A cluster of people have gathered around my kayak as Doug and I drink tea on the beach, half way through our "opt out" paddle. As I am preparing to launch they have lots of questions, the kind of questions that seem a bit silly if you are a sea kayaker, but make perfect sense if you are the average Australian who rarely travels by anything other than an automobile and lives an almost exclusively urban life.
"Do you have a support vehicle following you?" No. "How will you sleep?" Lying down. "What will you sleep on?" A mat. "What will you sleep in?" A tent. "Have you seen any sharks?" Not today. "What will you eat?" We have food packed, and on it goes. Finally, the last question from a comfortably round lady "But what about your Christmas dinner?"
And therein lies the nub, we are opting out. But, how do you explain opting out to the average Westerner whose life has become a round-robin stimulus response cycle which is hyped into overdrive at this time of year. Not only has culture decreed that we must buy gifts galore - a miserly 1% of which remain in use 6 months after Christmas - but the average person will consume a whopping 5,000 to 6,000 calories on Christmas Day alone, and this is in a nation where the diseases of civilisation are a bigger threat than any virus.
Normally, I talk around these things, but, perhaps as I grow older I grow more cynical, less comfortable watching us destroy the planet and ourselves for the fleeting bliss of a squirt of hormones that make us feel good for a very brief period of time before we inevitably begin searching for the next hormonal release.
So I say "We are opting out. We spend Christmas doing something meaningful and challenging." Round lady looks distinctly uncomfortable, as do the rest of the crowd and quickly they melt off back, I presume, to lounge seats, snacks, and eskys of beer.
We push out to sea. It has been a modestly challenging paddle thus far. Quite a large swell is running and the sea is lumpy and spiky with waves breaking every which way. We have kept well off-shore, avoiding bommies and reefs, pushed along by a light tail wind, but wet and splashed by spray and breaking waves.
Another couple of hours and then we head in towards shore, looking for a rocky little bay that despite facing southeast and the predominant swell, provides a sheltered landing if you can duck in behind a breaking reef.
I am a little to close coming in and a wave breaks and washes over my deck, "Look out" I call to Doug as I sprint off to one side. But we weave in safely and are soon landing on a pebbly beach and whisking the kayaks up away from the waves.
It is a beautiful spot to spend Christmas Day. A narrow bay looking out onto the ocean with basalt rock platforms to south and north, while to the west is native forest, palms, ferns and a pocket of rain forest by a fresh water creek. I find a large goanna lying drowsily on a big rock by the stream and the air thrums with the sound of cicadas.
We find a grassy campsite and set up camp, brew tea, eat a late lunch, walk along the rocks on either side of camp, eat dinner sitting on beach rocks watching the waves breaking on the reef, and, on a last walk before dark, I watch the clouds swirl around the islands to the south and the cormorants fly high into the gum trees to roost.
There is gentle rain overnight and we sleep soundly, the only noise a strange call, almost human of a bird around camp and the waves a light susurration on the beach.
Next morning, the sea has quieted. Still lumpy but less sharp and the swell has dropped by half. We drink big mugs of black coffee as the sun dances in a stream of light across the ocean and showers sweep by at sea.
Pushing off, we paddle out past the reef, onto the open sea and are soon heading south, towards home. Still rocking in lumpy conditions but the sea less sharp today, the colliding swells smoother. We cover 20 kilometres before we land on a steep beach in a dumping swell to drink tea and stretch our legs and backs before the final half dozen kilometres home.
The promised north wind blows up, we put up our sails and turn downwind, running with the rolling swells and surfing into the beach. We land, load the kayaks onto home-made wood trolleys made with golf cart wheels scrounged from the annual clean up week, and walk home pulling our kayaks behind us.
It was the best of times, a Christmas of pure and untainted joy.
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