More about Episode 1: The Baykeeper & Me
- Feb 20
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Depending on how you count, this 21-minute episode took 3 1/2 years from start to finish! That's because we spent the first year and half finding a boat and figuring out where we could put it. Then we had to figure out how to execute our new idea. Then we collected enough material for at least 21 episodes and I realized I needed to learn even more stuff. Then we argued some over content, style, story order, etc., and then I found I had to learn even more stuff, and eventually I went on strike. Then I got back to work.
We were supremely lucky on the boat front. Thanks to a lead from Mike's friend and fellow Friends of the Earth Board member Rae Richman, we learned of Point San Pablo Harbor in Richmond. And thanks to the generosity of owners Rob Fyfe, Yaella Frankel, and Daryl Henline, we were given space in what we consider a magical and marvelous oasis, dead center in the heart of San Francisco Bay.
During this whole period I was enrolled in a media workshop and trying my hand at filming with an iPhone, our original idea on how we would present our stories. As a test run, we headed off to the Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba in January 2023 in the company of Juanito Pascual, a friend who is an amazing flamenco guitarist, along with about 20 of his other friends. The idea was for me to practice filming and recording all the extraordinary sounds around us.
From this exercise I learned that I am an indifferent photographer and an even worse videographer. But I do care about sound! (Especially music - and I did end up with a great playlist from the experience.) So we abandoned the film idea and turned to podcasting. I enrolled in a 6-week boot camp at U.C. Berkeley and started acquiring gear and software.
In September of that year we moved aboard the boat for 3 months and began collecting stories. Super fun! Then back again the following spring for more stories. Even more fun! Back to Maine for the summer, where I began editing in earnest, and scriptwriting, and recording narration, and working on sound design, and creating a website, and thinking about graphic design, and realized I needed help. In stepped Sam Anderson of Earthstory Studio, whom we'd met on the dock at our marina. He is a skilled and experienced podcaster who taught me a ton with enormous patience. We worked together for over a year, during which I learned that the work I was doing by myself would normally be handled by a cast of five and a budget of $100,000. Hmmm.
I learned also that one of my biggest challenges was going to be getting Mike to sit still and talk into a microphone like a normal person instead of like (1) a constipated professor or (2) an undiagnosed ADHD person beset with severe squirrel distraction. Over time we learned to handle this challenge with lots and lots of love and coaching and the occasional icy glass of mezcal.
We were now at least a year overdue from our original target and Mike began urging me Just! Publish! Them! But the sound was bugging me, along with a few other things, and I wanted to get it right. After some tussle, I went on strike for five months; we stayed home in Maine and adopted a dog. I got back on the job in February 2026 - with Mike now in sight of his 90th birthday - and here we are. Glad to be here, too. And thanks for listening.