LOL. The title is something out of my past: a little argument that went back and forth between Ex n I: that men are the romantics and women are the practical ones,,,
Yah, I know, it can go both ways, but when the day boils down to win/lose, live/die, women will choose the route that is practical and men will stand their ground and “die fighting”. Romance baby!!!! (I have met some that fit the other way around. we are all individuals, none the same. )
And the romantic in me sees Seakayaking as that romance to fill out a rather droll life,,, I guess,,, Anyways, this guy nails the whole thing on the head about ‘little adventures’. We need those little adventures to help remind us that we are alive. And it doesn’t take much, just something out of the ordinary, something that slips the bounds of ‘safe and secure’ into ‘oops’, It may be forgetting that one piece of gear that makes the rest work right, or realizing 20 miles out that your compass is reading 15 degrees off and you have no clue where the hell you are. (and why I carry TWO, with a smaller back-up to those)
Or, just taking a day out of the routine and going paddling somewhere you have never been (as he illustrates in that article), even if you have lived in the area for years. There is always something new around the corner, we aren’t at all omniscient.
Perceptions of adventure are different for different people. One Friend of mine (from rolling classes here local) is a RABID White water Junkie and over the last two years, Since he polished his roll, his adventures seem endless. (and I leave my question of how he is able to do the trips, beside the point,,, BUT, his wife is one hell of a photographer and gets some seriously killer shots of him and his crews. Maybe they supplement costs by selling photos and shoots. Dunno). And while he gets a rush out of that, me, not so much. Yeah, the runs are cool, and the adrenaline gets spiked, but it doesn’t call to me the same way.
Then I read books on expeditions,,,,
So, it seems kinda boring to most, but I have found there is ALWAYS something to see. It may only be that beaver building a dam, but if you hadn’t gone out, you wouldn’t have seen even that. Or Dolphins playing with your paddle tips as you work your way down a tidal river on the coast, laughing at you and goosing your boat trying to get you to play with them. I rather prefer the slower pace of sea-kayaking to the rush of down-river runs. You still have your rapids and ‘white water; wave trains might be taller and wider but they are still there, and the open sections are more like the slack pools between rapids on the rivers, with wider horizons. There are other attractions that get the call going for me. One of those is the navigation side of things. On rivers (for the most part unless you get into tidal rivers) you have upstream/downstream, river right/river left, and you already know your destination. Navigation is recalling what you ran and what you run next. Getting out on open water you start using terms like heading and Bearing, and no they are NOT the same all the time, You start calculating speed, distance and headings and referring to charts: Things start to get a LOT more interesting when you know if you screw up, things might go sideways. Hell, knowing they could go sideways without you screwing up,,, Like an uncharted sea-mount in your path (imagine a giant sand dune crawling along the sea floor and changing current and surface wave actions: SEA-MOUNT, and likely how some sea-monster legends were born.). We risk, and find we are alive!!!
Break it down even more locally. Paddling the lake a few weeks back (two months? where the hell is the time going?) when I was caught flat-paddled by a squall; Couldn’t see past the bow of my boat and needed to use the compass just to maintain heading, and couldn’t stop paddling just because the weather blew in (had to step up the pace actually just in case it got WORSE). And it caught me dead center of the lake: turn back or keep going was the only option And when I made landfall, the adventure wasn’t over, I still had to load up in that downpour soaking wet and completely alone on the ramp. And I was laughing ,,, I was having more fun paddling that day than I had had in some time.
It’s the romantic I say. Stand your ground or die trying. Face the dragons head on, live to tell the tale. We all want to be the hero of our story, just not all of us want to do it the same way.
and there are ever so many ways to be that hero. That is the spirit that made America what it became before the Great Wars. The Romantic drives of people willing to risk, so they could live: live on their terms, live in peace, live with themselves knowing WHO they were because they “faced those dragons”,,,,
Have you found your hero side?
