I'M ALIVE!
It's been a while. I know. But believe it or not, it does in fact get pretty chilly down here on the Gulf Coast. Maybe not chilly from a northern's perspective, but certainly not warm enough to go water sporting. So my kayaking adventures have been put on hiatus. Maybe there will be a warm spell here soon, but until that magical day when I am reunited with Sunburst I thought I would just go on telling tales about the kayaking days before this glorious blog.. ahem.. I mean "movement", came along. If that's alright with you all, of course.
"Letting Trea take the lead was a mistake."
"Why am I even following him?"
"I should turn around and go back to the car."
"I could take a nap in the car."
"Would he even notice that I was gone?"
"Doubt it."
"Jesus, letting him take the lead was a mistake."
Those are the things that flood my mind as I watch Trea's figure get smaller and smaller in the boundless water. I sit in the mouth of the Bay, sipping my water, listening to my Alternative Indie Love Song Pandora radio station. By this point, the only way I can see Trea is because of his neon orange life vest. He's now smaller than a speck, bobbing up and down.
"That jerk is trying to get to the Bay Bridge," I think to myself.
A few more brief moments go by before I say, quite loudly, "UGH! Fine."
I grab my paddle and hurl myself towards him.
The peak of the Bay Bridge is approximately two miles from where I was sitting. Two miles is nothing. Trea and I have covered that in no time at all. But.. that was when we were side by side, had house to talk about, birds to whistle to, small crabs to count, and plenty of other things to keep our minds occupied while traveling. Open water is a completely different kind of beast.
There are waves. Lots and lots of waves. And not the pretty little ripply waves. No. These are the waves that threaten to flip your yak every time they hit. There is nothing to look at, except your bare legs looking like sitting ducks to the blinding smoldering exposed sun, and of course, the Bridge itself.
With the bridge being your only focal point, time passes WAY more slowly. With the waves ganging up on you, the whole ride is just a game of two steps forward, one step back. So it takes more time than I would have liked. The bridge was not getting any bigger and neither was Trea. Time was frozen, and not in the good way. I wasn't getting any closer, but the mouth of the bay, where I had come from, had practically diappeared. Something was wrong. At a point, I did start to lose my mind. .
Only two thoughts were repeating through my sunbaked brain:
I'm gonna die out here.
I hate Trea.
After 38 billion hours, I'm there. Trea welcomes me with a high fave, "Hey! I didn't think you were going to make it!"
I scoff, "Neither did I."
Sitting under a bridge that you travel over everyday is quite the experience. You look up and listen to the cars overhead. They're all just continuing with their daily routine, completely unaware of the fact that two friends are sitting under them, drinking water, listening to a nearby fisherman's country station, absolutely dreading the moment when one of them decides it's time to go back.
Trea breaks first, "Well.."
"-Shut up. Can we just catch a ride back with one of these friendly boaters?"
He laughs, "It won't be that bad! The sun will be on our backs, the current will be on our side, and I'll stay with you the whole time. It will go by in blink."
I agree, hesitantly.
And he was wrong. Oh my God, he was wrong. About everything.
Kayaking on what might as well have been a treadmill to the middle of the Bay Bridge and back earned Trea and I major bragging rights. But you'll never see us jumping at the chance to do it again.
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