Beginnings
This essay was written in the summer of 2002. It records my introduction to sea kayakking, and my thoughts after a year spent falling in love with the sport.
Yakking
It was one of those midlife moments too numerous to count as crises anymore: a misty Saturday morning, sitting on a bench at the town beach, nursing coffee and dry bagel. I stared mindlessly across the water to the string of small islands on the horizon. This was Adriaen Block’s archipelago. Strips of green topping the gray chop. I became aware of the slow rise of activity around me, morning strollers and joggers and bicyclists braved the wet road behind, fishermen cast from the long wooden pier to my left, oyster boats made their way to beds marked with buoyed pennants. Few activities required my attention that early autumn day.
A capped pick-up pulled in to the primitive boat ramp on my right. Motorboats and sailboats used the paved facility nearer the town’s center, with docks and oversized parking spaces worthy of trailered boats. But lesser mariners were shooed away, to this small beach and the pebble-strewn mudflats below, perhaps to keep their fragile craft away from the harbor’s main channel, or perhaps because they were simply not worthy of the real ramp where the big boats played. That pick-up stood out, an older Japanese compact in a lot usually filled with SUVs and sports sedans. Dented and dinged, rusted in spots, it caught my attention. Did it reveal an affectation of Yankee frugality in this affluent Connecticut town, or was its owner simply unable to part with a faithful old friend?
He soon emerged, a gaunt, weathered man clad in paddling jacket and pants. He undid two straps that bound a turquoise plastic kayak to the cap. Heaving it up and over his shoulder, he exposed a bottom scratched and fuzzy from untold encounters. The nose of the kayak was wrapped carelessly in a frayed bandage of duct tape. If that kayak could talk! Certainly there was no miserly pretense to be found here.
He deposited the craft on the wet mudflat, small waves ending their last shoreward push just beyond. Piece by piece, gear was pulled from under the cap and moved to the waiting kayak. The paddler carried all manner of small items down the mudflat, methodically stowing them in hatches or strapping them to the deck. There seemed a place for everything, and naturally everything had to be secured in its place. A small wooden block lashed to the stern provided a makeshift mount for an American flag of faded vinyl, the last object to be loaded. With each trip from truck to kayak, the incoming tide lapped a little higher. Just as the paddler completed his pre-launch tasks, the boat began floating freely: perfect timing, or practiced routine? He was ready.
Slipping himself into the kayak, he adjusted the skirt sealing him to the cockpit and set off toward the islands. Slowly, rhythmically, he paddled from side to side. He twisted with each stroke, and the weight of his body leaned the little craft, first left, then right, then left again. Yet the kayak steered straight and true. As he progressed past mid-channel, the gray day washed out the colors of his turquoise boat and mango life preserver and white paddle blade. In minutes, the kayak made its way around the leeward side of the nearest island, beyond view.
“That’s what I should be doing,” I thought. There was a sense of something so right about it. I had been coming down to various spots on the shore since moving to Connecticut, sitting on benches and beach blankets, rocks and piers, gazing across water. It occurred to me more than once that the people on the water were having far more fun than those ashore. But five years had passed. Perhaps that lone paddler was a sign.
There is a kayak outfitter in the harbor, wedged into warehouse space between one of the larger marine supply houses and a dive shop. Everywhere there were kayaks, on saw horses in front of the store, hanging by their bow lines from the tall ceilings, racked carefully along the walls. Short and stubby, long and shapely, single and double, plastic and fiberglass, white and yellow and blue and green and orange and red and purple: this was at once wondrous and intimidating. No child in a candy store, I believed (perhaps wrongly) that I could and should have only one boat. This seemed to be the right thing, but how could one choose the right boat?
I was interrupted by a smiling beard. “Can I help you?”
“I’m just looking thanks.”
“If we can answer any questions, just give a holler.”
“Well, I’m just thinking about taking up kayaking….” Just thinking about it, was I? This was my usual conceit, hoping I would come to my senses before there was something else gathering dust in my garage. But there had been that sign!
In a few minutes Gaetan, the beard, had me on a dock, paddle in hand, taking instruction on how to enter a kayak, how to make it go forward, how to turn it around, how to keep from falling out of it. Soon he produced another to try, and another. I wanted to know what made each different, what gave each an advantage, why one would prefer this one or that, how to choose. I was admonished to smile: “You’re supposed to be having fun!” Before long all these very different boats all seemed very much the same! So now how to choose?
Retreating to the shop, I returned to my fact-finding. What was it all going to cost? What else would I need? It turned out that, even after one had acquired the essentials of kayak and paddle, sprayskirt and personal flotation device (each with its own design and fit criteria to be weighed in selecting), there remained many objects to inspire one’s lust: pumps and paddlefloats, wetsuits and drysuits, compasses and charts, beverage bladders and booties, an endless fascination.
This was at once overwhelming and irresistible. There should be a lot to think about in any worthy undertaking. The very language was compelling. These were not toys, but gear. And I would not soon succumb to boredom with so much to learn. I was hooked.
Within a week I owned a new kayak, seventeen feet two inches of molded red and yellow polyethylene. It was brand new, without a scratch on it. I had liked the way the showroom model handled in the flat water between the docks. Only twenty-two inches wide, it was tippier than some of the other boats I’d tried, but it seemed to accelerate more quickly under the stroke of the paddle. It turned more gracefully. I picked it up on a Friday after work. It was mine.
On Saturday I decided to paddle up the river into the protected waters of the harbor. It was a calm, sunny day, but I soon realized something I already knew. This boat was tippy! I found myself fighting constantly to keep it upright as I paddled through what in retrospect were only small wavelets. It was exhausting to keep it balanced, but that was the least of my problems.
Within fifteen minutes of putting in I felt a tingling. One, no, both of my legs had fallen asleep. And there was nowhere to land. I pulled up to a dock, hoping the owner wouldn’t mind if I leaned my arms across it, took my weight off the seat, allowed the blood to return to my feet. That’s where I learned about barnacles, those razor-edged bastards. That’s where I put the first scratches on my new kayak.
I survived that outing and returned to the shop. Did I have the right kayak? Was kayaking right? What was the resale value of a slightly used boat? The staff assured me that circulatory problems were not uncommon, a simple matter of adjusting the fit of the cockpit and, in novices, relaxing. Clenched muscles act like a tourniquet. I should take some instruction for sure. And while I was waiting for the next class, I shouldn’t miss out on the fine fall paddling season we were having. They would have one of the local paddlers give me a call and take me out on the water.
When Dave called, he simply let me know that he regularly paddled from the beach out and around the islands. Would I like to join him? The following Saturday I was surprised to see that old Japanese pick-up roll up to the beach, still toting the turquoise kayak, “Dave?” So it was.
As he unloaded his kayak, he looked me up and down carefully. I had not yet sprung for clothing. Swim trunks and rubber sandals would need to do for the water, a t-shirt and windbreaker for the wind. “Is that what you plan to wear? It’s okay for now, but the water temperatures drop off pretty quickly in a few weeks. You’ll want to stop paddling then. And remember, it won’t warm up again until June, so don’t get tempted by those early warm days. You have to dress for the water, not the air. Have you been out much?”
“I haven’t really been out very much at all.” Well, that was an overstatement!
Dave must have decided that was good enough, or at least that I did not pose a clear and present danger to him. I learned later that paddlers rely on groups to increase their margin of safety in the event of a mishap, but are wary of paddlers whose poor judgment reduces that margin. “When you go out with people, each paddler makes a personal decision to launch. Don’t rely on the group. Oh, they’ll try to help you if you get into trouble. But you’re responsible for yourself out there.”
With that, we put in and began paddling into the gentle southwesterlies. The water seemed choppy to me, but the kayak was more stable with its bow parting each small wave. Dave probably knew this as we headed towards the far tip of the furthest island in the chain, about two miles distant. He asked about my decision to take up the sport, about my new boat. He asked whether I lived in town, where I was from, what I did for a living. He named every island and sandbar and rock outcrop, for each had a name, referring to a rust-stained map when memory failed. He pointed out private houses and secluded campsites and abandoned stone piers. He kept my mind off the waves and the boat traffic, off the rocking and yawing of the kayak, and that was a good thing.
We paddled into a lagoon sheltered from the breezes. Cut into one of the islands, it also shielded us from any awareness of the town we had left behind a scant half hour before. Gone were views of the town and its harbor, the houses and marinas, the jetties and piers, the railroad bridge, the oil-fired power plant with its tall stack. There was just sand and rock and shell, grass and windswept tree, heron and egret and even osprey. How many others had entered this tranquil spot in the centuries before, how many of them conjured my fantasy that they could just have well been the first? Doubts evaporated as we rested our paddles and floated through this new world.
“Would you like to go on? Just tell me if you want to turn back at any point.” No way, I thought, as we paddled out of the lagoon. But soon we rounded that far island. Suddenly the boat was rocking. I stiffened, I stabbed at the water to keep myself upright. No longer were the islands knocking down the wind, flattening the chop. Wind built up waves across the longer fetch. As they approached the islands, a reef below thrust them still higher. And as they bounced off the rocky shore, their rhythm was disrupted; they became chaotic, confused. In this last regard I suppose I became one with the waves, kayak bouncing, paddle stroke disrupted, mind chaotic and confused. It didn’t help that the waves now crept up from behind, slapping at the kayak, making it rock and wriggle.
Muscles tightened. Body became erect and rigid. My hands closed around the paddle shaft in a blister-producing “death grip”.
“Would you like to turn back?”
All I wanted to do was get back around that island, but the way to go seemed forward. Turning the boat would involve putting it sideways to the waves. I’d already experienced that briefly as we’d made our turn around the tip of the island, and it was not pleasant. “I’m fine,” I shouted. “I’m okay. Let’s go.” I’m not sure Dave even heard, for I hadn’t dare turn to face him, for fear the boat would capsize if I did.
“Just keep saying to yourself, ‘Relax. Relax. Relax.’” Dave yelled. “Loosen your hips and let the boat move with the waves. Don’t fight it. Trust it. It’ll keep you up if you let it. Just relax, relax, relax.”
This was the first of many counterintuitive things I would learn about kayaking in the coming months. Instinct runs counter to the dynamics of these subtle craft. (When one tries to roll up from a capsize, the head is the last thing to leave the water, but every nerve and muscle fiber wants to raise it up for air as quickly as possible.) As I rigidly fought the boat, I put the weight of my head and shoulders further from its center of gravity, making it tip all the more. Loosening my hips, letting them rock back and forth with the hull, would leave the weight of my torso to swing over the kayak’s center. But knowing that wouldn’t have helped, instinct overrides thinking when confronting fear. Besides, I didn’t know that.
There was nothing but Dave’s mantra to calm me: “relax, relax, relax.” “Relax, relax, relax.” I’m not sure whether or not I did, but the mantra occupied my thoughts, it displaced my fears, and soon I was in the lee of the island again. Dave would have to remind me again, “relax, relax, relax,” as we crossed the mile back to the launch point. Had I been alone, I might have knelt and kissed that mudflat.
“You did pretty well. I didn’t think we would end up going as far as we did.” Well, neither did I! I was too drained, emotionally spent, to feel any sense of accomplishment. I was just glad to be out of the kayak.
I made the mistake of asking Dave for a benchmark, for some measure of victory. “Things really picked up out there. How big were those waves on the far end, three, four feet?
“One or two. It was a good day for a beginner: very calm. Hey, isn’t that a great view of the lighthouse out there?”
I nodded my head up and down, thinking all the while “What lighthouse?” Then I remembered, the town’s historic light towered over a two-story keeper’s house at the end of the far island, big as a barn. I’d been too busy to notice.
It took a day or two before I could remember how I had delighted in that peaceful lagoon. In all honesty, I’m not at all sure how much dust would now cover that yellow-red kayak had I not already committed to a series of lessons. Over the following year my skills and confidence gradually improved. I retreated to calm lakes at first, then ventured onto protected rivers. On calm days I would risk paddling along the shore, cautiously keeping within swimming distance, for me less than a stone’s throw.
A few times Dave took me on another island tour; when he did, he did not need to remind me of the importance of the three “R’s”. On one trip he showed me how one of the islands stood at the end of a mile-long reef. “At low tide it’s so shallow you could walk your boat in. If you ever get in trouble, you can just wait on the island until the tide goes out.” Later that would inspire my first solo away from shore.
Kayaking was for me like learning to swim: gripping the pool’s rim as if the edge of a cliff, pushing off, but only so far as to keep that rim within grasp, treading for dear life, then stabbing at the safety of the rim to return. With each effort, braving inches, feet, then yards of separation. I don’t remember many other children struggling as much to swim. In the same way, I imagine kayaking comes easily to many people. In retrospect, my fears seem silly, but they were there nonetheless, and overcoming them was a special accomplishment.
I am still hooked on kayaking. I have no dreams of deep water crossings, nor do I yearn for the thrill of heavy surf. But I will be responsible for myself, choosing routes and conditions carefully. I will enjoy the serenity of a quiet lagoon, the surprise of bluefish breaking the surface around me, the majesty of an osprey taking flight, fresh catch gripped in its talons. I will keep my fascination at learning the subtleties of wind and tide and current. And I will remember some day to teach a timid novice simply to “relax, relax, relax”, oh, and smile. Yakking is s’posed to be fun, after all!
Yakking
It was one of those midlife moments too numerous to count as crises anymore: a misty Saturday morning, sitting on a bench at the town beach, nursing coffee and dry bagel. I stared mindlessly across the water to the string of small islands on the horizon. This was Adriaen Block’s archipelago. Strips of green topping the gray chop. I became aware of the slow rise of activity around me, morning strollers and joggers and bicyclists braved the wet road behind, fishermen cast from the long wooden pier to my left, oyster boats made their way to beds marked with buoyed pennants. Few activities required my attention that early autumn day.A capped pick-up pulled in to the primitive boat ramp on my right. Motorboats and sailboats used the paved facility nearer the town’s center, with docks and oversized parking spaces worthy of trailered boats. But lesser mariners were shooed away, to this small beach and the pebble-strewn mudflats below, perhaps to keep their fragile craft away from the harbor’s main channel, or perhaps because they were simply not worthy of the real ramp where the big boats played. That pick-up stood out, an older Japanese compact in a lot usually filled with SUVs and sports sedans. Dented and dinged, rusted in spots, it caught my attention. Did it reveal an affectation of Yankee frugality in this affluent Connecticut town, or was its owner simply unable to part with a faithful old friend?
He soon emerged, a gaunt, weathered man clad in paddling jacket and pants. He undid two straps that bound a turquoise plastic kayak to the cap. Heaving it up and over his shoulder, he exposed a bottom scratched and fuzzy from untold encounters. The nose of the kayak was wrapped carelessly in a frayed bandage of duct tape. If that kayak could talk! Certainly there was no miserly pretense to be found here.
He deposited the craft on the wet mudflat, small waves ending their last shoreward push just beyond. Piece by piece, gear was pulled from under the cap and moved to the waiting kayak. The paddler carried all manner of small items down the mudflat, methodically stowing them in hatches or strapping them to the deck. There seemed a place for everything, and naturally everything had to be secured in its place. A small wooden block lashed to the stern provided a makeshift mount for an American flag of faded vinyl, the last object to be loaded. With each trip from truck to kayak, the incoming tide lapped a little higher. Just as the paddler completed his pre-launch tasks, the boat began floating freely: perfect timing, or practiced routine? He was ready.
Slipping himself into the kayak, he adjusted the skirt sealing him to the cockpit and set off toward the islands. Slowly, rhythmically, he paddled from side to side. He twisted with each stroke, and the weight of his body leaned the little craft, first left, then right, then left again. Yet the kayak steered straight and true. As he progressed past mid-channel, the gray day washed out the colors of his turquoise boat and mango life preserver and white paddle blade. In minutes, the kayak made its way around the leeward side of the nearest island, beyond view.
“That’s what I should be doing,” I thought. There was a sense of something so right about it. I had been coming down to various spots on the shore since moving to Connecticut, sitting on benches and beach blankets, rocks and piers, gazing across water. It occurred to me more than once that the people on the water were having far more fun than those ashore. But five years had passed. Perhaps that lone paddler was a sign.
There is a kayak outfitter in the harbor, wedged into warehouse space between one of the larger marine supply houses and a dive shop. Everywhere there were kayaks, on saw horses in front of the store, hanging by their bow lines from the tall ceilings, racked carefully along the walls. Short and stubby, long and shapely, single and double, plastic and fiberglass, white and yellow and blue and green and orange and red and purple: this was at once wondrous and intimidating. No child in a candy store, I believed (perhaps wrongly) that I could and should have only one boat. This seemed to be the right thing, but how could one choose the right boat?
I was interrupted by a smiling beard. “Can I help you?”
“I’m just looking thanks.”
“If we can answer any questions, just give a holler.”
“Well, I’m just thinking about taking up kayaking….” Just thinking about it, was I? This was my usual conceit, hoping I would come to my senses before there was something else gathering dust in my garage. But there had been that sign!
In a few minutes Gaetan, the beard, had me on a dock, paddle in hand, taking instruction on how to enter a kayak, how to make it go forward, how to turn it around, how to keep from falling out of it. Soon he produced another to try, and another. I wanted to know what made each different, what gave each an advantage, why one would prefer this one or that, how to choose. I was admonished to smile: “You’re supposed to be having fun!” Before long all these very different boats all seemed very much the same! So now how to choose?
Retreating to the shop, I returned to my fact-finding. What was it all going to cost? What else would I need? It turned out that, even after one had acquired the essentials of kayak and paddle, sprayskirt and personal flotation device (each with its own design and fit criteria to be weighed in selecting), there remained many objects to inspire one’s lust: pumps and paddlefloats, wetsuits and drysuits, compasses and charts, beverage bladders and booties, an endless fascination.
This was at once overwhelming and irresistible. There should be a lot to think about in any worthy undertaking. The very language was compelling. These were not toys, but gear. And I would not soon succumb to boredom with so much to learn. I was hooked.
Within a week I owned a new kayak, seventeen feet two inches of molded red and yellow polyethylene. It was brand new, without a scratch on it. I had liked the way the showroom model handled in the flat water between the docks. Only twenty-two inches wide, it was tippier than some of the other boats I’d tried, but it seemed to accelerate more quickly under the stroke of the paddle. It turned more gracefully. I picked it up on a Friday after work. It was mine.
On Saturday I decided to paddle up the river into the protected waters of the harbor. It was a calm, sunny day, but I soon realized something I already knew. This boat was tippy! I found myself fighting constantly to keep it upright as I paddled through what in retrospect were only small wavelets. It was exhausting to keep it balanced, but that was the least of my problems.
Within fifteen minutes of putting in I felt a tingling. One, no, both of my legs had fallen asleep. And there was nowhere to land. I pulled up to a dock, hoping the owner wouldn’t mind if I leaned my arms across it, took my weight off the seat, allowed the blood to return to my feet. That’s where I learned about barnacles, those razor-edged bastards. That’s where I put the first scratches on my new kayak.
I survived that outing and returned to the shop. Did I have the right kayak? Was kayaking right? What was the resale value of a slightly used boat? The staff assured me that circulatory problems were not uncommon, a simple matter of adjusting the fit of the cockpit and, in novices, relaxing. Clenched muscles act like a tourniquet. I should take some instruction for sure. And while I was waiting for the next class, I shouldn’t miss out on the fine fall paddling season we were having. They would have one of the local paddlers give me a call and take me out on the water.
When Dave called, he simply let me know that he regularly paddled from the beach out and around the islands. Would I like to join him? The following Saturday I was surprised to see that old Japanese pick-up roll up to the beach, still toting the turquoise kayak, “Dave?” So it was.
As he unloaded his kayak, he looked me up and down carefully. I had not yet sprung for clothing. Swim trunks and rubber sandals would need to do for the water, a t-shirt and windbreaker for the wind. “Is that what you plan to wear? It’s okay for now, but the water temperatures drop off pretty quickly in a few weeks. You’ll want to stop paddling then. And remember, it won’t warm up again until June, so don’t get tempted by those early warm days. You have to dress for the water, not the air. Have you been out much?”
“I haven’t really been out very much at all.” Well, that was an overstatement!
Dave must have decided that was good enough, or at least that I did not pose a clear and present danger to him. I learned later that paddlers rely on groups to increase their margin of safety in the event of a mishap, but are wary of paddlers whose poor judgment reduces that margin. “When you go out with people, each paddler makes a personal decision to launch. Don’t rely on the group. Oh, they’ll try to help you if you get into trouble. But you’re responsible for yourself out there.”
With that, we put in and began paddling into the gentle southwesterlies. The water seemed choppy to me, but the kayak was more stable with its bow parting each small wave. Dave probably knew this as we headed towards the far tip of the furthest island in the chain, about two miles distant. He asked about my decision to take up the sport, about my new boat. He asked whether I lived in town, where I was from, what I did for a living. He named every island and sandbar and rock outcrop, for each had a name, referring to a rust-stained map when memory failed. He pointed out private houses and secluded campsites and abandoned stone piers. He kept my mind off the waves and the boat traffic, off the rocking and yawing of the kayak, and that was a good thing.
We paddled into a lagoon sheltered from the breezes. Cut into one of the islands, it also shielded us from any awareness of the town we had left behind a scant half hour before. Gone were views of the town and its harbor, the houses and marinas, the jetties and piers, the railroad bridge, the oil-fired power plant with its tall stack. There was just sand and rock and shell, grass and windswept tree, heron and egret and even osprey. How many others had entered this tranquil spot in the centuries before, how many of them conjured my fantasy that they could just have well been the first? Doubts evaporated as we rested our paddles and floated through this new world.
“Would you like to go on? Just tell me if you want to turn back at any point.” No way, I thought, as we paddled out of the lagoon. But soon we rounded that far island. Suddenly the boat was rocking. I stiffened, I stabbed at the water to keep myself upright. No longer were the islands knocking down the wind, flattening the chop. Wind built up waves across the longer fetch. As they approached the islands, a reef below thrust them still higher. And as they bounced off the rocky shore, their rhythm was disrupted; they became chaotic, confused. In this last regard I suppose I became one with the waves, kayak bouncing, paddle stroke disrupted, mind chaotic and confused. It didn’t help that the waves now crept up from behind, slapping at the kayak, making it rock and wriggle.
Muscles tightened. Body became erect and rigid. My hands closed around the paddle shaft in a blister-producing “death grip”.
“Would you like to turn back?”
All I wanted to do was get back around that island, but the way to go seemed forward. Turning the boat would involve putting it sideways to the waves. I’d already experienced that briefly as we’d made our turn around the tip of the island, and it was not pleasant. “I’m fine,” I shouted. “I’m okay. Let’s go.” I’m not sure Dave even heard, for I hadn’t dare turn to face him, for fear the boat would capsize if I did.
“Just keep saying to yourself, ‘Relax. Relax. Relax.’” Dave yelled. “Loosen your hips and let the boat move with the waves. Don’t fight it. Trust it. It’ll keep you up if you let it. Just relax, relax, relax.”
This was the first of many counterintuitive things I would learn about kayaking in the coming months. Instinct runs counter to the dynamics of these subtle craft. (When one tries to roll up from a capsize, the head is the last thing to leave the water, but every nerve and muscle fiber wants to raise it up for air as quickly as possible.) As I rigidly fought the boat, I put the weight of my head and shoulders further from its center of gravity, making it tip all the more. Loosening my hips, letting them rock back and forth with the hull, would leave the weight of my torso to swing over the kayak’s center. But knowing that wouldn’t have helped, instinct overrides thinking when confronting fear. Besides, I didn’t know that.
There was nothing but Dave’s mantra to calm me: “relax, relax, relax.” “Relax, relax, relax.” I’m not sure whether or not I did, but the mantra occupied my thoughts, it displaced my fears, and soon I was in the lee of the island again. Dave would have to remind me again, “relax, relax, relax,” as we crossed the mile back to the launch point. Had I been alone, I might have knelt and kissed that mudflat.
“You did pretty well. I didn’t think we would end up going as far as we did.” Well, neither did I! I was too drained, emotionally spent, to feel any sense of accomplishment. I was just glad to be out of the kayak.
I made the mistake of asking Dave for a benchmark, for some measure of victory. “Things really picked up out there. How big were those waves on the far end, three, four feet?
“One or two. It was a good day for a beginner: very calm. Hey, isn’t that a great view of the lighthouse out there?”
I nodded my head up and down, thinking all the while “What lighthouse?” Then I remembered, the town’s historic light towered over a two-story keeper’s house at the end of the far island, big as a barn. I’d been too busy to notice.
It took a day or two before I could remember how I had delighted in that peaceful lagoon. In all honesty, I’m not at all sure how much dust would now cover that yellow-red kayak had I not already committed to a series of lessons. Over the following year my skills and confidence gradually improved. I retreated to calm lakes at first, then ventured onto protected rivers. On calm days I would risk paddling along the shore, cautiously keeping within swimming distance, for me less than a stone’s throw.
A few times Dave took me on another island tour; when he did, he did not need to remind me of the importance of the three “R’s”. On one trip he showed me how one of the islands stood at the end of a mile-long reef. “At low tide it’s so shallow you could walk your boat in. If you ever get in trouble, you can just wait on the island until the tide goes out.” Later that would inspire my first solo away from shore.
Kayaking was for me like learning to swim: gripping the pool’s rim as if the edge of a cliff, pushing off, but only so far as to keep that rim within grasp, treading for dear life, then stabbing at the safety of the rim to return. With each effort, braving inches, feet, then yards of separation. I don’t remember many other children struggling as much to swim. In the same way, I imagine kayaking comes easily to many people. In retrospect, my fears seem silly, but they were there nonetheless, and overcoming them was a special accomplishment.
I am still hooked on kayaking. I have no dreams of deep water crossings, nor do I yearn for the thrill of heavy surf. But I will be responsible for myself, choosing routes and conditions carefully. I will enjoy the serenity of a quiet lagoon, the surprise of bluefish breaking the surface around me, the majesty of an osprey taking flight, fresh catch gripped in its talons. I will keep my fascination at learning the subtleties of wind and tide and current. And I will remember some day to teach a timid novice simply to “relax, relax, relax”, oh, and smile. Yakking is s’posed to be fun, after all!
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