- The ocean is dangerous.
For the first four miles of the kayak trip the water had mostly been nice and smooth. The little waves we went over were small and round and pleasant enough.
When we came around the point and turned left the ocean ahead of us was terrifying. We were heading into the current, so the waves were coming toward us. What I saw was a jagged field of waves several feet high. These were real waves. When they crested they pointed forward sharply and then collapsed down heavy. There was so much wind that water blew off the crests of the waves straight ahead – straight into my face – so there was a misty layer like rain above the waves. And the current was fast – in the wrong direction – so it was pushing us back and sideways. On this side of the point there were no coves to pull into for safety or rest, just cliffs with rocks at the bottom.
The graceful windmill motion of paddling didn’t work anymore. I had to stick the full paddle straight down into the water and push hard, levering myself forward. And then had to do the same on the other side, and fast, otherwise I wouldn’t be pointing into the waves anymore. If I wasn’t pointed into the waves, they would push the kayak sideways and the water would crash over the top of me and if the length of the kayak got hit with a wave it would nearly flip over. This came close to happening more times than I care to admit.
After about ten minutes of difficult progress, it got to the point where I couldn’t even move forward anymore. All my paddling did was keep me in place against the current. The waves were so high that when I was down between them and looked back, I couldn’t see Mike anymore.
I considered turning around, thinking that we could pull in to a cove on the safe side of the island and just hike to camp, but the problem was that I could SEE our camp from where I was. I could SEE IT! And I would have had a problem with turning back at that point.
So we kept on going. It was scary and probably the only time I can think of as an adult when I felt that I was in real, physical danger. Like actual peril. If I had been knocked off the kayak, if it had flipped over, I don’t think I would have been able to flip it back over and get back on. I’m not sure what would have happened at that point.
So I just paddled and paddled and paddled my little heart out. As I got inches and inches closer to the camp, I saw that it was rockier than I had previously realized. There were formations of rocks that had been under the water, but the waves were so high now that they first engulfed the rocks, then withdrew, leaving the rocks above water and totally exposed and dangerous.
I was able to kind of aim the kayak in between some of the rocks and then a wave scooped me up and pushed me in, but it turned me sideways as it did and so I hit the beach with my kayak turned sideways, I hopped out and tried to drag it up the beach but by then another wave came in and pushed the kayak into me, knocking me down. I scrambled up and dragged the kayak up out of the water and then promptly collapsed on the beach, exhausted and still a little scared.
Mike came in a couple minutes later and made just as graceful of a landing as I did.
It had taken two hours to go the first four miles and it took a full hour to go the last 0.2 miles.
Also, I was now completely terrified of the ocean, and not just because of the sharks.
(Our kayaks on the beach the next day)
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment