Why I Paddle

Excerpt from Day of Two Sunsets by Michael Blades

I looked again back over my right shoulder. A dark green ocean swell, the size of a house, roared down upon me. Sitting in my sixteen-foot kayak, I felt like a little child in a toy boat about to be obliterated. Flecks of white built on the approaching crest and formed into a wave upon a wave. The top three feet curled, then exploded down upon itself. Seconds later the massive wall of water swept under me and I shot upward at a frightening speed. As the sea of white foam engulfed the kayak, I quickly braced on my outstretched paddle to prevent a capsize.

For a moment I sat high above the world and searched for any sign of my paddling companion, Mike. At first I saw nothing, then suddenly he and his kayak appeared, looking small and insignificant in the rough seas. The look on his face was intense. Then he was gone and I dropped into what seemed a bottomless trough between the giant walls of water. To my rear, the next mountain of dark green moved swiftly towards me.

We were rounding Cape Cook, also known as the Cape of Storms, off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. The wind and sea conditions were very close to the limit that I ever wanted to experience; I could feel fear bubbling in healthy proportions inside me. A few minutes later I passed alongside Mike and shouted above the howling wind, "If we get out of here in one piece will you remind me why it is we CHOOSE to do this!" He turned, flashed a wide grin, then was erased from view as the next swell rose up between us.

A little more than an hour later we stood on a beautiful pebble and sand beach nestled in a well-protected cove. Forty- to fifty-knot winds roared over the mountains behind us, shooting well out to sea. Where we stood, however, all was calm. It was wonderful to be safe, dry, and basking in the warm sun. I lay back on the beach and the heat from the pebbles crept into my tired body. My muscles turned off the "full alert" switch and started to ooze into a soft relaxed state. An eagle, perched high on a towering Sitka spruce, cried out. Behind us, the tops of the tallest trees bent seaward, while their massive trunks provided us with a wall of peaceful protection from the strong winds. I closed my eyes.

Later, I sat up and sipped some of the cool clear water we'd collected from a steep mountain stream on the north side of the Brooks Peninsula. I shifted and leaned back against a warm rock; a hint of movement caught my eye. From under a grey log a little mouse appeared. It paused, looked about, then scurried across a stretch of white sand, through the hollow formed by a fresh bear track, and disappeared into a tiny crevice in a giant rock.

Having survived the sudden and unexpected storm to kiss these blessed shores, I could now put the whole experience into the "I'm glad I did it but do not plan to ever repeat it" category. Pondering the question I'd flung out to Mike: "Why do we CHOOSE to do this?" was a luxury which could now be indulged.

My increasing obsession with ocean kayaking had not been with the purpose of embarking upon high-risk, death-defying journeys. Initially, the kayak had simply been a means to get away from the confines and clatter of civilization. Then I had discovered the magic of travelling the special corridor between open ocean and rugged shoreline. The kayak was the perfect craft. It was designed to sneak through narrow channels on rock-strewn coasts and to slide onto beaches where few others had been. The limits of my own physical strength and skills, coupled with the need for acute awareness of my surroundings, acted as a simple but powerful motivation to be in the "now." Failure to see the reef that lay ahead, or the increase in a changing current, could easily spell serious trouble. The water, sky, and land all became an open book, full of wonder and information. Unfortunately, they were written in a language I was only slowly coming to learn. Still, each journey provided an ever deeper understanding, as well as an increased sense of kinship with the earth.

In my work at the hospital, as a pediatric social worker, I was often involved with families whose children had died. The impact of these deaths carried over into my personal life. The children, and their parents, taught me valuable lessons. I learned that although it was important to have dreams and goals, it was equally necessary to count my blessings and to value each day as a gift. The message was similar to what I'd heard from many old folk, who with the hindsight of a lifetime, talked of worrying less, smelling the flowers more, and appreciating the wonder and mystery of daily life.

It all seemed to point strongly to the notion that satisfaction and contentment did not exist in some other time or place, but rather right here, where I sat today. A sign on my wall at work summed it up:

Rush Slowly. Keep Breathing. This is it.

The challenge, of course, is to lift this wisdom off the wall and make it come alive. Slowing down seemed a wonderful first step, and the kayak could not have provided a better means for doing so.

From the Introduction to Day of Two Sunsets, Paddling Adventures on Canada's West Coast), by Michael Blades, published by Orca Books of Victoria, BC, nominated for the 1995 Rutstrum Wilderness Award in the United States.