In January of 2003, the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, published an editorial news feature by Quirin Schiermeier titled “Climate change: The Oresmen.”

The title was whimsical. The implications were not.

This is the story about how good things begin. I describe an unconventional partnership — a rock star, a schooner, and a scientist intent on testing a simple but profound idea: that dust from the land feeds life in the sea.

The musician was Neil Young.
The schooner was the Ragland.
And the idea was mine.

But the story did not begin in the pages of Nature.

It began on a foggy dock.

A Foggy Morning on C Dock

In the spring of 2002, I was living aboard my 50-foot ketch in the harbor at Half Moon Bay, California.

My lifelines were festooned with six-foot-tall transparent columns — “giant test tubes” to amused dock neighbors. Inside them were mixtures of natural red rock dust. I was studying their biological potency — testing what I believed to be one of the most vital and rare substances on this Blue Planet: red mineral dust capable of reviving life in ocean pastures.

One cold, foggy day, I was walking down “C” dock. Ahead of me was a tall figure in a long duster coat and leather cowboy hat. Trailing behind him was the unmistakable aroma of “San Francisco tobacco”.

I quickened my pace.

“Hey — don’t Bogart that joint. Pass it over to me…”

A friendly hand reached back and obliged.

We walked together down the dock sharing a smoke.

As we neared the end, he asked, “Which boat is yours?”

“Second from the end,” I replied. “The one with the lifelines festooned with the six-foot test tubes.”

“And yours?”

“I’m right at the end.”

I looked past him to the magnificent wooden schooner that had arrived overnight — restored as a floating work of art.

In that moment, I knew who I was walking beside.

It was Neil.

He stopped by my boat and asked about the towering columns and the red mineral mixtures. I explained that I was testing blends of natural rock dust — exploring their potential to replenish and restore the ocean’s lost vitality.

He listened carefully.

Then he invited me aboard his schooner — the Ragland, named for his grandfather — for coffee.

We talked for hours.

The next morning there was a knock on the hull of my ketch. I lifted my head up from the hatch like a prairie dog.

It was Captain Charlie.

“Neil loved your story about replenishing and restoring the ocean with your red magic dust,” he said. “He offers the Ragland, me – the captain, and the crew — all expenses covered — to make use of the schooner for a first Voyage of Recovery… provided that after the dusting we deliver her to Neil’s home on the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.”

Just like that, the Voyage of Recovery began.

From Dockside Conversation to Scientific Recognition

Months later, the story would appear in Nature as “The Oresmen.”

In science, there are many journals.

But there is only one Nature.

To be featured in its pages — even in a modest editorial paper — is no small acknowledgment. It reflects editorial judgment that an idea deserves the attention of the global scientific community.

When Quirin Schiermeier wrote that article, he did more than recount an unusual collaboration. He signaled that the underlying premise — that mineral dust plays a decisive role in ocean productivity and climate — merited serious discussion.

For me personally, that mattered.

Not as ego validation.

But because it brought the subject into the mainstream of scientific discourse.

It was not the culmination of the journey.

It was the call for all hands on deck!

Dust, Plankton, and the Planet’s Living Engine

The premise remains simple.

Across vast ocean regions, phytoplankton growth is limited by trace minerals, especially iron. Without them, ocean pastures cannot bloom to historic abundance.

When they bloom, they:

• Feed marine food webs
• Sustain fisheries
• Draw down atmospheric CO₂
• Influence marine cloud formation
• Help regulate global climate

For millennia, winds delivered mineral dust to the sea. Ice ages amplified it. Storms carried it.

The ocean thrived.

The question has never been whether dust feeds the sea.

The question is whether we may responsibly assist a weakened natural cycle.

Trials, Tribulations, and the Vancouver Lab

The decades since that first voyage have not been smooth.

There has been skepticism.
There has been criticism.
There have been mischaracterizations.

And roughly ten years after that foggy dockside encounter, there was something no one could have predicted.

In my Vancouver research lab — headquarters of the native owned Haida Salmon Restoration Company — our seven-member team of scientists and Indigenous partners had, months earlier, completed what was then the largest ocean restoration effort ever undertaken. The ecological signals were promising. The data were compelling.

We were studying plankton response, fisheries indicators, and mineral dynamics — the mechanics of ocean recovery.

Then came the pounding one morning on the laboratory door… the raid.

Nearly ten federal officers burst into the facility — black suits, bulletproof vests, combat helmets, automatic weapons, tactical posture. This was not a routine visit. It was a coordinated enforcement action.

I found myself forced down on the concrete floor of my own lab with the rest of the team for hours and hours.

Around me were colleagues — scientists and Haida team members — equally stunned.

The work inside that building concerned mineral dust — naturally occurring material carried by winds across oceans for millennia. It was ecological restoration science. It was about salmon, plankton, and climate stability.

Yet the response was militarized. We were but one of many targets of an orchestrated series of raids on native peoples’ green projects.

The legal and regulatory debates that followed are matters of public record. I will not relitigate them here.

But the experience revealed something sobering:

When ideas challenge prevailing assumptions — especially when they suggest that meaningful ecological and climate benefits might be achieved at costs measured in millions rather than trillions — resistance can be intense. The culprits — an unholy alliance of both climate change greens and anti-climate change conservative politicians, led by none other than the Prime Minister of Canada and his Cabinet.

But time passed, we persevered, and the work continued.

Because the ocean does not pause for controversy.

Why the Work Is More Vital Today

Since 2003, the scientific evidence linking ocean health, fisheries, cloud formation, and climate stability has only strengthened.

Ocean heatwaves are now headline news.
Fisheries collapses are widely documented.
Cloud–climate feedbacks are under active study.

The ocean regulates temperature.
The ocean drives rainfall.
The ocean sustains oxygen production.

If ocean pastures weaken, clouds weaken.
If clouds weaken, climate destabilizes.

What was once considered unconventional is now increasingly recognized: restoring ocean health is inseparable from restoring climate stability.

Time, Perspective, and Renewal

Time has a way of reshaping narratives.

What was once controversial becomes studied.
What was once resisted becomes debated.
What was once marginalized becomes recognized.

More than twenty years have passed since that foggy dockside encounter.

More than a decade has passed since the Vancouver lab incident.

Today, nature-based restoration is no longer a fringe idea. It is central to global discussions about climate resilience and ecological recovery.

The language has shifted.

The urgency has grown.

The science has matured.

Another Voyage

This year, we set off once again on a Voyage of Recovery.

Not in defiance.

Not in secrecy.

But in open collaboration, transparency, and stewardship.

We do not anticipate meeting tactical teams.

We anticipate meeting scientists, mariners, policymakers, and citizens who now understand what is at stake.

Restoring ocean pastures is not an act of hubris.

It is an act of humility — acknowledging that humanity has altered natural cycles and must now participate responsibly in their repair.

The voyage continues.

With better tools.
With deeper understanding.
With broader recognition.

And with the same simple conviction that began on a foggy dock:

The ocean is worth tending.

The Blue Planet is worth saving.

And sometimes, the smallest grains of dust can change the course of history.