Friends, supporters turn out to honor Wallace J. Nichols

A few dozen people showed up at Santa Cruz’s Cowell Beach on Wednesday morning for a paddle-out to honor the late Wallace J. Nichols, known throughout the community as “J.” Nichols, a well-known marine biologist and author of the book “Blue Mind,” died a year ago. But on Wednesday, supporters of Nichols declared the day “World Blue Mind Day” and used the occasion to honor the man and his work.

Nichols coined the term “Blue Mind” as a kind of catch-all to illustrate what he contended were the mental and emotional benefits for being “in, on or near” large bodies of waters, like oceans, lakes and rivers. So it certainly made sense that he would be memorialized on the water.

Paddlers ventured out into the Monterey Bay to greet two large boats, an O’Neill catamaran and the Chardonnay II, carrying close friends and family of Nichols. From a spot near the end of the Santa Cruz Wharf, a few spectators could just make out a loudspeaker paying tribute to Nichols. “J taught us to find our way home, back to Mother Ocean,” it said.

The tribute also includes a recorded message from Nichols himself, before an urn containing his ashes was lowered into the ocean. 

Before the paddle-out, friends and supporters gathered on the beach to reflect on Nichols and his example as a visionary and activist. Many wore stickers touting a “Blue Mind Movement.”

“He was the spark to connecting how many people feel when they’re around water,” said friend and sometimes collaborator Toby Corey, who first met Nichols when the author was selling copies of “Blue Mind” from a small stand in downtown Pescadero. “It just really captured my imagination. He just tapped into that pervasive feeling that so many of us have to connect with water. We go there to think. We go there to meditate. We go there to confront our issues.”

Many paddlers were passing out translucent blue marbles, a Nichols habit dating back to the 2014 publication of “Blue Mind.”

Doug Erickson, the executive director of Santa Cruz Works, was also suited up and ready to go into the ocean. Erickson had always been impressed with Nichols and his ideas about neuroscience and water. 

“When we learned that he had passed, my wife and I were in Austria, touring a lot of lakes there. And we had just heard when we passed a lake, and there were some people on a dock doing yoga. Then we saw the sign, ‘Blue Mind Yoga.’ And then, we thought, OK, we’re getting a sign here.”

Nichols, his wife, Dana, and his daughters, Grayce and Julia, were known for years in the community for their beautiful hand-crafted home north of Davenport. The home was destroyed in the 2020 CZU fires.