The Tale of Two Kayaks

Last Friday Lewis and I decided we would go on a small adventure by kayaking from my house to the ocean, which is just over 20 miles, and my fellow bros and sheilas let me tell you, it was an experience I'll never forget, for a few good reasons and several extremely bad ones.

To begin our journey, a nice rain cloud poured down for about the first mile and a half. After paddling around 6 miles we reached Goat island, which has actual wild goats just roaming around with nothing else but palm trees and cactus. They were pretty shy little devils so Lewis and I used our extensive herding skills to get them all at the tip of the island in an attempt at wrestling one to the ground, but all to no avail. Lets just say they're really illusive creatures. After we got tired of trying to catch one, we paddled about 8 miles, now to the east, into a mouth drying, bicep burning 8knot head wind. This wayward weather feature slowed our pace down considerably and it seemed we were paddling just to stay in the same place. Finally after 3 and a half hours of more monotonous paddling (but truly beautiful scenery), we reached Calypso island, where we planned to camp.

Since Ft. Caroline was right next to us we decided to camp right next to the fort. The park had already closed so we had the whole place to ourselves, including the original fort founded in 1564 by the Huguenots!!! That evening after setting up the hammocks and gathering firewood, we decided to go find some food in town, so we started walking out to the main road. We had no idea where a convenience store was so we asked a runner we passed on our way who told us where to go. After 3 miles of walking, we found a Macdonald's and ran into the same guy who gave us the directions, except this time he had already taken a shower and was just getting some beer with his girlfriend, so he offered us a ride back to the fort! We were set, we had hot food, a ride back to Fort Caroline, and the gratification aching away in our arms from 13.5 miles of paddling. The Sun started to set, as we ate dinner on the battlements of the fort overlooking the river, and we knew right then without saying anything that this was one of the most kick-ass adventures we had ever gone on!!!

After the sun finished it's westerly dive, we started a fire to fend off the blood thirsty insects which our great state is so famous (or should I say infamous?) for. We gazed into the gleaming fires of Mordor, and had a really funny conversation going, but I don't know what it was about (thats another story). We started getting tired so we put out the fire and tried going to sleep. The bugs started getting really bad for both of us, despite the fact that Lewis was using my hammock with a mosquito net and I was covered in two extremely humid towels. The blitzkrieg began on both fronts -that is, through our hammocks and on top through my towels. Their ravenous blood-sucking appendages knew no boundaries! It got to the point where I remember sitting up in my hammock and thinking to myself "Shit, I'm either gonna die, or I'm gonna have to keep a fire going all night." Naturally, I decided to go through with the latter of my two options and Lewis quickly joined me. So their we were sitting on a makeshift bench we put together, curling up to a smoking fire that we fed the rest of the night (about 6hrs more). In retrospect, it doesn't seem as dire as when the actual event happened, but if you use your imagination to embellish the actual event I think you could come pretty close to what it felt like in the HEAT (hahaha) of the moment. At 5:15 a.m. we went to the shore to get our kayaks and pack up camp, the only problem was that there was only one kayak left! We stumbled over the boulder-lined coast for 15 minutes or so hoping that it would show up, but all to no avail. So with one kayak in hand, we carried it up over the battlement and to our camp. As we packed up I remember talking to my self in low somber tones with about every other word tinged with some form of "f@*k!" So While it was still dark we carried the one kayak we had left up to the main road. I called my dad around six and told him that we had a bad night and that he needed to come and pick us up. When he arrived and found out about what had happened he wasn't happy but he thankfully didn't lose his cool. When I got home I called up the coast guard, marine patrol and police to tell them about my missing kayak. I then promptly collapsed on my bed and remembered that it was my birthday today(June 30th). It all seemed to horrible to be true, so I retreated to my dreams. When I awoke, my mom told me that they had found the kayak pretty close to where it must have drifted away! I was relieved to hear that I wasn't still out 1,300 skins, but my terminal sunburn from the previous day seemed to completely diminish this extremely good news.

Looking back at the experience, I realize that sometimes bad things happen, and if you never use what you have, in my case kayaks, then you will never have the experiences that make life exciting and worth living to the next day for! It's times like these that bring color to life and rid you of the bleakness of the hypnotic routines we all must face at some level. Thanks for reading this far and if you liked what I had to say or not, let me know with a comment! I need to know I'm not talking to a brick wall! I really hope you have a great day and that you and I have an awesome adventure together sometime. cheers -MW