Nanaimo

No photo today, unfortunately. There have been some memorable visual moments, but I am unable to download photos at the moment... maybe later. Oh well, a word is worth a thousand pictures, eh?

If it's the right word.

Monday saw an inauspicious beginning to the adventure, although it was a good taste of what I'm sure is yet to come. High winds in Bellingham, no way to put in at Lummi, so Marc dropped me off at Larabee State Park, and I paddled for a grand total of 2 miles to an unofficial camp site in Chuckanut Bay. Not a great beginning at all. The wind howled all night and even with ear plugs in place, I could feel the changes in the air pressure as the gusts approached over the water.

At 4:30am the wind died and by 6:00am, the water was calm. I got underway at sunup, a bright, perfect day that couldn't have been more different than the day that came before. I passed the original launch site, rounded the north end of Lummi Island, and set out on the crossing to Matia. From there I went to Sucia Island and although I wanted to keep going, the wind had come up enough that I was easily persuaded that Sucia would be a fine place to spend the night.

Up before dawn the next morning and immediately crossing to Saturna Island. Made it to the other side of Boundary Pass just as it got light, then up Tumbo Channel and into the Canadian Gulf Islands. I stopped on Mayne Island briefly to call home, then paddled on to Montague Harbour, where I stayed at the Marine Provincial Park. (Its only occupant, actually).

Yesterday morning, I got up at 5:00am and was on the water by 6:15. I have never paddled anywhere that was so dark as Trincomali Channel in the hour before dawn. The solid cliffs of Galliano Island blocked all light from the east; a few navigational beacons were all I had to measure my progress until the sky grew light again. Then it was across to Wallace Island and on up the chain: Mowgli Island, South and North Secretary, then Norway and Thetis. I crossed over to Yellow Point and almost called it a day at the Yellow Point Lodge, where I'm sure I could have procured a bottle of Chardonnay and some peppered sausage while waiting for a manicure and a massage...

But the weather was cooperating, so I continued. Up the Vancouver Island shoreline to Round Island, a little speck of an island just south of Dodd Narrows. It was starting to get dark and there was no way I could make it to Nanaimo at that point.

This morning, after the first real good sleep of the trip, I got on the water, passed through Dodd Narrows on a 3 knot current and negotiated the whirl of marine traffic to get into Nanaimo. Log booms and tugs, huge ferries, even a freighter conspired to change my route and slow my pace. I still made it in by 11:00am, set up camp on Newcastle Island, and brought myself into town for some fish'n'chips and the internet.

That's right around 60 miles so far. I am planning on leaving tomorrow, but the weather may have other ideas. The high that has held for the past 3 days is supposed to give way tonight to some truly windy weather coming from the northwest. Since Sunday is going to be an off day for me anyway (Go Packers!), I may be a Nanaimo resident for the immediate future.

There are a whole lot worse things I could be.

Ready

This time tomorrow, I'll be on the water. The physical part of the journey is about to get underway. This is an emotional time, this time in limbo. Not quite departed but almost out the door; it will be good, and less confusing, to get the trip underway at last.

This time yesterday, I was on the water. A breakfast paddle to Cutt's Island with Gary and Ana, Jules and Jim. We paddled out through a steady rain from Horsehead Bay to the island just as the sky was getting light. We met Marc there, where he already had breakfast going for us in two dutch ovens. He was in his element, making constant, tiny corrections to the meal as it cooked, the smoke from the coals mixing with the smells of the food. Breakfast was delicious.

Yesterday evening there was a buen viaje party for me over at Gary and Ana's. Good food and great friends. Thanks for a wonderful evening and I look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

Too much information

OK. So it's getting down to the wire and I'm feeling… pretty good, really. I have planned and gamed this trip from just about any angle I can think of. I've memorized current windows, plotted weather patterns and mapped out route variances. I've done everything I can do without actually doing it. Which is all that remains, and I'm feeling ready for the push.

One thing that's hard to know is how often I'll be in front of a computer to update this journal. I think it will be fairly easy in most situations to find a connection, but it's impossible to be sure. I hope so.

Technology is so pervasive in the day-to-day; it will be odd (and oddly liberating), to not have the trappings of modern techno-life at every hand. There are those who take their laptops with them, who make daily sat-phone position reports to their "support teams," and who plot each paddle stroke on their GPS units and link their real-time progress to their sponsor's web sites. They're gone, but they still feel so close.

I do not mean to cast aspersions. It's just that I'm not one of these people. I'll stay as connected as I can, but then again, I'm not going to one of the wildest places in the Pacific Northwest so that I can catch up on my email. I will do all I can to make sure my family and friends know how I am and where I am, but I already know there will be times when contact will not be possible. That is one of the side effects of traveling along the edges of the map, and it's not a bad thing. In a strange way, I'm sort of looking forward to it.

Besides, how can they miss me if I never really go away?

Of all the years...

For the sake of those who may not be football fans, I will make this brief. I am torn right now. Torn between all the planning I've put into this trip, the excitement I have for the experience I have ahead of me, between these things and the excitement I have for the playoffs and the stellar season being put together by the Green Bay Packers.

I am a Packer fan. I think most people who know me would agree. I am easily as much of a Packer fan as I am a kayaker, maybe more. I thought they'd be ok this year, but I never would have predicted this: 13-3 record, 2nd seed in the NFC with a first round bye. Playing next weekend against the Seahawks at Lambeau for the opportunity to go back to Dallas (probably), where they are way, way overdue for a win. Two years ago they were 4-12. Last year they went 8-8. I thought maybe they'd go 10-6, and that's because I'm an optimist. Now it is starting to look like they could possibly go to the Super Bowl, and I pick this year to go kayaking around a big island.

Apparently I have poor timing.

I am ready for the coming week, my last week of preparation. I'll be paddling in the mornings for the next few days, then pulling the boat into the shop for some last-minute repairs and a static load to see how it will pack up. I am expecting to paddle next Saturday with a group of friends and then I'll be gone two days later. The time is getting compressed now.

I'd like to make it to Comox by the day of the NFC championship game. GO PACK GO!!

Perspective

As I paddled toward Brown's Point this morning, I saw flashing red lights outside a house in the neighborhood on the hill to the east. A minute later, I heard the scream of a siren and another vehicle, this time a fire engine, pulled up behind the one that was already there. It was a medical emergency of some kind and it was probably pretty serious. I couldn't help thinking that someone's day wasn't starting out as well as mine was.

The last day of the year. Every year seems to go quicker than the ones that came before. Time gets more and more compressed and the weight of gathering age starts to get heavier.

When you're paddling at night, it's hard to guage distance and speed very accurately. Especially when crossing open water. Sometimes I'll set my course on a light that is 2 or 3 miles away and it seems like, even though I paddle strong, the light doesn't get any closer. If there is wind or a swell of any size, the time seems stretched even further. I can go and go, and still not seem to get any closer. And then, all of a sudden, I'm there. The light I have been steering toward is no longer a distant glow, it's right there in front of me. Suddenly.

I leave in 2 weeks. That is an astonishingly short amount of time. My departure date has been like that light far across the water. I have been approaching it all the time, but I didn't seem to be getting any closer until now, all of a sudden, it is looming right in front of me. Two weeks. It will go very quickly.

Solo

In the past few months, when I have described the upcoming trip to those I've come in contact with, there have been those who have been aghast at the notion that I am planning to do the journey alone. There is safety in numbers, goes the saying, and for many folks, that is dogma. In this crowded world, it is considered somewhat odd if you go to the movies alone; to kayak alone, and on a trip like this one, is well past odd as far as many people are concerned. I've tried to explain it, tried to put my reasons into simple words that can be easily understood and, for the most part, have failed.

It's not that I am antisocial. If anything, I can be a bit of a butterfly. It's true that most of my morning paddles are done alone, but then again, there aren't too many people I know who are even out of bed that early, much less in the mood to go kayaking. There have been a few times when I've had company – thanks Gary and John for the companionship and conversation – but for the most part, I've been a one-man show.

I was thumbing through my well-worn copy of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire before bed last night and I came across a passage that says it as well as I could ever hope to do (trust that old curmudgeon to find the right words). As usual, Abbey's subject was the desert, arid and unfailingly hot, but in many other ways a dramatic and magnificent landscape with more than a few similarities to the places I will be seeing very soon.

”Most of my wandering," Abbey writes, "I've done alone. Not so much from choice as from necessity – I generally prefer to go into places where no one else wants to go. I find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time."

Well put, Ed.

Tu-ber-cu-lucas and the sinus blues

Sick. Like the flu. Actually, not "like" the flu... I think it is the flu. No paddling today, and it's hard to imagine that I'm going to want to get out there tomorrow either. It makes me think about what I will do if I get hit with this type of thing when I'm on the trip. I have a good first aid kit, but it is organized around an accident scenario, not stocked up with cold and flu supplies. For example, if I should lacerate my hand on a rock, impale a foot on a barnacle, break an arm in a fall... well, I've prepared for those types of emergencies and I have something in the boat somewhere to deal with them. A simple cold, on the other hand, is anything but simple in adverse conditions.

I left work early today, came home and crashed on the couch. Watched a couple episodes of Northern Exposure on DVD (a particularly fine Christmas present - thank you Mary), and now I'm thinking about crawling into bed. I'm not going to have these options when I'm out there.

I'm going to take another look at the first aid kit, maybe do a little repacking. But not right now.