The sixth and final episode recounting a summer skin-on-frame kayak build and solo 130 mile kayak journey.
Morning brightened in the mist
Woke me with a misted kiss
Invisible ships sounded horns of
Loneliness - "heyyyyyyyy"
Heyyyyyyy, I'm
Here too.
The frosted rainbow glimmered a bright
Constrast to the wistfulness of woebegotten ships -
Hovering just west, proudly purpled.
Completely conflicted - proof of a
Presence, and proof of it soon
Failing to exist.
Good morning Burrows Island,
Farewell to the mist.
30 June -to- 6 July of 2014 | Burrows Island, WA -to- Ketchikan, AK
Dreamt deeply on Burrows Island after an afternoon of reading on the cliff's edge.
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Woke to a lazy day on the island. Read for hours in the sunshine between sun-soaked naps. Stripped down and clambered down the cliff to leap breezy into the bracing sea. Bobbed up and down in the churn, dunking a time or two before scrabbling back up the cliff to dry in the bright warmth baking off the darkened cliff rock.
A man in his mid-fifties showed up in my camp, having walked down the trail from the other end of the island. We chatted for a moment before he disappeared on a boat that was not there earlier. I shivered with the vague premonition that there were eyes in the forest, always watching. A strange dream of earlier heightened the sense that something ominously omniscient deep in the woods lay in wait for the curious to trip headlong into its yawning and toothy embrace.
Took in lunch with mouth while eyes took in the sea, the gleaming peaks and troughs of the tidal change rippling the expanse betwixt here and the adjacent island some few miles across the way, a coast guard cutter slowly slipping south between the islands; and at other times, swivel towards the forest covering the islands expanse, wondering at the trail winding its way east beyond the old light keeper's house.
Cleaned up lunch, and sought the trail. Coming on to the cliff's edge, I spied two minke whales cavorting! Imagined the pair was mother and child, since the smaller one took breaths at more frequent intervals and seemed to be following the larger (I have no relevant expertise, the imagination just continued to promulgate determinations). The two cetaceans swam beneath the cliff and edged their white bellies side-to-side, leaning to turn in aquatic flight, vibrating with poised and delicate acrobatics. Pshhhhhh, they would spout every thirty seconds or so, before going silent for two+ minutes, until surfacing again, far out from the island.
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The radio sang out, then drove my pen back to this notebook. Songs about unrealistic love and trite heartache moved across the dial. The final straw came from a PSA advising a solution to your excess laundry woes - buy a second washer! That way you only load once, but do twice the quantity in the same amount of time. Soon we'll barely recall that barbaric time before each possessed their own private multi-unit laundromats installed at home.
The earlier hike was aborted at the point of whale-sighting, apparently prior to the trail's terminus. Either my legs have atrophied, or that tape-blazed trail is an ass-kicker. Likely both. Regardless, since I was directed that way by the odd man that materialized at my back without warning before disappearing over the sea, I thought I sensed an ill portent waiting at the trails end.
Other game trails I did not take were perhaps secret routes, ones that avoided the booby traps awaiting me. I imagined the footprints I saw were only entering the woods, and none could be found that were leaving in good health and whole body. My waning strength was caused by the wizard of this island wood, to test the quantity of slack he must use in counteracting the impulses he urged outward to force the unknowing and curious to their impending conclusion.
Turning and fleeing, I imagined the wizard's awe at my resistance and fled faster still to avoid the reach of his lackeys, that he might not seize me and distill my essence.
Returned to camp and slightly less wildhaired pastimes - watching the sea for ships to glass, spotting birds, and reading. The birds - Swallows? Swifts? Kites? Fast beyond belief, deltoid shaped wings when in flight.
A lovely spot to read and finish Hannes Lindemann's account of two cross-Atlantic trips; first, in a dugout canoe; and, later, in a folding canoe, both times rigged with sails and run by him, a solo sailor.
He noted several times that the medical tests he engaged in while afloat - tests to determine the quantity of saltwater one can bear before ill effects manifest - were intended as contributions to collective science, yet I think his erudition was born as a means of denying his penchant for masochism.
His second trip was noteworthy for the mental preparations. Three months prior to even beginning to plan the trip, he instituted a regimen of uplifting and ego-building, reaffirming statements intoned to himself. Once he felt with confidence that the trip was achievable, he began to ready things in earnest.
After finishing with Hannes, I took up with Steinbeck, and his travelogue with a french poodle called Charley, as they sought to discover the opinions, hopes and ideas of the people in the good ol' US of A.
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Arose at 4:00 am to order everything for a 6:00 am start, all the better to catch favorable currents, per the San Juan Islands current chart. The bathymetry of this area, the multitude of islands, the great quantity of water flowing in from rivers, and running north and south between the mainland and Vancouver Island, creates strong and dangerous tidal flows. A chart of the currents is a necessary tool, especially for the solo kayaker, needing to rely solely on himself and wits.
Thirteen miles later, around 10:00 am, I was paddling up to Obstruction Pass State Park, at the southern end of Orcas Island, with a view behind to Obstruction Island. Would have been there earlier, except that I assumed, based on the park's name, that it was actually situated on Obstruction Island. After paddling Obstruction's perimeter without sighting any non-private land, I found a nice older man tinkering with his boat on a private dock. Calling out to him for help locating the park, we were soon in discussion about private land ownership (the entirety of Obstruction I. is owned in fee simple by individuals), and the increasing non-public nature of the San Juan Islands.
With all my stuff hauled up the steep shoreline to a campsite, it was time to relax in the comfort of my undies, still sticky from drysuit sweat. In this state, I greeted Alex, a seasonal ranger, as he walked in to check on these campsites, set back a mile or so from the parking lot. He asked if I had seen the occupants of a neighboring tent, a blue symmetrical a-frame just over the bushes from me. No, I'd just arrived, I told him. We spoke for a bit, him quite a lot, about how he is trying to reconcile his laissez-faire attitudes and pacifist tendencies with his love of this occupation where he is charged with enforcing the law and will soon be required to carry a deadly firearm.
I setup camp while he talked, and then he gave me a ride to the top of Mount Constitution. After agreeing to meet up for a beer later in the day, I bid him farewell to take in the view from the old stone observation tower. The near panoramic view contained my recent past, the islands south, and my hoped-for future, Lummi Island, Bellingham, along with its guardian angel, Mount Baker, glowing in glittering glacier shine. Took a long amble down a trail to the road where Erin answered my outstretched thumb with a ride into East Sound. Earlier that day, she misplaced her wallet, somewhere between finishing her day's work as a baker and teaching a baking class to a group of children. She spoke fondly of the chance to work with the kids and witness the excitement they had from learning with their hands. Parted ways with her after finding out where a burger and a beer might be had.
Took my pint and quarter pound of flesh to the nearly empty outdoor patio to escape the raving futbol fanatics filling the bar to watch the US play an eastern european team. Said patio was arranged with plastic chairs amid a faux beach. Paid witness to non-contextualized hoots of hope and cries of defeat. Learned from those eager to share that the US lost, 2-1, but their goalkeeper, Tim Howard, blocked more attempts at goal than any previous World Cup goalie. Inside to refill my quaffed pint glass, beheld the goalie on-screen, in a post-game interview. Near tears, weighted with emotion, his eloquence expressed in short: we sportsed hard, they sportsed better. Good sportsing, but it still sucks to lose.
Phone chirped, revealing that THE Public Defender of Alaska had left a voicemail. Rang him from the bar to discover that all three open positions in the agency had been filled - and none of them had been filled with yours truly. Stayed chipper on the phone, yes, I said, I am still interested in a position, you see, I only want to work for the PD's, yes, I will go to any one of the 13 offices in the state. He reassured me that the no-hire decision this time did not equate to a future no-hire. They had simply been overcome with highly qualified applicants.
After we finished the conversation, I felt a shimmering darkness as a sense of rejection washed over me. Despite purposing not to, I had built up great expectations and a series of dreams about my future, revolving around the surety of being hired for the Ketchikan office. Taking hope in a sort of sour-grapes avoided negative reality, I imagined that I had dodged a bad supervisor or crap work environment. Mary took the news as encouraging step towards us moving to Thailand for a year - "a job will open by the time we return, and I'll go anywhere with you!" - which buoyed me up a great deal.
Wandered over to the brewery by way of four helpful strangers, each giving me different directions while I bounced between them like a lost pinball. Found Alex the park ranger there, with his four seasonal ranger co-workers. Their blasse attitudes about life and relations reminded me of the Xanterrorists, seasonal Yellowstone Park workers, who as a group expended similarly clumsy efforts to create a place for themselves, while nevertheless being placeless; and, the clique-based conflicts they had with the various methods others took to progress the creation of that place.
Alex had spoken this morning of a quandary in his summer plans - stay at Orcas Cove to work in Moran S.P. and Obstruction S.P., and further his career as a ranger; or go to Kodiak and make more money. The former concerned him because he was averse to becoming a law enforcer, and carrying a gun. The latter would help finance his time in Japan this coming winter, where he would advance his cooking skills. Think I'll choose Kodiak in the end, he told me, as I hopped out of his car to stand beneath a yellow sign bearing an extended thumb and the text S/J RideShare, under which I could catch a ride back towards the state park. I left him with thanks and an invitation to visit Ketchikan.
Twenty minutes later, Christopher Hans Kaufmann braked to a stop in his white 1986 Toyota 4-Runner. I thanked him as he cleared the passenger seat. Chris was about as scruffy as I was, unshaven, unshorn, unbathed. A resourceful fellow, he told of his automobile woes of that day. A pump had disintegrated on the right-hand drive Jeep Cherokee he uses to deliver the mail. Using zip-ties and rubber, he jerry-rigged it, for the mail must go through! The only weather that endangers his solemn duty, he told me, is good weather, because then he'd rather be on the water. Growing up on Bainbridge Island, he loves the openness of sailing across the sound. Now he races a 24' sailboat, with a team of three others. Just last year they won a championship race! He was overjoyed at relating this and gleefully accepted my excited congratulations.
Though he had first said this ride would end several miles from my destination, when we arrived at that spot, he continued in my direction, driving the additional fifteen minutes to the OPSP parking lot. Stopping the car there at the end of the road, he asked, ya want a beer? I gave the only rational reply - hot damn, yes!
He was recently in Montana, and while there he visited the Little Big Run memorial. I told him about my paternal grandmother's relative, his memory carved into the memorial marker as Wm. Brady, a cavalry drummer-boy, who perished along with the reckless feckless Custer, there in that blooded field. He spoke of his continuing amazement that our species is capable of such violence, how he cannot square that capacity with his own pacifism. I called it a horrible sense of duty that lets humans commit such acts against others, under the banner of obedience to the orders of another.
We spoke into the night, quietly, often laughing. Conversation slowing, we began to part, but somehow parting turned into an open wine bottle and more communion. Eventually, the toasts ran dry and I turned into the woods with a wobbly gaze and full head of steam, to amble down the path to my wee blue plastic home, smile as wide as the flashlight beam filling the dirt path before me.
A glorious mile later, I unzipped the tent to the spine-snatching scream, bursting forth out of the mysterious light-blue tent Alex had asked me about when I first met him. Maybe my light had disturbed the unknown occupant? I'll never know. When the screaming did not continue, I went to bed. In the morning, the tent and the screamer had cleared out without a trace. Alex said the tent had been there for over a week, and he had not seen anyone near it. He and I had nosed around the tent, peering in through the zipped mesh to see a bulky mattress pillow-top and ratty sleeping bag. No backpack. Could be this contraption converted into a raft and the screaming personage set sail into the morning seas.
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Laid on a gravel beach while the tide rolled in, luxuriating in that satisfying mindlessness available at times in nature. An ant, black with two yellow bands crawled over my arms, worrying bits of flesh free when it discovered a wound. Escorting my hungry hitchhiker to a nearby log, I soon felt his comrade following the scent route left along my arm earlier.
Earlier today, took some time to hike a few miles in the park. Finished Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley" - fantastic text, many underlines. Met Daniel, this evening, the father of two cute little girls, one held in his arms as the other danced around their mother, all visiting from France. First saw them as they were headed back to the car, exhausted. They had not brought any water, and would need to make multiple trips down the mile-long trail to have all they needed for a night's rest - a plan the mother would not agree to. I offered my services as a pack-mule, but they declined. He admired my boat, she smiled, and they left.
Tonight while in the tent, at least two different raccoons have come to make inspections. The first, smaller bandit, held up one of his front paws, injured. The second banded bandit popped up a number of times. I talked to them both, explaining why we couldn't trade food for hijinks as they were suggesting. After the explanation, they went towards my food cache, and I put the fear of man into them, yelling and stomping. The sun's last illumination is nearly gone and I must sleep, with the hope that tonight's activities do not contain any more raccoon rebellions.
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The morning after those rascally raccoons tucked me in with grumbles at my stinginess, I awoke to one of those bandits posted up just outside my tent, pawing at my dive shoe. He split when my howl burst forth from the previously sleepy tent.
I did not attend the 6 am start time set the night before as the appropriate time to catch favorable currents. Thus, was I meted out a long day battling opposing currents while the wind pushed them into larger and larger waves, as the oncoming weather darkened the sky and threatened me with peril.
There is this way the water will run, or at least can be perceived to travel, that causes an unsteadiness approaching vertigo. As it washes past, my eyes say they see opposing flow, despite contrary evidence reporting itself to me from the ranges taken upon the distant land. When this sensation is overpowering, I turn and paddle in the direction I perceive the water to be traveling. This need can change several times in a single crossing. Likewise the currents, as they alter in step with the rising or falling tides, the rush of water across varying bathymetry flowing in a multitude of directions, a dizzying number of occasions.
If I have learned anything from kayaking during this trip, it is to slow down and relax. For, when paddling, you have anywhere to go and all day to get there. That vertigo-esque feeling is worst when tensed and struggling to match stroke power with the undying force of the water. I'm learning slowly, but maybe that is the best way to accomplish anything of value.
After a wild ride from Orcas Island to Cypress Island, during which the water and wind did their best to deep-six me, I scurried into the gentler currents nearer the land, before sneaking in behind tiny Towhead Island for a breather, with a few strands of bull-kelp draped over my bow to anchor in place. A relaxing half-hour later, paddled out beyond Sinclair Island and shot SW towards Lummi Island. Rounding the southern tip, headed north until the campsite revealed itself, carved out of a small bay.
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Waking in this quiet campsite with no humans for miles around, I learned that some critter with claws had made off in the night with both of my food bags. A search soon located them at the bottom of the hill on which my tent was perched. One was slashed, the other simply perforated, dry-bags no more. Damn critters didn't even eat anything, just rifled through it.
Got on the water at 6:30 am for the long crossing to Bellingham. Though I departed at the right time to encounter favorable currents, I knew undesirable currents were still waiting to spin me 'round. And they did, in this whirlpool of waterway, in a succession of reversing water paths, replete with opposing winds and vertigo-esque water flow perceptions.
Spied a public beach and folks suiting up for a paddle less than a half-mile from where I believed the ferry terminal to be. Popping out of my boat, I ran up to inquire of the terminal's location. After the kayaker learned of where I had been and what I had been doing, she did one better than give directions and offered her services for a brief ride to the swank terminal. Knowing the ferry would not be leaving until evening, she was kind enough to offer the comfort of her home for the day, but I declined and thanked her ever so much.
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| Ladder leading to campsite on Lummi Island |
Dumping out all my gear on the sidewalk, sorted out what I would need to survive the upcoming 36 hour ferry ride. Strapping trailer to kayak, rolled the contraption inside and purchased a ticket. They declined my request to stow the kayak until an hour prior to departure, so I slid it in a corner of a hallway and then treated myself to a delicious fresh trout salad sandwich. Passed out on a chair for a few hours exhausted sleep. Finally able to check my kayak in, rolled it down the ramp and then up on a rack, strapping down to ensure it would only travel with, and not within, the ferry. Took a short walk into Fairhaven for a gelato, before boarding the big boat for the long ride to Ketchikan.
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Rolled through memories as the ferry tossed its bow across the furrowed fields of flowing waters. Met a civil rights attorney, Peter Henner, on an Alaskan cruise to suit the alternative tastes he and his wife share, with plans for island hikes along the ferry route. He spoke of his long history in the law, his time in the civil rights era, and his disillusionment with the legal system becoming mired in procedure at the loss of substantive, merit-based determinations. While watching the evening film, Peter joined me. Growing bored with the film, he began discussing things more intriguing to him before nodding to sleep in the darkened cinema.
Invited to eat dinner at the table of a couple from Australia, on an Alaskan trip, following conclusion of the male half's scientific mission at the arctic pole research station. The fourth table-partner was a woman moving up to work as a translator for the deaf. Good conversation, and so strange to be sitting there having civil chats with humans after days on end where the only person speaking was myself. Spent some time in the ferry bar - since closed due to budget crisis, no thank ya, legislature - where the tender described his Juneau ice cream shop with Tlingit designed waffle cones.
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Sitting in the dining room of the Alaska ferry, watching the seas roll away between the vessel's plowing and some Canadian landmass off the port side. For my taste, this view easily rivals that of any grand skyscraper bejeweled city. But I am awash with bias, the sea having stolen my heart by degrees, like a barnacle slowly immersed in the rising tide.
No relationship of this sort can be had by simply soaring over the waters in a jet, aside from some vague juxtaposition between the fear of drowning and security found within a pressurized capsule, suspended in the sky far from apparent harm.
Much more poignant is the grasping bond known from a life lived on the shoreline, within sight, sound and impact of the weather generated by the wide vicissitudes borne of the sea's grand fetch. But, despite the strong tugs such a situation takes upon heartstrings, it is often easily forgotten and forsaken when one journeys further inland.
Continuing along the continuum, towards greater intensity, lies the experience of being upon the water in a vessel, sitting only slightly above the surface. Here the feeble human is on, but not of the water, a position of respite from the curious and sometimes feverish embrace of the sea. Within this class of sea-stung acolytes, may be named the sailing vessels, placed just above the motoring vessels, because they are, to a greater degree, dependent upon the vacillating nature of the sea. This vulnerability leads the sailors thus-bound to learn the ocean even more deeply - an unfortunate adjective in this context - to love it and to hate it, but above all, to know it.
This exposition concludes as it began - biased by my own predilections and experiences. To kayak is not necessarily to know the water, but assuredly it is to BE the water, to exist as just one more molecule tossed amidst the currents and waves. This is total affinity with the sea.
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| My welcome party - their proximity indicates I have showered since skinning the drysuit off |
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