I
was in the middle of a mile wide wind tunnel on the frigid waters of Southeast
Alaska, paddling into a steady 15 knots plus gusts. My teammates were out of
earshot and had limited rescue skills even if we could reach each other in time
if one of us capsized. My psyche was low. I still felt pretty strong bodily but
I knew how much work lay ahead. My survival kit was less than sufficient. Could
I make a one-night shelter out of the space blanket in the bottom of my pack if
I had to pull out solo onto one of these rocky bear inhabited beaches?
The
afternoon wore on. I worked to stay relatively close to the shore. There wasn't
much relief from the wind there, but I felt safer with and rocks and trees to
cling to in case of a bailout. Arriving at coves and inlets, though, I had to
steal myself the go across the mouths and into more open water.
The
ultimate goal of basecamp remained discouragingly far away, so I started
breaking the task into miniscule chunks of progress that I could accomplish one
at a time. I used features of the landscape whose shapes reminded me of
something familiar to mark waypoints. "Here I come," I said to no
one, "pulling up even with phone poll tree! Can't stop me now, no
sir." A list of landscape shapes was enumerated - slimy rock, spider web
rock, frog tree. Inevitably, bosom rocks. Between covering these tiny distances
and wildly saying prayers - now a shout, now a murmur into the wind - I made
slow progress in spite of fear and tiring muscles.
After
a long time I saw Jaime and Mike far ahead of me angle around some rocks and
into what I thought was Waterfall Cove. It turned out to be an illusory
misperception, like a false summit on an alpine hike. Nevertheless we were
almost home. When I finally paddled in I found Gregg fishing for bass on his
familiar promontory, and we grunted a greeting to one another. I dragged my
kayak up into the grass and tied it off. Then I went to the tent to warm my
bones and transition my mind from its grim survivalist outlook and into a state
more conducive to cooking the evening meal and firepit socializing.
Resting
now, I looked at my watch and did some quick calculations. The return trip had
covered six miles in three and a half hours time. That's about one third of the
speed that I would walk down a hiking trail or a city boulevard at a casual
pace.
Over
the course of ten days or so, we finished up and efficient and successful trip.
Our digital data loggers were collected from every site except one (a cause for
speculation - did a curious squirrel scramble off with it? Did the moist earth
just swallow it up?). No one had a blaze orange flight suit to don for the
occasion, but we were ready to say "mission accomplished."
Days
after that I was in the public library in Sitka, passing the time reading
magazines. In the pages of Sea Kayaker there
was a narrative account of an adventure racer who had paddled solo across Lake
Michigan in a recreational boat using homemade outriggers and other random
gear. The guy survived his trip, but the article was presented as a caution
against launching a kayak without full understanding of conditions and a solid
background of experience for the task at hand. The editors added in their
commentary,
"If
you've ever had to resort to your mental fitness to extend your physical limits
on open water or a hostile coast, it's quite likely that you've made some
serious errors in judgement."
I
thought about those words and about the experience of having conjured up a
variety of mind tricks to endure a difficult physical challenge. How did our
experience compare and relate to the one described, and had we in fact made
serious errors in judgment? Was I just a pilgrim and a rube that had
contributed to endangering my team by acting with incomplete information? Or
had I simply explored my limits in a way familiar to adventurers throughout
time? The answer is blowin' in the wind.
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