Of Inuit and Epidurals

“Tom. Move!” I think this is excellent communication and right out of my crisis management training. I’ve used his name, I’ve only given him one task and I haven’t overwhelmed him with extraneous information. So why is my bow now crunching into his stern? Tom tells me it’s all to do with timing and that I have to give him more than two seconds to register and react. It’s one more lesson I have to learn.

It seems I am learning a lot in this kayaking course, that I’m fairly sure was not in the syllabus. For example, seasons of the year. For a good thirty years I have thought of December, January and February coming under the banner of summer, while winter takes up most of June, July and August. And I thought, when I got to Canada, that it would be the reverse. Not in Raincouver. No one other than the naïve expat even pretends that summer begins before Canada Day, on the 1st of July. This year has been so cold and wet that the locals have been calling it Juneuary. I think I would find this more entertaining if I weren’t having to practice wet exits in gale force winds. No, I exaggerate. The night we had gale force winds, rather than just garden-variety bone chilling, the instructors decided to keep us out of the cold and teach us about charts and compasses instead. After three hours of that we were all pretty keen to get back on the water, no matter what the temperature.

When we’re not scrambling to get back into the boat after intentionally falling out, or trying to will our numbed bodies to tip sideways once again into the icy water, kayaking in English Bay can be a lot of fun. The bay is busy, with lots to look at. Sailboats, dragon boats, oil tankers, all make us feel small in our yellow plastic shells. But there are smaller things than us. In the twilight it’s hard to distinguish between a seal surfacing to greet us, and a lump of driftwood. Our instructor explains that the seal can control its bobbing movements, whereas driftwood can’t. I seem to be channelling driftwood rather than seal. Despite my best efforts my boat seems to be zigzagging randomly. Perhaps it’s not my best effort because I’m not focussing on navigation so much as the view. To the north and west lie mountain ranges, no longer snow-capped but golden in the setting sun. To the southeast, a thousand city-dwellers illuminate the city skyline, as they turn on lights in their high-rise condos. The lights end abruptly where the city meets Stanley Park, a thousand acres of forest, set aside in Vancouver’s early days by some forward thinking official.

From our starting point of Jericho Beach we set off for Siwash Rock, once part of the mainland Stanley Park but eroded over the years to form an obelisk shaped rock some metres offshore. At least, we try to set off for Siwash Rock. The wind it seems has other ideas. I paddle first harder on the right, then harder and more often on the right, then eventually, only on the right, not particularly hard because my untrained muscles are protesting. I try out a lesson learned the week before, edging the boat against the gale. It seems my right hip is almost in the water but still I am blown shoreward. I try to get some assistance in direction from the skeg. But it’s stuck in the upright position and will not budge. Having exhausted all other possible courses, I sulk. I sulk, but I keep paddling. And finally we are there, well not at Siwash Rock but on Second Beach. It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination, right? I’m not the only one having major trouble in the wind. Our instructor has revised the original plan in light of our beginner, non-Olympian status, probably to prevent a mass protest and downing of paddles, whilst crossing the shipping lane.

But it still leaves me grumpy. Other invitations come my way and I guiltily skip the class that seems to be more about building endurance than building a love for the sport. I had thought that I needed the course to be able to hire a kayak but it turns out that it is only required if you want to hire solo. Three weeks later, on a blue-sky Sunday in Deep Cove, I remember that kayaking is about enjoyment. I don’t need the course because I’m not really interested in kayaking solo. I enjoy the social aspect of paddling, pointing out the wildlife, pulling into a beach for snacks of cherries and granola bars, the challenge of staying close enough together to talk, without crashing into each other. And though I haven’t perfected my steering technique, my communication skills have definitely improved. “T. Move. Now!”

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Canada, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.