. Um, so we never got that back. We got the footage. Hey, awesome. How'd you get that? Um, was it like recording remotely to your device? How'd that work? You can turn on settings.

[00:07:40] Yeah, you can turn on settings that it banks the, the stuff into the controller in case you lose it and you need to watch the video to go find it. So I was banking the video into my controller just to make sure I had like coverage. And then when I lost the drone, we obviously were able to recover all that footage. And literally the day before, since he was like, you should back up the drone footage and I backed everything up. So we kind of had every, everything sorted. Luckily it was the second day.

[00:08:06] So we got our first day with the epic drone footage and we can show some of that in front of the glacier, which was, well, half of our goal. The other half we lost the drone for, but you still see going through the icebergs, going through the icebergs was just super cool. Yeah. Cool. Even without a drone. And what glacier was that? Was that the, uh, I don't know how to pronounce that name, but I-A-L-E-C. Yeah.

[00:08:30] So we went to I-A-L-E-C glacier, which is a big, um, glacial like runoff off the, um, harding ice field. There's a massive ice field and there's like a bunch of glaciers that squeeze out from it. And our captain Jason had told us, Hey, I heard that the pack ice is kind of not in front of I-A-L-E-C from the captains. Occasionally when I go there, there's what's called catabatic wind. So catabatic is downslope wind. So off-basically offshore wind.

[00:09:00] So because there's so much cold air up on the glacier field, it kind of falls off as, you know, cold air sinks. So it rolls off the glacier downhill into the water. And so on a fool's hope, there is literally like 15 knots of wind right up next to the, to the face of the glacier when it's coming offshore. And you'd think it makes no sense because it's like straight offshore. The glacier is like hundreds and hundreds of feet high. You're like, this would never work.

[00:09:29] But because of the catabatic wind flow down the slope, there actually is a pretty reliable, um, breeze. We were able to ride in front of the glacier for over an hour, um, before we were too cold and kind of over it. And not only did we have the wind, we had insane, that weather forecast never came to fruition. It was absolutely stunningly beautiful. It was like 50, 60 degrees. I was like shirt t-shirt, like you, it was beautiful.

[00:09:55] And we were able to essentially just drive for what? Five hours out to I-A-L-E-C, motored out for five hours, caught some fish, did some sightseeing, saw some whales on a fool's hope for 15 knots of straight offshore, maybe catabatic wind. And we got there and it was on so crazy. Oh, sick. Yeah. Well, I'm just going to say what we pulled up. It was like, there was a little bit, but I was like, there's no way it's going to work. And Brandon was like, I have my spidey senses tingling.

[00:10:25] I'm going to get my wetsuit and go. And it took him a second before I got off. And I was like, oh my gosh, is it going to work? And then, and then it turned on. So it was like, not quite where we first got there, but you, you know, he's got good senses. What do you mean? It was literally the same. It was the same when we started and when we got there, it's just a fool's hope. You just have to like, believe it's going to work because you're standing there straight offshore. It's freezing cold. You're like, why would I get in the water and do this? There's no way that this is going to happen.

[00:10:54] And I'm just always of the belief that like, you can just will things to happen if you believe in them. And so like, I just got my wetsuit got in the water and I water started like pretty quick. And I was like, it's working and get your stuff on, get ready. Um, yes, it was calving. It was, it was falling, blowing up like all the things that you would expect at the front of a very big glacier. It was really, really a special, um, little, little session.

[00:11:23] And all the tourist boats pulled out. We were able to pull the boat all the way up into the ice field, sit right in front of the glacier on the boat, wing right in front of the boat, shock us to my son Flint on the boat and sensei, like both following us. Like we had the, it all work, it all work. And you didn't hit any Titanic glaciers and, or icebergs and flip over or anything. It wasn't bad. No foil damage. Not in that spot. I, I did run into some icebergs at the second spot we went to.

[00:11:53] Um, but not at the first spot, the pack ice was, was wide enough that there was clear, undisturbed water in front of the, in front of the glacier. Oh, that'd be so sick. Actually. How cold is the water? Very cold. Like what were you wearing for suits? I don't know. Under 40 Fahrenheit. Under 40 Fahrenheit. 5'4", 5 mil gloves, 5 mil booties, cold, freezing cold. What is 40 Fahrenheit for a Celsius folks? When you jumped in the water, we both had holes in the crotch of our, we both had the

[00:12:22] seams in the crotches of our wetsuits were starting to deteriorate a little bit. You knew right away that your crotch was giving out when you jumped in the cold water. Very, very obvious where the holes in your wetsuit were. Yeah. That's four degree water. I think like in centigrade. Jesus. I don't know. What's that like five? Yeah. 4.4. So yeah. Five degrees. Yeah. But because it was sunny, it was, it was bearable.

[00:12:47] I think if it would have been cloudy, the forecast like it was supposed to be, we would have had a much harder time. But the sun, we were like, this is, we just really scored. Yeah. It was not supposed to do that. And for some reason the weather gods were smiling on us. Yeah. Nice. And what gear were you guys riding? I think it was a, what? 4.5 Armstrong wings. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The XPS. 4.5.

[00:13:14] That was actually our biggest size that we brought on the trip that we had to bring. My five meter didn't show up quite in time. But we did take our new, the 50, our 55 liter. We can share a lot of gear, which is nice, especially me being pregnant. I need to ride a little bit bigger gear. So the Mark II mid-length 55 liter was the one we were able to share. And so Brandon was able to get up on that in the lighter wind, which is awesome. I don't remember what foil we were riding. We were riding the, yeah.

[00:13:43] So we brought a slew of like UHAs, HAs, just kind of like light wind kind of specific foils. And for that particular day, we actually were using the 1080 HA. So kind of big, able to pump, fun turn, but really low end because our second goal was to actually be able to pump and kind of glide around in the zones and wake foil behind the boat and stuff.

[00:14:09] So we needed something that had a little bit more surface area than what we would maybe ride in a proper gorge session or something like that. So we brought kind of, for us, bottom of the barrel gear. 1080 is like as big as we ride, really. And you guys did end up pump foiling at the other glacier, right? Correct, yes. So after we went to Ialec and we got an actual wind session, we pulled up to this spot called Bear Glacier.

[00:14:39] And Bear Glacier is another big glacier coming off the Harding Ice Field, but it sits in this big glacial lake. So there's a river coming out of the glacial lake that you have to navigate, which is a whole adventure, like fill the pack wrap, peg the motor. We weren't even moving against the current. You have to go at the right tide so that it's draining. And so you go up this river into this big lake. And in this lake is like, think of the lake is filled with ice cubes.

[00:15:07] The icebergs break off of the glacier and then they float around in this big lake and kind of just like become amazing little floating icebergs. So we went up the river into that lake and then brought our wing stuff and that just in case it was windy. Ultimately, it wasn't windy there, but we had the dinghy and we had a maze of icebergs in which to navigate.

[00:15:31] So we basically did some wake foil slash pump foiling through like the maze of icebergs and that kind of stuff, which is actually kind of dangerous, to be honest with you. But we really didn't care because we were really excited. I didn't get that close. I was standing on them. I was fully in the mix. I was like, I'm going through this wide open gap.

[00:15:54] But yeah, so we were we were able to kind of like wakeboard behind the dinghy and then whip off of the dinghy and like just kind of pump and find like navigate navigatable routes through the icebergs. And you asked if I hit anything in that case. Yes, I did, because icebergs are way bigger underwater than they are above the water. So you're like going through these little runnel, these little narrow strips. You're like, oh, I can make it through there because you can see above the water. But underwater, there's not room.

[00:16:22] So I just like smash into icebergs and flop in the water and climb up on things and just total little kid moment. Now, Sensei, you saved him, right? It wasn't like Titanic where the poor man had to just freeze to death in the water. You would have brought him out, right? Yeah, we picked him back up. Ah, there you go. See? We picked him back up. You're loved. You're loved, Brandon. That would have been so fun to get out in that stuff. That would be really cool. Yeah. Oh, wow. And how was that for Flint?

[00:16:52] He said icebergs so many times on that trip, ice and glacier. He learned a lot of words. Ice, glacier, otter, seal. Yeah. Eagle. He absolutely loved being on the boat. Yeah, I would say he loved it. He loved fishing. He loved having his Alaska boots on. He would fall asleep in the cabin just like laid out and just like, just like as you would imagine at the time he was almost two. He wasn't quite two. So he's one in one year old, eight months.

[00:17:20] So, um, really special when we see, when we go through our books and look at seals and stuff, he says, Alaska, Alaska ice. So like he kind of remembers it in a weird way. Um, and for us, obviously insane family memories. We have some of the most beautiful photos and some of the best memories of, of a time that should be the time when you say my wife's five months pregnant.

[00:17:49] We're have a one year. We can't do any of this. We shouldn't do any, but we just say, yes, we're going to do this because we're not going to let, um, the fact that we have two children now kind of slow the, slow the adventure. It will slow our life down, but not the adventure. Hmm. Well, my buddy, I think has four now and he lives in Northern Alberta. He's camping everywhere. He's doing all these kinds of crazy adventures with his kids.

[00:18:16] And he's like, if you start them young enough, it's what they'd love and who they become. So it's just like, it is what it is. Get your, don't change your life in that way because why would they not love it? You love it. So it's pretty cool that you guys are able to combine all that together. And how's the new little one doing? He's doing great. He's doing great. He's six weeks old today and eating well, pretty content, not sleeping. So we're not really sleeping that much, but that's the hardest part.

[00:18:48] We were thinking about taking him to the coast this weekend, but we decided maybe not quite yet. Not quite yet. We're slowly, but we have been going to the hatchery. We went to the hatchery last night as a family, took everybody, got all the water, traded it off. So he's in the mix. Flint flew a pair wing. Flint successfully flew a pair wing for the first time. He was like, come on, watching it and like controlling it and getting it in the air. So he's right on track. Did you guys try to pair wing up there too in Alaska or you just winged?

[00:19:18] No, we didn't even bring them because there's just, it's not really known to be a strong wind location or big on waves, right? For me, the pair wing is really only fun when you can put it away. And if there's no waves or anything in which you can put it away, why not just use a regular wing? It's easier to generate power. It's more reliable. It's flotation in the cold water. It's, it's just makes more sense to just do the wing thing and guarantee you're going to get a session. Hmm.

[00:19:45] I'm still going back to how much, how cool that would have been to ride amongst all that ice. And so you guys were actually able to see the pieces like Cavoff or whatever fall in the water. How far away were you from them? 200 feet. A couple hundred years. Way, way too close. Maybe. And that, you talking about at Ialec? Yeah. At Ialec we were really in the mix. Yeah. They were falling. We had a huge one fall off that made, I was like, Oh, get me in the water. There's kind of going to be a wave. And we just couldn't make it happen.

[00:20:15] But yeah, big, big chunks all day. Cause it was sunny. Right? So not only was it like we're at the front of the glacier, it was actually proper sun. So everything was like, we pulled up, everything was kind of melting and popping and, and just kind of like doing its thing. So there's still ice up there, which is positive. The whole thing hasn't melted yet. Yet. Yeah. That was a conversation that we were having with Alaska Coastal and our friends, Debbie and Jason.

[00:20:43] And they've seen a lot of recession over the years. Not in a, not a good way. Um, so they were concerned and they really try to do a lot of eco, more eco tourism. They don't have any single use plastic on their boat. They try and they offset all of their carbon production. And they're really trying to show people wilderness. And that's one of our intentions with Flint as well. When people see something and they're in awe of what they're seeing, then they're more likely to protect it.

[00:21:11] And so that's a lot of their intention is to bring people into this beautiful landscape and show them how wonderful it is. And so that they are motivated to protect the, the wilderness that we do still have. Mm hmm. Yeah. That place is, is, is untouched, I guess, as you can think, right? As close to, cause the Pacific Northwest, you got a lot of beautiful, like Vancouver, Vancouver Island, all that stuff up north, but even further south.

[00:21:38] You get some really nice, um, like as, as, as wild as you can get, but that's even wilder. Yeah. It's, it's pretty spectacular. And then, you know, we have access via the Alaska coastal explorer boat without that boat, you would be stuck in this town called Seward, which is a beautiful little, um, town based off of a fishing economy and, um, tourism. It's a very touristy kind of location. It's close to Anchorage.

[00:22:07] Um, so we were able to leave Seward. Like I said, it took us five hours to get to Ialec. Um, and Jason, the captain, he's a surfer. He's like, we should check this, we should go here. And so without his intimate knowledge of the area, we would not have been able to know where to go, where to score, kind of, kind of how to, how to make it all happen.

[00:22:31] So because he's, he wing, um, wing ice skates in the winter, he kite boards in the summer, he surfs. Um, and so pairing with them, one, they're our friends and two, um, they have the, the, we want to go wing at the glacier. They're not like, you guys are idiots. They're like, yeah, let's go. Let's try to do it. Like, let's see if we can. Um, and without them, it would have been impossible.

[00:22:57] That being said, in Seward proper, if it's sunny in the interior of Alaska and it's not sunny out on the coast, it's a big, long kind of fjord, like, like, like area, like couple, like five, 10 miles long. There is, um, an onshore wind that does develop, like kind of pulling it down, draw down that kind of like Squamish. You know how Squamish pulls the wind in from Vancouver?

[00:23:26] Very similar setup. If it's sunny in the interior, you're going to get wind. And so we were actually able to wing three days in Seward. Literally pull your car up to a beach or a park. There's a park to play at with Flint. We rigged in a grass launch. You walk in the water. You, we had legit wing sessions like proper. And there's all these fishing boats coming back from the day. There's like little boats to wake thief. And like that scenery is just insane.

[00:23:53] And so like Seward does have a little wind thing. And talking to Jason, he's like, yeah, it's windy in the afternoons here. Like if it's nice, it's windy in the afternoons here quite a bit there. The last time we actually did ride in Seward, we didn't score on the boat, but we did ride at Fourth of July beach. If you remember. So there is a little wind sports committee in Seward. There's a couple kite boarders, couple wingers. They get after it, but it's very hard. It's hard. It's hard. Yeah. It's cold. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:23] I imagine. Even Squamish is cold. A lot of people were taking photos of us in Seward. Yeah. They're like, what? What are you doing? And then if you really wanted to be a true adventurer, you could then leave Seward, go back towards Anchorage on the Turnagain Arm. And there is a tidal bore wave that goes there. And we do know a couple people that foil drive slash wind sport in the tidal bore. We had a small opportunity to do it.

[00:24:50] It's just super gnarly and super fickle and shallow. And you got to be in the right spots. And so we just couldn't logistically line that up. But that is something else that is available in Alaska, which is this crazy bore tide, ridey, wavy thing that goes off once a month, basically. Whoa. And how was the fish? Oh, insane. Yeah.

[00:25:14] So we didn't do any deep sea halibut this year because we were kind of on wind sports mission. We did that the prior year and I caught, I don't know, 170 pound halibut. It was like food for a year. It was crazy. Almost ripped me off the boat. This year we pulled up on our way to Ialec. We were like, we kind of want fish for lunch. We should have fish when we get done winging. So we pulled up to this rock pile that Jason had marked on his little sea map.

[00:25:44] We dropped lures and I literally, it took me less than five seconds to hook up. And we limited out in what, 10 minutes? We caught so many fish. We caught like seven, seven rock fish. They're small. They're not insane, but it's really, really good eating. And it was like fish on, fish on, fish on, fish on. We're limited. Cool. Let's go to the glacier. While we're winging on the glacier, our good friend Debbie, she's amazing. She cooked us up a bunch of fish.

[00:26:10] So we came back in and had fresh fish tacos on the boat right after the session. Man, like you could not ask for a better situation. So it's just like really hit on all the, all the checklists were ticked. We saw whales. We saw otters. We saw ice. We winged. We foiled. We pumped. We had fresh fish. Just like, I don't really know how more you could score. Maybe if we didn't lose the drone, but honestly, whatever, it doesn't even matter. That's fair. And photographer too, I guess. Right.

[00:26:39] You lost that guy too, but. Yeah. Videographer. Yeah. Thankfully though, our good friend Debbie, she's kind of a multi-skilled woman. She actually, all the imagery that you're going to see in the article was taken by Debbie. She has a lot of video. We produced a small video that's going to come out shortly via Armstrong. Um, and so she was able to help, um, shoot some of that stuff when I was riding, obviously.

[00:27:05] Um, and then with the drone and the iPhone, man, iPhones are pretty good these days with the iPhone, the drones. And Debbie, we were able to curate a very robust and, um, variety filled, filled media package that honestly is, is really great. We were really proud of ourselves because we were not planning on shooting the whole thing. And I had the whole time. Luckily I just found new one of the iPhone 17, whatever the newest one is right before this trip.

[00:27:34] So we filmed everything. And Debbie. Well, and we had a one, one year old, one and eight month old, a pregnant woman. And I like, it's just a lot of demand on everybody. But I think sometimes we kind of thrive in those situations in a weird way. Yeah. It was hard to make happen, but everything really ended up working out and we're really stoked that we made, made, we were stoked we made it happen. It's way easier to stay home and not go with babies. That's right.

[00:28:04] But we always. But that's, that's unfortunate. People use. That's our point of our video. Yeah. People use their kids as an excuse all the time. We have tons of friends. Oh, sorry. I can't come to dinner because it's bedtime or, oh no, I can't go because of X, Y, Z. It's like, man, they joined your life, not the other way around. Like bring them into your life. Like let them see what it's like to live in your family and don't always hit the easy

[00:28:31] button because usually the easy button isn't the fun button. I mean, it's the easy button, but that doesn't mean it's the fun button. That's right. Yeah. We're coaching foiling today and I had one lady who started at, I think she's starting foiling at 60. And she got her first, her first flights and she was beyond ecstatic. It had been three years. She hadn't been able to get it and we're able to help her today to get up on foil and ride around and stuff. And her friend was on there.

[00:28:59] They're both teachers from another local Island from here. And it was so cool to see that. And now she can transfer that passion and do different. There's so many cool places to take this sport. And I know no other gear would have survived. There's only Armstrong gear that could survive in that cold temperature, right? Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that so wonderful? There's two things that strike me about that. What you just said is one, isn't it so wonderful?

[00:29:26] The demographic of people that foiling brings joy to from young kids to the teeny boppers that want to do flips and spins to the 50 year old white male who has something to prove to the 60 year old grandma. Like it's touching on so many more demographics than kiteboarding ever did. And it is so wonderful to see how many people are finding joy in wind and water sports these days.

[00:29:54] It just feels so special to be in this space. And then two, isn't it super fun to get people with their first rides? They get like super, super stoked. Yeah. I started a school this summer in the gorge as well. And same thing when, when we have people finally achieve their goals or get a long ride on a swell and their brain is just melted. That's contagious. Like it's so, it makes you feel good as well when they feel good.

[00:30:22] It's really special, the wind and water sports and what it gives people. So we feel so grateful and blessed to be in this industry, in this community. And it's just, it's such a blessing. Well, everybody out there, make sure to get Foiling Magazine right. You got to read this article. And this Armstrong video is going to be coming out soon. You want to see a little sneak peek? Yeah. Can we see, how do we do this? We go, we go like this, right? I think you just go at the bottom.

[00:30:53] Okay. Can you see now? Yes, sir. So this is, this is Iollet Glacier. The face of the glacier. When we first pulled up, we're like, whoa, this thing is crazy. You can see like little pieces starting to fall. You're like, is this whole thing going to go? So that's our little boat right there. Kind of, you can see we had a clearing and bad drone pilot. I'm going to do some, I'm going to do some epic reveal. I'm going to, I'm sure I'm going to shoot down all its glaciers. And there's our little boat.

[00:31:22] You can see the clear water right there, kind of outside of the pack ice. That's our base. The coastal explorer. Hopefully I do a sweet pan. Come on, drone pilot. Yes. So there was, there's a waterfall kind of back behind us. And that is the face of the Iollet Glacier right there. Isn't that wild? And like I said, the wind was straight offshore. So you'd be like, wait, is it windy?

[00:31:49] And so then you come down here and you're like, oh, Flint's chewing on a boot. He's like, what are we doing? Why are we at this glacier? We're frantically putting our gear together because we're like, oh no, we have to get out there. And so we, what's nice about winging, no launches, right? You just jump right off the boat. So off the hope and sewer, just plop on in.

[00:32:16] And off we go to the races, right? We're able to get up and ride straight offshore. Oh, that's, I only have a few clips because no one filmed me. We had a little bit of time where Sensi was like, let's try to wake foil behind the boat. This was actually really hard. So we did some wake foiling behind the boat. And then the wind came back up. And so my beautiful wife went out. And as you can see, maybe we, wrong clips.

[00:32:46] Right here. So you can see we're able to just, we're just able to ride in kind of straight offshore wind right up against the glacier. Beautiful scenery. Absolutely insane. Five months pregnant. Session. And then with the boat right there and Flint able to watch and just kind of like the whole scene is just like unbelievable. Look how beautiful it is. The sun was so nice. That is, that is unreal. Yeah.

[00:33:16] And, and it was as much as it was kind of a novelty session. Once we were out in the water, it wasn't that novelty. Like it was actually pretty decent riding Sensi road for over half an hour tacks and jibes, like enough power to have a great session. To be honest with you, it was pretty unbelievable. So that's the aisle at Glacier. You can see we just like flying around it, checking it out, the boat, Sensi riding some more.

[00:33:45] Um, I imagine. Oh, here's the clip. Yeah. Check out that sick goat, dude. Look at that goat, man. I'm so locked in. He's like having a great time up there. He's like, wow, this drone was really making me frustrated. I should probably just crash that into the side of the mountain and leave it in Alaska forever. Oh no. And then let me show you one other thing. I can, I can get into this as well. Let's see. My goodness.

[00:34:14] This is just going to be Flint mayhem. So we're going to go deeper, deeper. Oh, here's the, what do you see? So this is going to be kind of Sensi in the Glacier Lagoon. We'll see if we can find a clip where she's actually getting after it.

[00:34:35] So able to just kind of pump and find lines through these crazy, like glacial field of maze of blue ice and beauty. And so, and then it got, and then sunny. This is Seward proper. So just able to just kind of ride right there in town. More Seward.

[00:35:02] Um, more Seward. So that's just a little preview. Um, if you'd like to see the whole adventure, the video will be coming out. I'm hopefully sometime soon. We're not sure. We saw, we saw our first, we saw our first draft. We watched it last night. That's really good.

[00:35:29] So, um, there'll be, and you guys are going to send it to us too, right? And yeah, of course. Of course. Um, and the theme of the video is just, Hey, how can we continue to adventure as a family? How can we, um, make sure that we don't let, um, the family dynamic change the fact that we love to go on adventures and we love to be in the water. And that's really important to show our sons now that we have two of them. Um, that the fun doesn't have to stop.

[00:35:58] Um, when things get hard, that like adventure to quote Yvonne Chouinard, our famous quote, um, an adventure doesn't begin until something goes wrong. And so we're fully embraced in that is that it, it really is something adversity is important. It is important to put your head down and tie your bootstraps and continue to strive. And sometimes the best things come from the hardest, hardest effort. We would have never gotten that session in front of that glacier had we not put in the hard effort.

[00:36:28] Um, and so that's right. We just want to show that to our family and to our sons. Yeah. Sweet guys. Well, Hey, thanks for coming on and obviously make sure to tune in for both those. Are you writing Manawa? Are you, are you, are you winging Manawa or one? Soon. Soon. Manawa, right? Cause well, cause I haven't, I've only been out to there four times windsurfing. So the owner of the school, John's going to take me out to Manawa just to learn the ins

[00:36:55] and outs, but I want to wing in windsurf it for sure. They all go out to one eye, but, um, but yeah, I'm looking forward to Manawa. It looks sick. Yeah. It looks sick. But I, I heard for foiling, I heard for foiling, Manawa is a little more approachable. One eye is a little crazy. You might want to, like a kite surfboard or a proper windsurfer. Um, yeah, it's, you know, this shape Manawa is a little bit more this shape, right? Yeah.

[00:37:22] So that's why I've been like playing around a little reef, which is pretty bumpy. Somebody. Yeah. John's going to take me out because it's like, I want to get a little bit of the ins and outs. We've only been there three times. I was on four or five windsurf sail 401 time. It was like blowing 30 and it was pretty fun. And the, the, the mountain, when you're coming back in the views are insane. That's what's so cool about that place. Yeah.

[00:37:49] It's kind of gnarly though, if you think about it, cause you're off this point, the wind is going to completely across. If anything happens, you're getting blown right into one eye. It's like swim to shore. You're going to get into this barrel. I've heard a lot of, yeah. I've heard a lot of stories of people like losing their stuff and fishermen being like, let me help you in a hundred bucks. Yeah. Like, yeah. Okay. I'll pay you because the next place you're going to touch is what India, maybe like Australia.

[00:38:18] Like it's a big ocean from off of one eye. It is. It is. And it's kind of gnarly for that. And obviously it's okay if everything goes right. But if something doesn't, I think Ion Club runs safety cause I reached out to them on Instagram and I was like, if I'm at Minawa and something goes wrong. And, uh, they were like, yeah, just come and check in with us cause it's 2k offshore. And they'll kind of have eyes on you. If you Google it. Yeah. I think you get a Jersey and they keep an eye and they count their jerseys. If not, they'll come and try to find you.

[00:38:48] But, um, but yeah, it's good. That's good. At least there's some safety. Yeah. It's something, but it's beautiful. The lagoon we're in right now is gorgeous. So yeah. But yeah, no, thanks for coming on. It was cool catching up with you both. Easy. And congratulations on the new one. New little guy. I mean, thank you. His name. If you want to know his name, we didn't say his name. We have Flint. Flint legend. Shide is our firstborn. And our secondborn is Steel Matthew.

[00:39:19] Steel. Nice. That's so sick. So we have Flint, Flint and Steel. I mean, he's going to have like 50 to probably 20 inch biceps by the time he's 12. So I think he'll be Steel. Yeah. All right, guys. We will chat with you soon. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. Bye, everybody.