In search of safety

Buck Tilton, co-founder of the Wilderness Medical Institute has this to say: "Adventure, then, is a stretch of the mind, an expansion of the heart. Without adventure, life becomes a book with only one page. Without adventure, the human spirit withers, and then dies. 'Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action,' wrote Robert Ingersoll, 'rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith.'"

I've been thinking about the notion of safety lately, especially since I got an email about the article that I wrote for this month's Sea Kayaker magazine. The writer of the email is a fairly well known Seattle paddler, and he took issue with my Sea Kayaker piece, more or less because I had failed to sufficiently emphasize (in his judgement), the dangers of coastal kayaking. The photos that were used, he said, made the area look too easy and were misleading at best. I had also neglected to cast the region using sufficiently dark adjectives, like dangerous, and deathly and doomed. Essentially, it was not that he had a beef with the facts that I had presented, it was that he didn't believe I had told my story with enough emphasis on how unsafe it all could be.

My response is that I wasn't thinking about it that way. Sure, bad things can happen, the weather can change, the wind can start to blow, volcanoes erupt, the Yankees win. If I tell someone that the sunset is beautiful, am I being negligent if I don't tell them not to stare at it? Do I have an obligation to spell everything out? After all my years in the Air Force, where safety was a constant theme, and after these last couple of decades in the outdoor biz, where safety is presented as the most important thing, I have come to believe that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. I am starting to think that it is possible to be too safe.

Can we not all agree that we are adults, that we all have the responsibility to adequately provide for our own safety, to pull our own asses out of whatever tight spots we may lodge them in? Can we say that we'll do our best to learn what we need to know to operate in whatever environment we have chosen, without harming ourselves or others? More importantly, can we agree that, while adventure without regard to safety may be foolish, safety without the joy that adventure brings is the root of all boredom? That, while safety is an important thing, it is not the most important thing?

Maybe we really are a nation of lawyers now, a collection of sad and soulless accountants. Maybe we have sacrificed that last tough gristle of adventure that we had left on the altar of safety, that our wide-eyed nature has been legislated, regulated and exterminated in the name of caution. I don't really know what to tell the writer of that email; I think we have vastly different priorities.

For her part, Helen Keller probably had the most direct and sensible thing to say on the subject: "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."

Expectations v. Results

I thought I would need to paddle at night. Given that the wind is a major factor in the touring paddleboard game, I expected that I would need to do a certain amount of my paddling after dark, when the wind usually abates. I went as far as installing a mount for a light near the aft end of the board. I took the light with me, but I never used it.

Although the wind is certainly a consideration and a 12-foot paddleboard is not particularly efficient in blustery conditions where the wind is blowing in direct opposition to course, it is also not as bad as I had first thought. By dropping to a seated position and using the sea kayak paddle, I was able to average about 2 knots, which is not egregiously far off the pace of a loaded sea kayak in the same situation. It did involve more effort, however, and over time, was certainly more tiring. Without thigh and foot braces, I wasn't able to transfer energy from my back muscles to the paddle blades, so I had to rely on pure strength, which only lasts so long.

As for changing position - standing, sitting, kneeling - I found that to be the most pleasing aspect of the 5-day trip. I don't have a problem sitting in my kayak for long stretches of time, but I still like the options that a touring SUP brings with it. Given the opportunity to stretch my entire body at whatever interval I wanted meant that I took more breaks on the board and less on shore. If I had stopped every time I needed a rest, I would not have gone as far as I did.

With all that said, my best day only covered about 20 miles. That was with a stout wind at my back and some assistance from the current. In a kayak, I would have gone perhaps twice as far, and with less physical exertion. I've spent seven days on the route so far; if I'd used a kayak, I would already be done. Even though the speed through the water was better than I expected, the extra effort required meant that I did not paddle for nearly as long as I would have in a kayak, so my overall miles totaled less.

I am not certain of the exact weight I had in the two drybags at the front of the board. I weighed everything at one point, but then made additions and substitutions that changed the total. I'd say the weight of my gear was somewhere between 30 and 35 pounds. Two things here: 1) It is difficult to travel lightly in the winter, and 2) I wouldn't want to take much more than I did.

A longer board would have been better, at least in terms of speed, but you play the cards you're dealt. I'm excited about the paddling that's still to come though, not only during the PSC, but after that as well. I think that the nature of SUP is going to be transformed, now that it has made its way up here to the higher latitudes and I am very interested in what will come next. I'll say it now, in the hopes that when it all comes to pass, someone will remember that I said it, that they heard it here first: The future of paddleboarding is touring.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the future of human-powered surface water travel is going to be something that hasn't been invented yet. It may not be a paddleboard precisely, but it's going to draw on the things that a SUP, and a kayak, have to contribute. There's a marriage waiting to happen here, and I'm looking forward to being a matchmaker.

A Change

A bit of housekeeping today...

I've had a few people ask me, just in the last week, why the "Comment" feature on this site had been disabled. No good reason, I suppose. So I turned it on... you can now leave your thoughts, suggestions and other input right here, just a click away. If you don't have anything to say, then just continue on like you have been. For you, nothing has changed.

I've been thinking over the trip, especially since I spent the past few days writing up how it went. I've been reflecting on what I learned, and on the way that the trip compared with my expectations. I expect I'll write about that soon. Need to think on it a little more.

Puget Sound Challenge - Day 7

Being that it was a Sunday morning, and being that I'd been up and moving my camp to higher ground at 1:30 in the morning, and also that I knew it was going to be a short day anyway... with all these considerations tilting me in one direction, I slept in. Where the other days found me on the water by 7:00 am, this morning I didn't get out there until 9:00. And that was just to make the short paddle into town for breakfast and a cup of joe. I finally got underway at 10:00.

Crossing the bay was an easy venture, shielded as I was from the wind, which was building out on the open water. Once I did get out of the cove, it was hard to hide. I stayed along shore as much as possible. At least the tide and current were not factors... just the relentless wind coming out of the south, right on the nose.

My initial hope, before I started this segment of the trip, was to make it all the way to Southworth, at the north end of Colvos Passage. The back-up plan was to try to at least get as far as Fay Bainbridge State Park, on the northeast side of Bainbridge Island. On this particular morning, however, there was no way that I was going to make the crossing into steep wind waves and a burly gale.

(I say "no way," as if it were some absolute. It wasn't. I learned a lot on this 5-day excursion and one of the biggest lessons was that, if I keep going, I'll probably get there. Eventually. I think that if this were day 5 of a 6-day trip, I would have bitten the bullet and made my way over. But it wasn't. So I didn't.)

I stayed close to shore all the way around the point, until I got abeam of Indianola, where I started across toward Suquamish as the wind began to abate. It's an odd time, that last hour of a long trip. It's a moment that, although the whole trip has been building toward it, I am never really ready to have it happen. When I got to the take-out, there was a lone kayaker there who was just about to get on the water, to do the segment I had just completed that day. I'd met Tom before, but that was the first time I'd run into him out there. After talking for ten minutes or so, he paddled off and I climbed the hill for a piece of pizza and a beer, while I waited for Mary and Micah to arrive. The end.

For now.

Puget Sound Challenge - Day 6

I awoke to a damp sleeping bag, the night's condensation soaking through to chill me before I even got out of bed. I don't know what the temperatures got down to during the night, but when I got up, well before sunrise, it was still below freezing. As I packed up the camp, a fog moved in, to the point that when I was ready to go, visibility was less than 50 feet.

I'd been sweating the next part of the trip since I started planning it. With a name like Foulweather Bluff, I figured I might be in for some rough water as I turned the corner. Everything I'd heard had prepared me for a tough day.

And it was tough, at least at first, but not because of rocky conditions. The visibility made it almost impossible to travel in any sort of rational line. I jigged and jagged along the hazy shoreline, until even that wasn't an option; I ended up navigating by the depth of the water. I watched the sand dollars and shells on the bottom - when the water got so deep that I couldn't make out the details, I turned back toward the shallower zones. The surface was pure glass, smooth as satin.

As I rounded the point at Foulweather Bluff, the fog began to lift. By the time I made it to Hansville, the day had become a sunny one. Being that it was legitimately lunchtime, I stopped at the Hansville store for a bite to eat. Before I could get inside, a girl came out of the store and walked over toward me.

"Are you the guy that's surfing around the peninsula?" she asked. When I told her that I was, and asked her how she knew about me, she responded, "Oh, people have been talking. I work in the store, so I hear it all." She looked out at the board on the sandy beach, shielding her eyes from the glare. "Man, I wish I did cool shit like that." Her name was Amy, and I told her I'd be in for a sandwich as soon as I dug my wallet out of the bag. "If you want a good one, get the Olympic. You can have it on a few different breads but sourdough is the biggest."

She was right. It was big, and real good. I could see the light at Point No Point across the bay and, after I finished eating, I got back on the deck once again. The water was still flat as I crossed over to Point No Point, glided past the people walking the beach, and continued south.

The shoreline for the next 7 or 8 miles was fairly similar one mile to the next until my target for the day, Kingston, finally arrived. I could see the ferries as they entered and left the harbor on their runs across the sound to Edmonds and before long I was pitching camp on a little strand of beach east of the terminal. I went into town for dinner (I highly recommend the Main Street Ale House), and was in the sack just after dark.

The tide was a high one that night, to the point that I had to move the tent at 1:30 in the morning to escape a wetting. I found a little notch just out of reach of the rising tide and repitched the tent by the light of my headlamp. Other than that, the night passed uneventfully. Another solid day behind me and, although I knew I would not be making it all the way to Southworth - my optimistic target for this leg - I could be happy with what I had been able to get done.

Puget Sound Challenge - Day 5

After taking the second day of this leg off, more or less, I couldn't complain that I wasn't rested. I woke up at my beachside camp on the Toandos Peninsula just before dawn and I was underway within the hour. Even though the wind was still blowing, it hadn't picked up to the speed of the day before yet and I was able to negotiate my way around the end of the peninsula, staying close to the beach, until I got back into the main channel of Hood Canal.

Once I finally rounded the bend at Hazel Point, I could see clear up to Thorndyke Bay. The sky was fast moving, leaden clouds, scudding northward with the wind. The gusts were at my back now and although the conditions were lumpy and erratic, the surfing wasn't bad. I crossed into the center of the canal, cutting off the wide bay to the west. Off in the distance, I could see the sub wharves at Bangor.

There was a sub on the move, and he was headed in my direction. The huge black tube was half out of the water, flanked on either side by large tenders. Rounding out the entourage were a couple of fast attack boats, buzzing around the edges of the operation. It was one of these that approached me.

"Are you all right?" shouted the skipper from the wheelhouse. His mates, a pair of young recruits who couldn't have been too far out of high school, stood on the aft deck, their M-16's slung from their shoulders. One of them was taking my picture with his cell phone. The other one waved.

"I'm fine," I answered. "I'm just trying to stay out of your way." The skipper just looked me over as I was talking, as if he were sure he was speaking to an escaped mental patient or some other, even stranger, form of incompetent.

"I just want to make clear, sir," he called back. "I need to know if you are good to go."

"Good to go, sir. Yes, sir."

And they were off, unsure of exactly what they had seen, but satisfied that I didn't represent any serious threat. The sub continued south past me and vanished around the point, and I made for the beach directly across from the main Bangor docks. There's a little guard post building just above the sand there, and I carried some snacks and my chart inside, just to get out of the wind.

I had to wait for another sub to jockey around for a while before I felt like it was worth going back out. The plan was to cross the canal fairly soon... this was its narrowest point for a long ways and with the way the wind was howling, I thought it might be nice to be in a position to get out of the wind, if only for a bit. I got back out into the main run of the channel again, in the bucking waves, sitting down this time, using the kayak paddle.

I was thinking about getting to Kitsap Memorial State Park for lunch. Missed it somehow. I must not have been looking hard enough... the surfing was really good. I was flying once I got accross and traded paddles once more. With a steady but less powerful wind at my back, I got up to speed easily. Every little swell gave me a ride and the shoreline zipped past.

I did come ashore just after the Hood Canal Bridge, at Salsbury Point County Park. The water hadn't been turned on yet so I couldn't replenish my bottles, but it was a good lunch stop. The skies cleared at the sun shone brightly. It almost seemed hot. I got back on the board and headed toward Foulweather Bluff, way off in the distance.

Of course, the weather didn't last. In the end, I got blown into shore at a private resort called Shorewood, almost directly across from Point Hannon. I was unable to keep the board out and away from shallow water, so I brought it in and called it a day. I found a spot on the lawn above the beach that was tucked in out of the wind (and mostly hidden from view), and pitched the tent. An eagle swooped low above me and landed in the tree on the other side of the grass. Tonight, this was home.

Puget Sound Challenge – Day 4

My internal alarm clock (apparently located near my bladder), woke me right at 6 AM. Forty-five minutes later, I was packed and ready to depart. I rode the river out to salt water, until it got too shallow where it fanned out toward the canal. I spooked a couple of dozen harbor seals from their slumbers on the flats – didn't see them until I was almost on them – and they flopped out toward deep water, eyeing me curiously. The wind was already blowing hard.

The first course of action for the day was a crossing to the south tip of the Toandos Peninsula, that narrow strip of land that divides the larger expanse of Hood Canal from Dabob and Quilcene Bays. The main problem with the plan was the quartering headwind that was building by the minute, pushing me further into Dabob Bay as I slowly approached the Toandos. It took me about 80 minutes to make the crossing, but my landing spot was almost a mile further in than I'd wanted to be and I was beat when I got there. 8:15 AM and I felt like I could sleep another night right then.

The second day of any trip is the hardest for me, especially when the first day has been tough. To leave the beach and progress along shore would have meant that I'd have been headed directly into what had become a sustained 25-knot wind, with gusts that were even stronger. I didn't have it in me.

The day was sunny and warm, once I got out of the shade, and I set up camp on the beach where I'd landed. I rigged up a line and finished drying the gear that I hadn't finished drying the day before, took a nap, then went in search of fresh water.

There was a steep, wooden staircase that rose from the beach about a quarter-mile from my camp, ascending the cliffs and disappearing into the trees above. I climbed it, and came out on top in a cluster of vacation cottages, none of them occupied. The wind was light up there in the woods and although I could hear the gusts ripping through the branches high above me, there wasn't much movement at ground level. I walked on until I found a water spigot that was operational - most of the ones I tried had been turned off for the winter and hadn't been turned back on yet - then headed back down.

All along Hood Canal I found these vacation homes, no one there, empty buildings that might see use occasionally during the summer, but that's about it. I don't know how that works. I've never owned two homes at the same time. It's hard for me to rationalize how it's not hoarding and wasteful, selfish and unsustainable... when so many people are without a home at all. These hundreds of empty buildings, some of them quite luxurious, stand vacant and unused while thousands of people have no place to sleep at all. They are beautiful places, but there's something about the situation that just makes me sad.

I stayed on the beach all day. At one point, between naps, I took another walk out to the tip of the peninsula, just to feel the full force of the wind. Later in the trip, I would paddle into gales like this one, but on day 2, I just wasn't ready.

Puget Sound Challenge – Day 3

An early Wednesday morning found me picking up where I left off back at the end of February. The day was overcast and calm, the water glossy and undisturbed from the near shore as far up Hood Canal as I could see. There was snow in the foothills across the canal and the clearcuts stood out in white relief against the dark background. I got the bags strapped down and was underway, heading north, at about 8:30 AM.

The flat conditions lasted a little over an hour. Between the time I was conscious of the first ripples until the time I was riding out a howling gale was a matter of no more than twenty minutes. The calm had become a tempest, and the steep waves came fast and cold. I felt good though, and although the wind was powerful, it was blowing me exactly in the direction I wanted to go. I stayed on my feet, out in midchannel, and watched the shoreline click by.

In time I had crossed the canal to about a hundred yards from the Olympic Peninsula shore. I was surfing the choppy rollers, getting ride after ride as I worked my way in. At some point, I heard someone shouting and I remember looking up toward the highway that ran along the water. I couldn't see anything or anyone, and I didn't give it much thought. Until I heard a siren chirping, in that annoying way a siren sounds when the cop flicks it on and off in quick succession. I thought to myself that someone must be getting pulled over up there, not really thinking that I was involved, and was quite surprised to see a uniformed officer on shore up ahead of me, motioning me in.

I surfed a wave, the best one so far, and came ashore where he stood just as his partner came jogging down the dirt path toward the beach. "He doesn't look like he's in trouble to me," he said, smiling and shaking his head. The first officer didn't seem to be in such a good mood; I think he'd gotten his shoes wet. Still, they were very nice, and so was the other Search and Rescue officer that showed up a minute later. Incredulous but friendly.

Apparently they'd received several reports of someone floating out in the main channel, hanging onto a log. (I took a little offense at this, thinking that I'd been doing a helluva lot more than clinging to the board and floating with the wind, but there you go. People see what they say they see.) They were all fairly interested in my trip and took many pictures of me and the board with their cell phones. After a few minutes, when they saw that I wasn't in distress and that what I was doing was somehow legal, they let me go.

I was starting to get tired. Up until this point, I'd been standing the whole way but as the wind got even stronger, I decided to sit and switch paddles. Even though the wind was blowing the "right" direction, the force and the unpredictability of the roiling water made the change worthwhile.

By the time I came ashore at the mouth of the Dosewallips, it was after 3 PM. The tide was out and the walk into shore across the mud flats seemed to take forever. Because the wind was so strong, carrying the board was a tricky business. It's so light and has so much surface area, the wind constantly tried to rip it out of my hands. At least I'd packed light.

I set up camp in the trees on the east side of the road... an unofficial campsite. I wasn't far from the river and as the wind died later on, I could hear the sound of the running water. I had some leakage in one of the dry bags so I slung laundry and gear in the tree branches to dry. For an hour or so, the campsite had the distinctive look of a yard sale after a tornado but I eventually got it under control.

When everything had been set up for the night, I walked up to the highway and went to the Geoduck Tavern, just outside the main park entrance. A big burger and a few bottles of suds took the taste of salt off my lips and gave me one more night's reprieve from freeze-dried fare. (I'd get my chances to eat from the food I brought - no reason to rush things.) As it started to get dark, I made my way back to my lowland hideaway and went to bed just as the light faded for good.

It had been a fine outing, a solid start to this leg of the trip, the most miles I had done on a board in a day. So far.

Pictures from an expedition

I finished the second leg of the Puget Sound Challenge yesterday. Mary and Micah picked me up at the Bella Luna Pizzaria, just off the water at Suquamish. (Excellent pie and a location that can't be beat.)

I calculated the total distance today - I didn't get as far as I wanted, but I am happy with the way it turned out on the whole.

March 18 Dewatto Bay - Dosewallips 16 NM
March 19 Dosewallips - Toandos Peninsula 3NM
March 20 Toandos Peninsula - Shorewood 17.5 NM
March 21 Shorewood - Kingston 16 NM
March 22 Kingston - Suquamish 7NM

I learned quite a bit. The board handled well with the load, there was a lot of wind, and submarines take a lot of time to manuver. I'll write a more complete account later... meanwhile, here's a few photos.

Off line

I believe I have it together now. All the pieces of gear, compressed and compact, or as compact as I can get them. Total weight is just under 30 pounds, but that's without water. I'll be curious to see how much less I'll have to carry when the weather gets better… with the cold, I am taking more "essentials" along, items that will not make the trip at a later date.

Summer seems like a dream right now, in the way that dreams are unreal, fantasy and impossible. The idea that I will be able to stand outside in shirt sleeves someday, here in the Pacific Northwest, seems about as likely as government fiscal responsibility or a Mariners World Series. The weather forecast has changed – as I suspected it would – and rain is on the menu now for the entire trip. It is, however, supposed to be getting a touch warmer… no word on the wind.

It is an ambitious route that I have set for myself, especially considering the season. Seventy nautical miles in 5 days, and if all goes well, this will be the crux of the project. It should get easier once I get into southern Puget Sound, where there's more protection from the wind and the strong currents should provide me with faster progress. Before I can get there, however, I have to get past this. If all goes as planned (and what, pray tell, is the likelihood of that?), this leg of the trip should unroll as follows:

March 18 Dewatto Bay – Scenic Beach State Park 16 NM
March 19 Scenic Beach – S. Thorndike Bay 11.5 NM
March 20 Thorndike Bay – Point No Point 16.5 NM
March 21 Point No Point – Fay Bainbridge State Park 14 NM
March 22 Fay Bainbridge – Southworth 12 NM

As for predicting what will happen, where the difficulties will lie, it is not so easy. There are several crossings of 3 miles or more that could be interesting, and depending on the direction and force of the winds, the currents may be friend or foe. The only way to know for sure is to go and see.

Insensitive

I have been told that my post of a few days back, in which I spoke of the kayak industry in a less than favorable manner... well, I've been advised that it may have been a bit offside. If I remember correctly, I said something about a couple of specific kayak manufacturers who were no longer making any worthwhile boats.

I'm not saying I was incorrect, but I could have said it with a touch more class and clarity (although I did like the photo). I should not have singled out the manufacturers that I did, not because they don't deserve it, but because there are so many others who fit the same mold.

I believe that kayak manufacturers should inspire us with their designs. I think the kayaking industry owes us their commitment to adventure, rather than just a commitment to their stockholders. To those manufacturers who still turn out a quality product, thank you. Your efforts are noted and appreciated. The rest of you... well, you know who you are.

This is not an apology.

What the... Snow?

I got the weather on my mind, it's true. This is the time of year when I think about it more than any other. In the dead of winter, you know it's not going to be easy. There may not be snow, but it will be cold. And wet. And dark. It's expected, so you go along with it and perhaps, eventually, you even pretend to like it. Likewise, summer around here is fairly predictable. Yes, there are those wet summers, long, legendary months of soggy wind and mushroom skies, but those are not common. Blue overhead and reasonable temperatures are the norm, and there are even a few hot and languid days in there from time to time.

This morning we woke up to snow. That was nowhere in the forecast. So far today, it's snowed, rained, hailed... it's sunny now, and it's only 3PM. There's still time for some sleet, and locusts. The only thing I know for sure is that it will get dark eventually.

I've decided to take the tent after all, when I go this week. Up till now, I've been telling myself that the tarp will be enough, but I no longer believe this.

Prognosticatin'

The second leg of my SUP attempt of the Puget Sound Challenge is set to begin next Wednesday. (Been thinking about starting with a night paddle on Tuesday actually… we'll have to see what becomes of that.) I'm encouraged by the weather forecast. Higher temps predicted, and getting progressively warmer each day. If it goes as currently called, there may be rain early and late in this segment, but the main portion of the time should be spent under sunny skies.

Of course, a weather forecast that looks any further than a day or two is somewhat unreliable. I read them and they're interesting but, for the most part, I see 10-day forecasts primarily as works of fiction.

The mountains are out

It's a clear day again today, clear and cold. The wind isn't packing the power that it had yesterday, but it's just as icy. It was blowing more yesterday morning, and the juxtaposition of the freezing temps on one side and the azure skies and eye-numbing sunlight on the other was unsettling. It looks like summer but if you close your eyes, you'd swear it was Christmas.

But the mountains are out. I do like that expression: "The mountains are out." They seem close enough to touch and too beautiful to be real. Rainier, to the southeast, has swirls of clouds around it, but not nearly enough to hide her bulk. The Black Hills huddle to the southwest, flecks of snow still marking the clearcuts. To the west lie the Olympics, and I can almost trace every gully, every chute and valley, on every peak. From Ellinor to the Brothers, like a diorama, those scale-model layouts they love so much in natural history museums and 4th grade Social Studies projects.

I really wish I were there. Even though I am not, however, I am grateful just to see them, and to see them in such detail. Most places, they don't have this.

Back to the Lion

I just confirmed the times and dates for my classes and presentations at the Port Angeles Sea Kayak Symposium, April 17 -19. It's a kayaking rendezvous that I try to get to every year, even though it's not the biggest or the most convenient one on the calendar. The reason that I enjoy it as much as I do is that it represents a connection to my kayaking experience that the others just don't have. It is an anachronism in many ways and if it ever disappears, it's not likely there will be another.

When I began sea kayaking, the symposiums were celebrations. A symposium was a chance to get in the same space as others who loved the water and small boats, who took the idea of adventure quite literally, and who saw kayaking as a means to explore not only the world around them, but their places in it. It seemed that everyone had stories to tell, the libations flowed with the conversations and time would melt away in the yarning process.

That has changed. The kayaking business has unfortunately become the province of large conglomerates (Perception and Dagger have been the same company for a decade, for instance, and a cursory look at their current catalogs should be enough to convince anyone that they no longer understand what sea kayaking is about.) The money, it seems, has somehow become more important than the stories. Yes, there are still small kayak manufacturers that hold onto the local touch, but there aren't many and they compete in a game where the other side holds all the advantages. The bigger players outsource their manufacturing to China and Thailand in an effort to maximize their profits, and by doing so they kill the innovation that used to spring organically from within the sea kayaking community itself.

I could go on about the current state of the paddlesports industry, how the suits have ruined the product, how big-name kayaking "celebrities" pitch themselves more than any love for the game and how most symposiums now smell more like corporate events than a party at the beach. When it comes to the vision and the kayaking sense exhibited by most of today's sea kayaking cogniscenti, however, the picture above is worth at least a thousand words.

That's what I like about the Port Angeles gig. It's hosted by a kayak shop with a real owner who really lives in the community. Organization is loose but effective; the menu of classes and presentations caters to developing skills as well as telling the stories that get us all fired up to get out on the water. Everywhere is within walking distance, not only at the event itself, but because PA is such a compact town, nothing is all that far away. There's a party each night at the Red Lion, with a solid band and a busy dance floor. (This year it's an encore for Deadwood Revival.) When you leave this symposium, you will remember why you wanted to start kayaking in the first place.

- Be sure to visit the Olympic Raft and Kayak site for a full rundown of the scheduled events for this year's symposium. When you get there, stop by one of my presentations and say hello.

Lurching forward

I remember one time, when I was eight or nine, it snowed at a church picnic I went to. In July. But that was Newfoundland, where the only two seasons are Winter and July, and some years you may not actually get the second season.

Here in western Washington, the forecast calls for snow in the lowlands again tonight, on the same night we set our clocks ahead an hour. I have always associated Daylight Savings Time with the weather getting warmer, rather than colder. It's not Newfoundland and yes, it is still March, legitimately winter, but that doesn't make it easier. The wind today was a frigid blow, a continuous fusillade of the kind of airborne pain that only a winter wind can deliver. Lips chap instantly, joints ache. Skin seems tighter and more brittle. Teeth chatter.

It is the wind that worries me the most about the upcoming 5-day leg of the Puget Sound Challenge. Maybe worry isn't the precise name for the emotion, but the wind is a factor that I know will come into play. I am already considering some extended night paddles, if that will bring relief from the gusts. The wind does seem to be less of a concern after dark; of course, research continues.

I go now to set the clock, to age an hour in a single minute.

What else can't I take?

I first started exploring the idea of ultralight backcountry travel last summer, with a hiking/climbing trip to the high point of the Dosewallips watershed. It was a new experience for me, and the lighter load allowed me a great deal more freedom. There were sacrifices in comfort – the ultralight sleeping pad, ¾ length, presented a decidedly less restful sleep than I might have liked – but overall, the lighter weight made for a much more personal and meaningful experience. Which is hard to explain, a kind of fuzzy psychobabble really, but true, nevertheless.

Now what I'm trying to do, with all this touring SUP stuff, is to take the best of the ultralight idea and float it on a paddleboard. The next section of the Puget Sound Challenge that I'll be doing is a 5-day chunk that will hopefully cover about 75 miles. (I'll outline more route information some other time.)

It's a little easier to go ultralight in the summer; fully half the gear I'm taking is related directly to the cold temperatures. My set-up is strapped to the board, near the front end, with four loops that I've glued in place. First item loaded is the Crazy Creek chair. Above this is the main waterproof zip gear bag, and topping it off is a smaller bag, the auxiliary bag. Contents are as follows:

Main Bag
Sleeping bag
Clothing
Stove/Fuel
Cook pot
Shell jacket/pants
Down sweater
Down Booties
Food
Incidentals/toiletries

Aux Bag
2 Sleeping pads
Ground cover
Tarp

I'm toying with the idea of adding a smaller bag near the aft end of the others, for a water bottle, snacks, maps and other quick-access items. It sounds like a good idea and it would be nice to have a storage option that I could get into without loosening the entire load, but…

But I don't want a hulking mound of baggage, and what little bit of touring SUP photos that I have seen to this point, while cruising the internet, have featured way too much bulk on the front of the boards. Grapes of Wrath-like, even. It's unwieldy, uncool and borderline non-functional. I will make it work for this trip but I'm hoping to move past these design issues in very short order.

The Ides of March

What was, overall, a rather benign February has been changed into the typical boisterous March. Or so it seems to me. If there are blue streaks in the sky, it is because of the icy winds blowing gashes through the clouds. This month often seems to be nature's way of reminding man and beast that she's still got fight left, even at the onset of the sweet inevitability of summer.

Recess

I was listening to the radio last week and I heard an interview with Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who first hit the public consciousness with his 1974 high-wire traverse from one of the World Trade Center towers to the other. The interview was wide-ranging, with comments on Petit's other exploits as well as his assertion that he is not from this planet - he was born in another galaxy and immigrated, which actually may explain quite a bit about the French as a whole - but one of his comments stuck with me.

The interviewer had referred to Petit as an "athelete," and he corrected him, saying, "What I do is not a sport. It is art and I am a poet, making my art with my body. It is not athletics. What I do is make beauty."

I was surprised the other day to realize that I can still remember the times for recess when I was in grade school. At La Patera Elementary, morning recess went from 10:20 to 10:40 and the afternoon break started at 2:00 and ended at 2:15. I remember how much fun recess was and how all of us kids looked forward to it, watching the hands slowly make their way across the face of the big wall clock until the blessed time arrived.

Recess was a time when I hit the swings, hung out at the monkey bars and tried to make small talk with the pretty girls - who seemed even more alien to me at the time than a Frenchman - and played tag and ran races. I pushed and sweated in pickup basketball and football games, and I am amazed now to think of the herculean contests we waged in such short chunks of time.

But it wasn't about athletics back then. As kids, we were a lot closer to what Philippe Petit had in mind than anything else. We were little poets, in a way, and learning our physical art in small increments of time spent outside and active.

Where did that go, that brilliant idea of recess? The notion that a few minutes taken out of the day to play, just play, is an important element of a healthy human life. We are a workout culture now, if we are active at all, but there is no art in a treadmill or an elliptical trainer. We hold on to our competitive natures as long as we can, most of us, getting in shape for the over-40 league and tracking our training regimens. Real inspiring.

How might sea kayaking seem different, or climbing, or trail running, if it were viewed as art rather than athletics?

Puget Sound Challenge - Day 2

I suppose the conditions could have been worse, but they were plenty bad as it was. After the long, hot ride of day one, where I glided on glassy water smooth as oiled velvet, this second day on the water was quite the contrast. Then again, just getting on the water was an epic in itself.

On the west side of Hood Canal, the Olympic side, Highway 101 follows the coastline north and south, a busy road with several towns and developments along its path. On the east side of the waterway, on the other hand, not only are there no real towns along this section, and precious few homes, the road is gravel, steep and prone to washouts. The shuttle, another eight miles wedged onto the cruel saddle of the Orange Crush, took the better part of two hours.

I dropped the board at Menard's Landing and drove up on the North Shore Road. In less than a mile, the pavement ended and the way got downright tight. Grades of eight percent followed a winding route, with serious dropoffs, that seemed to go on forever.

I knew from watching the whitecaps on the Canal that morning that I would probably not be able to cover the planned distance to Holly that day, so I'd already made up my mind to stop at Dewatto before I'd even started the shuttle. Once I got to the bay and parked the van by the side of the road, I retraced my ride through the woods, walking up most of the hills and careening down the other sides, barely in control. The road was small, tentative even, in the presence of such deep, dark woods. It was slow going and I wasn't able to get on the water and underway until almost 10 AM.

I rode out through the little lagoon at the landing, through the narrow slot where the falling tide carried me as it ran out, and within minutes I was out in the shallow bay, turning into the wind. It was blowing steady at 20 knots, with some gusts higher than that, and it didn't take me long to figure out that I was going to have to sit down if I was going to get anywhere. Standing up in the face of a direct headwind like that was proving to be a treadmill exercise, so I took my seat and traded paddles.

My spare paddle is a Werner Kalliste 220, a carbon blade that has seen me through some of the best years of my kayaking life. Putting it into service here was not entirely unexpected, but the performance difference between the board and a kayak in these same conditions was considerable. By the end of the leg, less than 6 miles along the coast, I had made less than 2 knots overall. Other than a quarter-mile at the beginning of the day and a quarter-mile at the end, I spent the entire time alternating between sitting and kneeling, using the kayak paddle exclusively.

I could see the mountains across the choppy water, snow-clad Ellinor and the Constance group hovering against the gray sky. I gauged my progress against the houses on the opposite shore, measuring how far I'd come by what was directly across from me. The forest land in the middle ground was clearcuts and patchwork, standing out clearly from the dark of the taller slopes behind. It was ugly, even from that far away.

There was still plenty of day left when I pulled into Dewatto Bay at about 1:30 PM. I was, however, done. The next leg of the trip is scheduled to be a 5-day affair, with no shuttles, beginning May 18th.

(To those of you who have already pledged your support, I thank you. If you would like to make a donation to support Washington Water Trails to preserve access and assist in environmental programs in western Washington, please click here to learn how. Every donation is received gratefully and your contribution will make a difference. Thanks!)

Revising distance

About a hundred years ago, or so it seems to me now, I went on a little kayak trip around Bainbridge Island. My paddling partner was Jason Boone, a good friend of mine who had just finished building his own kayak, and wanted to take it someplace interesting for its maiden voyage. I suggested Bainbridge - I'd never paddled around the island before - and he agreed, essentially leaving me in charge of the details. I took a cursory look at the chart, measured the route with my finger held against the shoreline, then estimated the distance by putting my finger down on the scale. (It is not a reliable way to measure, and I have since developed better methods.)

I came up with a total distance of about sixteen miles. Or, as I recall saying, "About sixteen, maybe twenty."

That afternoon we hit the beach at Fay Bainbridge State Park after covering more than 30 miles. The last couple of miles were a tough slog and we were both tired. I've always been impressed that Jason didn't lose his cool at my lack of accuracy. Even more impressed that he went kayaking with me on other occasions after that... I noticed, however, that he always did his own trip planning from that point on.

I have gone back to the chart again and measured the route I actually traveled this past weekend and revised the distances. The first day, as it turns out, was a little more than 12 miles. The second was less than six.

Part of what makes a day seem longer is the level of fatigue it generates. Miles are a measurement of pain and pride. I think the fact that I was as tired as I was has a great deal to do with the fact that, before I got on the water each morning, I had to ride the bike for two hours. I was already starting to get tired before I took my first stroke.

Aside from keeping me honest, the big reason I always need to come back and measure the course is that miles only really matter when you're telling the story. After the fact, mileage is a useful tool to understand the logistical elements of the route, but while I'm doing it, it couldn't be less interesting.

How far do I have to go? Until I get there. When you're doing it, that's all that matters.

Puget Sound Challenge - Day 1

I couldn't have wished for better weather, especially here at the end of February. The sky was pure blue, shot through with puffy clouds out of the south. The air was warm and the water was calm. I had driven out to Menard's Landing, out past Tahuya, and left the van in a parking area there. There were several road closures and detours at points along the way, products of the winter's storms. A sixteen mile shuttle on the Orange Crush had brought me back to Belfair State Park, and I was getting on the water by 10 AM, not a bad morning's work.

I have always thought of the currents in Hood Canal as rather negligible, not powerful enough to really make a difference one way or another. With a slight breeze at my back and the water running the same direction as I was, however, I made excellent time. In three hours, I had already rounded Sisters Point and was almost at the mouth of the Tahuya River.

The bottom arm of Hood Canal is anything but wilderness. Houses and cabins line the shore for its entire length, with only a few short breaks of green and gravel. The intertidal area is dominated by oyster farming operations, some more well-tended than others, but everything covered in a layer of mud. I saw a half-dozen seals along the way, curious brown eyes trying to figure out what they were looking at.

It's funny, I've had more than a few people ask me, "How can you stand up for so long?" Some of these folks have been kayakers, which makes me want to ask, "How can you sit down for so long?" Actually, there are two considerations here that might help explain: First, I only stand up until I want to sit down. I have the choice of kneeling or sitting, and even a step off into the deep water and a climb back onto the board is mighty refreshing. So I'm not just standing up, glued in place.

Second, and more importantly, I can stand up for so long for the same reason kayakers can sit down for so long... it's a captivating activity. The senses are all engaged, eyes and ears constantly aware, always monitoring the situation. There's a seal, an otter, an eagle. The time passes so smoothly that I could probably do ten hours standing on my head.

I think that standing, for me, seems like a more active stance than sitting in my kayak. I definitely enjoy the change in perspective from the seated position, but it does have its limitations. When I finished the day's paddle at Menard's Landing, I'd been on the water for about 5 1/2 hours and covered about 12 nautical miles. That's off the pace I might have made in a sea kayak, but I'm much more tired. Where I can easily spend 10 hours a day paddling a kayak, I was close to being all in after half that time.

Some of that is undoubtedly due to experience. I have 20 years of sea kayaking to fall back on, 20 years of pushing myself and perfecting my paddling technique. I have about 6 months of experience to draw from on the SUP; by the time I get a couple decades under my belt, I'll probably be able to last a bit longer.

The other part is that my 12-foot SUP is not nearly as efficient as an 18-foot touring kayak. Its flat bottom slaps the water rather than cutting through it and its short waterline means it won't glide nearly as well as a kayak. I spend an inordinate amount of time on the water thinking about the perfect SUP design, wondering if I'll eventually have to make it myself or if there's someone out there right now who's working on a prototype for me. (Feel free to get in touch if you're out there somewhere.)

So the first day of the Puget Sound Challenge is in the books. Twelve miles, just under ten percent of the route total. My plan was to add another 15 miles the next day. That didn't happen.