KWA (Kayaking While Angry)

Got some solid advice yesterday: "Chris, go get in your damn kayak." I was temple-throbbing, migraine-having, hyperventilating mad and I desperately needed to get away from work email and my phone before I did any more damage. So...done. I got in my damn kayak.


Whenever I leave my boat (or anything, for that matter) in the backyard, the neighborhood cat pisses on it, but even the the stench of that dripping on to my head as I carried my boat to the car did not increase my anger. I was redlined already. 


So, anyway, cut to the chase: by the time I got back out of the water, my anger had morphed into anxiety and remorse. So what happened? Was it the exercise? The interaction with the wildlife? The greetings the folks fishing from the canal threw my way? The fact that the geese on Prairie Creek weren't as bitchy as they usually are? It certainly wasn't nature bountiful spirit enclosing me in a infinitely loving hug that did it.


And I suppose it doesn't matter. The fact is I got into my boat and by the time I got back home all anger had dissipated and the "crisis" had been resolved. I guess part of it was that Newnan's Lake--ever-changing, moody Newnan's Lake--was something that lay outside my anger and the situation that precipitated it. Simply being on it shifted something inside me. When my son was an infant, I would calm his temper tantrums by giving him a hot bath. By the time he got out, without fail, he was his jovial self again.  This was kinda like that.

NOT A-Paddlin'

It's been almost a week since the bottom of my kayak has seen any water except the morning dew. And I am worn to a nub with work and its utterly insensible paperwork. And I am trying to get everything together so I can get out of the country again. And the dishes are piling up and the dog hair is gathering in clouds on my floor. FML, as the young-uns say.


Yet as I go down the checklist, all is essentially well with my life, at least in all the areas that matter. I mean, last night I got to meet and listen to one of the great rock and roll heroes (at least in my world), Mr. Mike Watt, he of the Minutemen and the author of the rock and roll ethos of jamming "econo." I have life, love, song, and health...

But I ain't got paddling right now. There is no feeling of dread, of unease, or self-pity that a good five-hour fight upstream wouldn't cure. Scaring the fish, dipping my hands in the cool water to get a better grip on my paddle, watching the green come back to river shore, marking cloud shapes as I settle back in the seat...I just don't know when that's going to happen any time soon, though, and I imagine I will be at loose ends until it does. Peace.

Straight Into The Teeth Of Spring

I knew it was going to be a great day on the river when I discovered the nearly perfect skull of a garfish right outside the door of my car. It now holds a prominent position in the Dead Animal Parts ensemble that now adorns my patio table. It stunk up the car mightily on the way back, but that was a small price to pay for a totem of a species that has managed to survive since the Mesozoic Period.

But back to world of the living. Anyone who says we don't have seasons in North Central Florida is oblivious. I was in this same location on the Santa Fe two months ago and all was stripped, barren, and black. Today, explosions of green everywhere...and it's not summer. So for future reference, this is what spring looks like here. The trees seem to know that there will no more hard freezes this year. It will be a few weeks before the gators move out of hibernation and start mistaking my kayak for a mating partner, but this is just fine by me.

The water was nice and high too. During my winter trip, the famed suckhole was a dry debris pit. Today it was draining everything but 14-foot kayaks. The rapids, which we chose not to "shoot" today, are open for business, too. There is an island about halfway down this run that has become my dream spot for a little cabin, hornet's nest notwithstanding, but this a state park and one of the best. Check it out: I know where some more garfish skulls are too, if you want one.


Note: I have really enjoyed the times I have taken friends out for these jaunts. If you're interested, let me know and I will make it happen, kayak and all.

"Final" Thoughts On Haiti

Ask anyone who has returned from Haiti and you'll hear the same thing: it becomes difficult to think about anything else. For someone like me who feeds on unsolvable problems, the obsession redoubles. Here's the paradox: Haiti is by far the dirtiest, most tragic, most dangerous place I have even been and the whole time I was there I couldn't wait to get back home.  I saw a crowd form around a freshly shot body near the airport, I saw a man bathing in raw sewage, I saw a child drinking out of the same sewer, I heard gunshots too numerous to count, I saw faces frozen in panic and hunger. All this and nothing a rational person would call hope for better days to come. Yet after recovering for a day or two, I began wondering how soon I could get back there. What is this madness? 

I am not alone. A friend of mine who has been several times knew exactly what I was talking about. And perhaps the only people this makes sense to are the ones who have been there, like Anthony Bourdain (who, in one hour of "No Reservations," nailed this strange attraction). I hung out with several ex-pats when I was there, some of whom have lived there for 30 years, and they refuse to live anywhere else. 


I am almost positive I will never move to Haiti, but why this pull to go back? For one thing, even in the face of all the death, in its culture and in its daily life, you are very aware you are alive when you are in Haiti. I've been to numerous countries and even in the worst parts, I felt safe, guarded from the dangers, a tourist. Not so Haiti. From the moment you get off the plane and make your way down the airport road (one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in Port Au Prince), you are in trouble--I don't care how many security guards you have with you. And if you're like me and shoot someone's picture who never gave you permission (as I did, stupidly), you just upped the ante and pray the car starts moving before he gets to the window. Like my friend Ralph, who finds it necessary to jump out of airplanes, the higher the stakes, the more alive I felt. 


Still people come and go from Haiti without dying all the time, so there must be something more to it. I think it hit me when I heard music and celebration down in Port Au Prince one night. Here are the poorest people in the world, people who live in the crosshairs of every natural and social disaster the world can cook up, and they are celebrating...what exactly? I have no clue, but it seems like a very serious matter for me to find out.

Re-entry

Re-entry's a bitch. What I forget about inhabiting a culture so vastly different than my own is that the shock doesn't happen when you get there, but when you get back. You expect and prepare for it going there, but forget all about what happens on the return. Along with trying to manage the hitchhikers I brought back in my GI tract, I was gobsmacked by coming back to the wide lanes and unguarded houses of Les Etat Unis. As any visitor to Haiti will tell you, trying to figure out the solution to Haiti when you get back is a non-stop obsession.

So, as soon as I conjured up enough energy to haul the kayak collecting pollen and pine straw in my backyard to the top of my car, I went for a quick jaunt out to a familiar place--Newnan's Lake. Technically, it's still winter, but the lake felt like spring to me. All the folks who depend upon the canal fish were in place, the flies were swarming, and the trees are showing ever the slightest signs of re-greening. The gators are still asleep, but they will return soon enough.

I'd like to say that this trip clicked me right back into place, but that would be a lie. Even though it was a short paddle, it exhausted me thoroughly and the familiarity did little or nothing to return me to my pre-visit state. This is not to say that it won't in the future, but today I simply went through the motions. 


Incidentally, from my perch in Port Au Prince, I couldn't help but scope out the dream kayaking that lay there waiting for me. Unfortunately, no kayaks (that I know of) exist in Haiti and the shores of the Bay of Gonave lay smack up against the worst and most dangerous slums in the world. 

Haiti, Pt. 2

The other night before bed, we heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire down in Port Au Prince. We learned later that a group of five Haitians were on the way back to the beach and got shot up by one of the gangs: one death and the rest injured. Safe--or relatively so--up in the compound, it sounded like the fireworks of celebration.


In the morning, we went from Petion Ville to the edge of Cite Soleil--one of the most dangerous places on earth according to the UN. Our destination was well to the west of the red zone, but anything can happen quickly here (our Security Officer used the metaphor of the frog in gradually boiling water.) 

We found our way to the distribution point toward the back of the tent city. Today's distribution was "hygiene kits" (a black pail, two blue 10-gallon jugs, and two bars of soap). Ten or so well-armed MINUSTAH (United Nations) soldiers patrolled the area and gathered closer as tension built at the front of the line. Fear of running out of goods is a constant concern and the situation can turn violent immediately, a situation exacerbated by the growing presence of gang members gathered around the back of the truck.  They were demanding hygiene kits despite having no coupons, as trucks were gathered outside the gates to buy them as soon as they were distributed. Once the truck was empty, we cleared out quickly, as instructed.

It was heartbreaking to see the proud, preternaturally resourceful Haitian people lining up and moving through, glad simply to have made it through today's distribution: old men and women in American novelty t-shirts, babies in arms, young women still trying to maintain stylish hair, all with cellphones. Stay tuned.

Arrival In Haiti

Yes, I am in Haiti and why I'm here has nothing to do with paddling. It's for work and hopefully it will lead to something that will help these people, but that is a long way off. The first question people ask as they fly into Port Au Prince is "Where are all the trees?" The short answer is that the trees in Haiti have been deforested. Who knows why but the only ones I've seen in are in some of the neighborhoods and up in the estates at the top of one of the many hills that cup the city.

Friends warned me of the gauntlet I would face after getting my bags and walking down the long sidewalk to where the truck picked us up. Hundreds of men in matching plaid shirts nearly tear the luggage from our hands, but we keep walking as instructed. Young boys and teens with desperate faces stand behind the fence and yell at the women who pass. "I love you, bebe!" and other phrases I cannot decipher. Although no one but our driver touches our bags, there is near fist fight over who is to get paid for "helping" us. But we drive off and let them settle it amongst themselves.

The drive up to where we are staying (Baby Doc Duvalier left mere days before we got here) is nothing I have ever witnessed in even the poorest parts of the poorest countries I've been to.  Trash and rotting vegetables float down or clog the gutters, and numerous tent cities line the stone walls behind them. What appears to be wreckage can actually be a working business. And the people are everywhere: in the streets, on the sidewalks, hanging from colorful buses, trying to make eye contact with the white men in the new truck. I fight the guilt as we head up the hill and into the gates of the estate that we will call home for the next week. Guilt does nothing, but the contrast helps focus me on what I am here to do. Stay tuned.

The Ichetucknee Is Great All The Time..

...except on hot summer weekends when it carries a surface of flesh, rubber, sunscreen, and the various effluvia that only 6,000 humans per day can produce. But then I digress before I even get started. Today was not one of those days and the worst I had to contend with was eight folks, each with kayaks twice as expensive as mine (and mine wasn't cheap), getting out as I was putting in. They had all the kayaking accoutrements too, bilge pumps, special booties, kayaking vests...you know, the stuff you never actually need.

After that, I had that big beautiful river all to myself, and so I took my sweet time meandering and drifting and checking out the scene under water. After it has had a few months to recover from the summer onslaught, there is nothing quite so pristine as the Itchetucknee. I've sampled my share of spring-fed rivers, but none compare to this one.

My first interface with the Ichetucknee was as one of the floating hoard many years ago. As soon as we passed the last pullout before the end, the skies opened, and there was nothing to do but drift in the cold, needling rain. I loved it, but my friends did not. I see that trip now as a life lesson: no matter how hard I paddled with my hands, I could go no faster than the current carried me.

And that current today is formidable, especially at the North End. My paddle may have touched water five times at the most on the way downstream. Upstream was the slog I expected it to be, especially when I hit the gushes of spring water fresh from the aquifer. My paddling chops are better than they were months back when I did this run last, so I made it back even faster than it took me to do the downstream leg. I don't expect to do it again until after the tourists have had their way with it.

Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain

The bottom of my kayak is a document of just how often I have scraped the bottom of every waterway in North Florida. I figured low water, like having to pick up others' trash on the river, was the price I had to pay to do what I love. So unlike pretty much everyone else in Gainesville on Monday, I greeted the rain with praises of thanksgiving, because I knew it meant high, blessedly navigable water. Where there is high water, there are new places heretofore unreachable.

So imagine my disappointment when I rushed out to the Santa Fe just south of Worthington Springs only to find the sign above blocking my progress. If the water was now too high and really too low before, then where was the magic middle ground? Was this simply a budget thing, to take any opportunity to close the "park" to save money? To my eyes, the water wasn't too high at all. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was perfect.

But with no gates blocking the New River right around the bend, I did not go unrewarded yesterday and, yes, I did see a new part of the New River. The river east of the bridge usually chokes out from debris in times of low water, but I was able to get through a few hundred yards of it with my formidable paddling skills and a rusty machete. The prize for all this work was a place of sublime isolation and beauty. The sun was going down and everything fairly glowed between the long shadows. I sat and listened to the water spill over new places in the river and when it started getting dark and I paddling easily back to the car.


Note: I will be leaving the country soon for a short while and plan to use this space to document my experiences. I won't be doing any paddling there that I know of, but I hope that what I write about will be germane to everyone who reads it.

Airboat Encounters, Pt. 2: A True Story Told In Graphic Form

Back In The Saddle

When you've been dragging river bottoms for the past 3 months, you don't let 2 inches of rain go to waste. So I (and Big Blue with a brand new patch on its arse) headed out to River Styx in the hopes that I would finally be able to get through to Orange Lake. I was not disappointed. In fact, it turned out to be a perfect storm of an outing, including hundreds of Sand Hill Cranes, an otter, a "waterfall/rapids," as well as the requisite discarded body parts I've come to expect with any trip to River Styx.

Up and back, this took about two hours and at certain points I lost all sense of time, digging into the water, watching the debris float up and back down to the bottom, surprising the coots and Sand Hills. Toward the end of the downstream leg, I came upon an ad hoc rapids, a waterfall about half a foot high, where the level dropped noticeably. Checking the portage opportunities for ny return, I went for it and dropped down into Orange Lake, and the birds just exploded.

On the way back, I saw bubble trails but they were too slight for even a baby alligator. Soon, an otter surfaced and then curved back down to wherever they hide from us. In the distance, I heard a Barred Owl, apparently an insomniac, or awakened from my flailing upstream. If you need me, I will be back there today checking out the other side of the bridge. Like I said, you don't waste a good rain.

My Kayak's Got A Hole In It: A Reflection

The Last Voyage Of
Big Blue...For Now

Yeah, I guess I'm a little proud that inside of six months I've managed to wear a hole in the stern of my kayak. At an average of four trips a week for 24+ weeks, that's some committed paddling. It also demonstrates that I haven't shrunk from taking it through some tough places. Nevertheless, when you pop the back compartment of a boat you bought new less than a year ago and see it filled with river water, it does tend to bum you out. So permit me this moment of reflection on why I do this.


I have spent more time than I care to think about on the shore of a swamp, or lake, or river wondering what it would be like to go where people can't walk or drive. I remember standing at the edge of Wakulla Springs one day for an hour, fantasizing about what lay beyond the treeline. That I did such as this for so many years without actually getting a boat of my own and finding out says a lot about me.


I've lived a good part of my life vicariously: experiencing bands from the floor instead of the stage, keeping up with friends who up and moved to Paris without doing it myself, reading others' books instead of writing one. The list runs to the horizon and beyond, and this isn't an easy thing for me to admit to myself. Kayaking is my small way of entering the active world, of actually discovering what happens beyond that treeline that anyone with a car can see from the shore. Sliding into that boat for the first time was a true homecoming, and I have tried to represent that experience in these pages.


By Saturday evening, my kayak will be repaired with plastic that does not match the color of the rest of the boat. I consider this a trophy. In the guitar world, such dings are called "character marks," and so this will be. For once, I have followed through with a dream of mine and it has taken me places that in some cases aren't even on the map. In however many years I have left, I plan to spend a good bit of that time in the unmapped places. Stay tuned.

The Creek Ain't Rising

We've had a couple inches of rain in the past few weeks so the time was ripe for paddling without obstructions--or so I thought. Hopes were high when I pulled into the parking lot off Hawthorne Road and saw the lake much higher than I remembered it. But it was an optical illusion. Everything's low and dead. The hard freezes have whacked the bullrush barriers for the most part, so I suppose everything seemed wider. But I was dragging bottom the whole way and had to turn around far sooner than I expected.

Paddling through the seasons means watching familiar waterways change personalities. Even the winter crew of birds has arrived--yellow warblers, rails and such--so it was like going back to an old school where all the teachers have changed except for that really old one who always said you'd never do anything with your life (Great Blue Heron). I suppose fishing for bottom feeders has dropped off too, because I saw almost no trash this time. Needless to say, the gators too are hunkered down wherever they go for the winter.

The highlight this time out was doing battle with the comically territorial geese that prowl Prairie Creek. They sensed me long before they saw me, or me them, and emitted their trademark rusty gate call to arms. As I sat there stuck in sand, the scout geese paddled my way, honking all the while. When it became clear that I wasn't budging, they turned their abundant white tails and paddled back to their crew.

Where's The New River?

The one I'm talking about runs vaguely north of the Santa Fe and is considered a tributary of it. I've lived 19 miles south of this river for  22 years without even knowing about it, so it was a new river for me. Union and Bradford locals sure know about, though, because they leave their water bottles, beer cans (Natty Light? Really?), and mutilated chunks of styrofoam as markers of their existence. They also leave nylon strings with now-rusty fishing hooks hanging from every horizontal branch on the river. One snagged my jacket so abruptly it stopped my kayak.

None of this detracts, strangely enough, from the sense that this is a hidden, stark, and lovely river with exposed bluffs and overhanging branches likes giant spider webs. So close to the Santa Fe, this river looks nothing like it, at least to these eyes. It's wider, clearer, and its banks more accessible (hence the debris). About 2 miles downriver, I decided to turn around: this is a river I want to share with someone else, and I will bring a trash bag.

In one of those revelations that come to us as something utterly new, but seem so obvious later, I realized on this river that my love for wild places, outside places--which has, as I've gotten older, morphed into a dedicated obsession--comes from my father who taught me to paddle, camp, hike, and sleep with the windows open to hear the crickets and the roosters. Because of him I know what it's like to sleep under a tin roof in a rain storm, something every human being should experience. Whenever I find myself in the middle of nowhere (like hiking deep in a damp, mossy forest in British Columbia or carrying my son down the Narrows of Zion National Park) he is right there with me.  Thanks Daddy.  I love you.