SpectraUSA Elevates the Sustainability of the Seven Crossings Project

Gear is flying across the cabin and the ships' superstructure resonates like a tuning fork under the weight of a single, rogue channel island swell as it storms across the Island Fox, threatening to swallow it. Pat Fraley watches in horror as charging cables, portable hard drives, plugs, laptops, heavy weather gear, loose Doritos, video equipment, tubes of sunscreen and an assortment of random ephemera ballet across the room in a gruesome Busby Berkeley aerial ballet, slow-motion arc, finally clattering to an abrupt stop against the opposite wall. For the first time in days, all the planning, reassurances and safety precautions fade away in the face of the immense challenge they have undertaken and Fraley is beginning to wonder if he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew. He casts a furtive glance outside, towards the back of the boat where a small, nuggety, blonde-haired figure knees hunched over on a paddle-board in the midst of all this, stroking his tireless arms in and out and into the cold Pacific again, inching himself and his paddle-board in between the moody ocean swells and ever closer to the finish line: San Nicolas island and the end of the fifth stage. For the first time in the voyage, Patrick Fraley is starting to become genuinely concerned for the safety of the hardest man he has ever known; big wave surf-legend Jamie Mitchell.

Jamie Mitchell is as tough a customer as you're likely to find anywhere, and in any sport. He's a big wave surfer famous for fearlessly winning oversized contests as well as providing his fair share of extreme wipeouts. If that doesn't cement your opinion of him as a hard man who is up for a superhuman challenge, Mitchell has also made a habit of winning the Molokai 2 Oahu paddle-board race has on-boarded a major player in the manufacturing space which can both support and ensure the future of Seven Crossings apparel line remains as sustainable as their ocean-sustainability project is.

Mitchell and the Seven Crossings team are currently working on a documentary film of Mitchells' momentous Channel Islands' crossing with an eye to furthering the reach of the sustainable oceans project as they steadily build momentum and support behind it. With the momentum already built, many residents of the U.S. are already welcoming the message which Pat and Jamie are preaching, to such an extent that the documentary should become a fixture in the Southern Californian curriculum once it has been completed. Not content to rest on his laurels, however, Fraley is already seeking out more sports personalities and interested partners who can help drive the kind of attention and commitment to Seven Crossings, and generate the kind of momentum that Jamie Mitchell's epic paddle has already garnered. SpectraUSA is more than a little proud of their enduring commitment to the Seven Crossings project and its apparel line, as well as to be an integral part of this ground-breaking sustainable oceans project.

All photos: Donald Miralle