Of Piles and Lists

I'm still majorly behind on trip reporting... I could tell you all the other things I am majorly behind on as well, couldn't I? It would sound like a laundry list (laundry is also an item *on* the list). Instead, I'll just tell you that my desk is piled full of crap, sorry, files, my kitchen counter is currently covered in crap, aka things that need to be sorted through and evaluated for potential to feed me for a week of hot weather tripping, the deck is covered in crap that mainly consists of drybags and wet gear, my bed is currently unmade, and my garden is weedy.

As for me, I just moved one step closer to snapping today. I'm at my desk at work. My office is in one of those fabulous old brick buildings with enormous multi-paned sash-style windows, high ceilings, and virginia creeper on the outside. And the windows have big windowsills, wood and then a concrete ledge. And a rat-with-tail squirrel has (had!) taken over *my* window sill, which is (was!) very overgrown with tangled vines. The vines, incidentally, had made their way through the miniscule crack of where my multi-paned window meets the windowsill and were growing on the *inside* windowsill and sometimes ants crawled onto my desk. I was aware the squirrel was building its nest, and had been feeling mild disgust at the used napkins and the like visible from my desk if I turned in the direction of the phone. But today, I declared war. The rodent had started gnawing on the wooden sill in a fully demented fashion. Gnaw gnaw gnaw BANG (that's me throwing something at the window to get it to go away because I am trying to *concentrate*) silence silence gnaw gnaw GNAW BANG repeat.

Well then. I can't even get the window open on my own (humidity, the weight of a 5'x4' panel, and last summer's paint job make it very sticky indeed). I finally stalked next door to my boss' office, asked him how strong he is, and thus guaranteed that he'd do most things short of throwing his back out to open my window. And then I pulled out my pocket knife and declared war. Five minutes of very satisfiying slashing later, my office is brighter since my window has far fewer vines covering it, my windowsill is clear, and there is no more ant highway into my office. I feel better. And then, energy spent, I got the bossman again to *close* the window.

And now, I am on paragraph four of a blog entry, and still have not mentioned my kayak. Time to amend: I am excited, because the wonderful kayak and I will be on the alluded-to-above hot trip on the Bay next week, as well as yet-to-be-confirmed other adventures in the not-too-distant future.

In other news, I am going to return to the airport-based lifestyle soon, with Norway, Germany and Banff on the horizon in the next six months. It's happening a bit sooner than I expected, since I had intended not to set foot into airports for several months, but some opportunities are too exciting to pass up and thus it looks like August and November are the only months of 2005 that have the potential of being airport free. And I can't believe I just used the word "exciting" in reference to work-related matters without rolling my eyes even. But yes. And now I stop even alluding to the job thing. I will admit, though, that for the two weeks after my last plane-related work trip (to Montreal, in May), I was a bit at a loss: now what? Sleeping in my own bed every single night turned out to be a lot less exciting than I had imagined.

And then I declared paddling season started with the Victoria Day long weekend. Furthermore, I declared there would be no wasted weekends this summer. And so far, there haven't been. I haven't even caught myself drifting off to daydream about the recurring cabin in the woods fantasy. (What? *everybody* has that fantasy. We all know it's over-romanticized, but there is a definite appeal to it, isn't there?) It's hard to daydream about a remote cabin in the wilderness when you're snuggled in your sleeping bag *in* the wilderness, or scratching mosquito bites...

And the squirrel is back, looking very disoriented. If I were not made of stone, I would feel bad. But I don't. Hence I conclude I am made of stone. And before this regresses to relative weights of duck and I conclude that I am a witch or similar logic, I shall now attend to crap pile #1 (the desk), to be followed later by laundry list item #3 (the epynomyous laundry), and devote myself to crap piles #2 and #3 (trip food and disorganized gear) tonight.

Classic Georgian Bay

You know, it's not that I didn't enjoy the Haida Gwaii Adventure - I did, very much. But it was wet, and it was cool, and I spent the bulk of July wearing long underwear (sometimes more than one set at a time), fleece, rainshell, and a toque. It did occur to me, during that trip, that I have been underappreciating Georgian Bay, where you will not be pelted by saltspray, you only have to carry the drinking water you need for the day because you can always filter more, you can go barefoot on sun-warmed rocks, swim, and have some beautiful scenery.

But I will admit: I knew that I would feel this way. Which is why I concluded that I would paddle Georgian Bay my first weekend back before I even left. Furthermore, I concluded that, while I would do so solo if I found nobody else to go with, I would much rather have company. So, to continue the on-going explanation why I am extremely lucky when it comes to adventure, I didn't have to paddle alone: Kevin and May both came out with me, Kevin for both Friday and Saturday nights and May on Saturday. I had only met either one of these characters during larger paddling gatherings in the past (and only once each), but now have concluded that I must stalk them and pester them to do more trips with me. Because they're cool!

I shall tell you about how cool, of course. Kevin and I had agreed to meet in Britt late afternoon, and just as I left Highway 69, May called. When she heard that I was already at the put-in, she immediately tried to be over-considerate and bail on the trip, on grounds that Kevin and I would have to paddle back from wherever we were to get her since she had no compass or map of the area and similar nonsense. I can do many things at once, but I cannot drive a standard transmission car through a small town and argue on a cell phone with a Chinese woman at the same time, so I asked May to call back in a while. I figured I'd make Kevin take the call, since he knows her better than I do. But as it turned out, Kevin had his hands full of boat when the phone rang again, and the task of bullying May into showing up with her kayak fell to me. I did so. Masterfully. I had to yell "stop!" over the the cell phone connection to halt the torrent of protest why it was stupid for us to come back to get her, but, success.

Kevin and I spent night one at a meh sort of site on Champlain Island. But meh site or not, I for one was *thrilled* to be paddling on the Bay (using Kevin's spare carbon-fibre paddle, since mine was still en route from B.C.). I was less thrilled about yet another camp stove meal or setting up my tent again (these tasks can be filed under chores), and for a moment contemplated Kevin's diet of cold tins of things (cold tin of spinach, cold tin of beer). I adopted half of his dinner plan (not the spinach half). I think he also ate something that neither came out of a tin nor required a stove, but by this time I was on #2 of the cold tin approach to life and had ceased caring about much of anything except that a) it was sunny and b) I was having a great time. Kevin, for his part, didn't bother with the whole camp-setting-up thing, he just blew up his retro air mattress and put his sleeping bag (weighed down by a rock, it was windy) on it, and he was done.

It was a good evening (I know, I know - we're on the Bay, it's sunny and July, there will be lots of predictable adjectives like good, fun, wonderful, relaxing...). We went for a sunset walk on the island, we sat in the dark and looked a the stars and discovered that neither one of us was more sophisticated than "that's the Big Dipper" in terms of constellations, we enjoyed the wind. Eventually, that same wind chilled me, so I ended up lying on the still warm rock for a while before wandering off to my tent and Kevin bedded down under the stars.

When I woke up, I was hot in my tent - and I saw Kevin peacefully snoozing in the early morning sun, and I was envious. That is, until I saw a) the bugspray placed beside him and b) the heavy dew. Kevin later confessed that it wasn't the greatest sleep ever, since the wind died down and the bugs were annoying, he'd been investigated by deer mice, and yes, there was dew, and the full moon was annoying. (And yet, he claims he can't understand why more people don't do the no tent thing.)It was dead calm that morning, and I was already hot by 8 a.m. However, it was a Georgian Bay in July trip, and I'd put on my swimsuit as soon as I got up, so I could go for a morning dip before I even finished packing my boat.

We took our time paddling back to Byng Inlet, with a stop for a swim along the way before we pulled up on a shoal from which we could see the river and hopefully May. The first thing I did once again was swim. The novelty still hasn't worn off, by the way: not salty, warm. Nice. While we waited for May, Kevin continued the diet of tins for lunch, though this time he actually heated them up (and I demonstrated that I am, indeed, at a mental age of 12 when he pulled out his tiny little MSR stove and declared that his Pocket Rocket is always ready to go and eager to be fired up).

Kevin spotted May through the binoculars, and we hurriedly launched to go meet her, at which time I got swamped, seeing as I was too impatient to wait for a break in the constant bombardment of wakes from powerboats. As I finished sponging out, there was a brief moment of calm, though Kevin advised me to "hurry up, cause here comes more of the bastards". A successful launch later, and a brief delay when I insisted that I was hot again and needed to use the bow of Kevin's boat to stick my head and shoulders into the water (ok, I can do that without another boat to hang onto. It's the coming back up part I'm not so good at yet), and then we met May and started paddling north again. The wind had picked up a bit, and I noticed - no skirt on May's boat! However, she is lighter than I am and her boat is much bigger, so she rides very high (too high, I think) and while I had a few wash-overs, she stayed high and dry.

I'd put my camera away for the afternoon, I was tired of fiddling with it. But we had a great paddle, and started exploring the Churchills with the intention of camping there. We were floating through one quiet channel when I motioned to May and Kevin to shut up (though with Kevin that is unnecessary. Is there a motion to talk more?) because, oh so cool, I was staring directly at three huge sandhill cranes. They took their time with a dignified stalk into the bush, so we had a good look, both unassisted and through binoculars. There's a highlight of the weekend for sure. The Churchills, however, were too crowded for us (there was a sailboat anchored there - it was only one boat, but we wanted an entire archipelago to ourselves!). We crossed over to One Tree Island, at which time I became mystified as to what Kevin's criteria for a campsite were since he didn't seem to like any of the spots (I now know white pines, exposed to some wind for bug control, scenic, flat rocks for camping - but I'm sure there is more). We did settle on one, and began an afternoon/evening of barefoot on warm rocks, not quite cold anymore tins (though May did not partake in that) and hanging out. Kevin blew up his colourful mattress again, but this time augmented that with a tent. May proudly set up her retro camping gear. We sat around and talked (though that was only May and me, it seemed, but then, it would have been hard for Kevin to get a word in because we were in full bla bla bla mode).

Kevin had some more tins that required heating as a snack, and was no doubt winding up for a can-opener-related dinner. I, however, discovered just how much food my experimental risotto and chicken dinner (involving a box and a tin) would make, and tried to convince the other two to commit to eating it as well. May wasn't biting, but Kevin did - and, when I (predictably) got distracted as soon as I started cooking, he finished the job for me (I came back during this time, but conveniently plunked myself down out of reach of the stove in the hope that he continue what he was doing. It worked! Not only that, he did the dishes. I *told* you I keep lucking out with tripping companions!)

Another great night on the Bay. And a great morning - the wind had built steadily overnight, and we woke up to big water and a wind that was much closer to gale than breeze. We happily made the crossing from One Tree Island to the Churchills, at which point we stopped to talk to a lone kayaker named Kris - and invited him to join us for the day's big water paddle. He did, and there was big fun water to play with. We had to paddle straight into the wind, and we were close to shore so some pretty fun confused water and breaking waves greater than 1m. I love love love big water - even if accompanied by sideways rain - and enjoyed except for the worries of May and the lack of sprayskirt. Not that I acted on the worries - I am good enough to stay upright in this stuff, not good enough to stop and turn around to see how others are doing. Kevin is a much better kayaker than I am and (not surprising to those who know me) a much more considerate person than I am, and he hung back to make sure the other two were ok while I barged ahead and waited only when I could duck behind rocks.

I can't tell you how impressed I was with May. She had a boat that would catch the wind like mad, so would have had to work much much more than I did. And no sprayskirt! But she soldiered on, sponging and pumping out every time she got to a bit of calm water - and she had a big-ass grin on her face every time I looked at her. If I hadn't already been happy, I would have become so just from watching her. Truly cool, that.

But, as is always the case with these quickie weekends, it ended too fast. We had our last big water challenge at Lamondin Point, and then, back in calmer waters, Kevin and I paddled ahead to the take-out (my motivation? I was very wet, and wanted a dry bum. Kevin's may have been related to the beer in his truck) and then said bye to Kris and finished the day off with a pickerel dinner at the Little Britt Inn.

So, watch this space: if my stalking and pestering is successful, you will see more of May and Kevin on these pages. Though not right away, August is fully booked for Kevin, what with words that sound like (ok, are) Tofino and May is busy as well, something about Newfoundland, and I have a few smaller trips of my own on the horizon. But! Cool new friends!

I feel the need to update

But I have not gotten around to it.

Since I last updated, there has been:
the GLSKA Rendezvous
a logging road adventure to Rennell Sound, Graham Island, BC
a car-camping and beach hiking adventure to Gray Bay, Moresby Island, BC
a long kayak trip from Raspberry Cove (Gwaii Haanas) to Moresby Camp, BC

And sooner rather than later, links will appear on the text above.

But, you know, it's a smokin' hot summer, and the time available for writing up adventures : time available for having adventures balance has shifted along with the mercury. There is a pool to swim in, a garden that needs some maintenance, friends I haven't spent time with in a while, a day job, a bike to ride, and more trips to get ready for. Fiddling with image tags is unappealing at the moment.

I know, lame, posting my reasons for not posting. Soon.