Adventure On the High Seas (in inflatable kayaks)!

Welcome to The Adventures of a Night of Hohen, committed short stories picked from some

of the unusual adventures of my life, because we've been all used in a fun.

Today's episode is The Adventures on the High Seas, with inflatable kayaks.

Our story takes place off the coast of Washington in the San Juan Islands.

I had heard the whole area was beautiful, and I had won a go there for several years as I

loved exploring, and I especially loved taking my children exploring.

I was especially looking for two kayaking around San Juan Island, as all the maps and pictures

that showed all these orcas or killer wells and sills and things, and we are hoping to be able

to see some wildlife from our kayaks as we paddle around.

Now, the type of kayaks that we brought were inflatable kayaks because they're easy to

stuff in the back of a van or whatever vehicle we're driving versus trying to take like

three kayaks on top of a van driving all the way from Idaho.

Now, I will say the area was beautiful, and the ferry ride alone out to the island was worth

the price of admission, so to speak.

On the ride out to San Juan Island, there was a fog that had descended, partially blocking the

view to the other islands, creating kind of a fantasy, middle earth vibe that gave it this

extra adventurous magical feeling, which served to heighten the anticipation for the day.

We did a few fun things on the island, which are hardly worth mentioning, because I came there

for the kayaking.

Now, thanks to the internet, I had previously chosen a spot that looks like the tour guides

that taken people that was from a nice, pretty beach down to a lighthouse, and then back,

the beach turned out to be a good decision, because I had nice lowways for the kayaks,

the easily breakout into and get into the open water.

So, then we decided who was going to go, which ended being me and my two oldest children

who ended being older teenagers at about this point. While my youngest son, it was a younger teenager,

and my wife decided to hang back. So, excited to go exploring, see a lighthouse,

possible wildlife, and some beauty around the island. We jumped in the kayaks, and went paddling

out into the water. Now, there was a big bend that had to go around initially, and then it was

off to the lighthouse. So, we went paddling around the bend, and just as we paddled around the bend,

we saw tour guides coming towards us with a group of people. Now, the tour guides in their

hard kayaks looked at us in our inflatable kayaks, and warned us that perhaps our inflatable

kayaks may not be able to come back against the current, and then they quickly paddled on.

We didn't think much about it. We're confident. We'd bound the ocean before with these kayaks.

We'd been on lakes. We'd been on rivers, including going upstream. We'd been on rapids.

You know, we were incongruable at Owens. We paddled on without any worry for about 10 feet.

And then I realized that we didn't ever test the current. All those other times

with the rivers and lakes and things. I'd always tested the kayaks. I'd always gone upstream

first. I'd always tested the currents first, and this time in our excitement, we just immediately

paddled towards the White House and went with the current. And so, I thought, and we should

probably check it out. So, I called my two children over Caleb and Kelsey and said,

let's just be safe here. So, we turned around and we tried paddling backwards or back the way we

came and we didn't make much progress. So, we paddled harder and we didn't make much progress.

We're really any progress. So, we paddled harder and didn't make any progress whatsoever.

And so, we did this for like 15 minutes. No progress. Just paddling in place. Look at the

surroundings around us. Nice and pretty. Some cliffs to the side of us. No way to get out.

The other side of the just ocean going outward for as long as you can see. But making absolutely

no progress. So, then I tried with all my might like a sprinter. I pushed really hard to

dug in and really, really pushed. And I went about a foot. And then I gave up.

As I sat there resting, looking at my daughter all red face and trying as hard as you could

and looking at my son just paddling crazy like and not really going anywhere, the thought occurred

to me. And so, of course, I had to share it with my children that hey, people pay thousands of

dollars to experience swimming, running and so forth and go nowhere. And we got to do it for free

and in a beautiful setting. Hey, I'm a dad. I'm allowed to tell that jokes.

Both my children seem to generally laugh at least a little bit. Well, somehow not looking

impressed at the same time. Which seems like a contradiction, but they managed to pull it off.

Well, sitting there, I noticed the locals didn't come back to check on us.

They were probably up on one of those beautiful hills nearby, watching with binoculars

and laughing at us stupid tourists. You know, anywhere you go in the world, there's a contingent

of locals that think all tourists are idiots. Well, we are, or at least ignorant. We don't know

those weird little details in your area that you take for granted. We don't know about that

baffling red light and Las Vegas that doesn't allow you to make a right turn. And if you have

a small bladder in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, good luck finding a bathroom in time. So be kind to us,

tourists, point a child to a bathroom and try not to curse a driver using a roundabout for the

first time. You know, we should create an international, be nice to tourist day.

Yeah, I know, like we need more recognition days. I can't keep up with what we have.

Did you know that the day that I'm recording this? Just today, Monday, February 28th,

it was car keys and small change day, floral design day, global scouse day, whatever that is,

international repetition strain injury awareness day, national chocolate souffle day,

which I think I can get behind. National public sleeping day, national science day,

national tooth fairy day, rare disease day, shrows Monday, also known as carnival Monday,

Colby Monday, Fat Monday, Hall Monday, Looney Gros, Mary Monday, Paisen Monday, Peasen Monday,

and Rose Monday. And that doesn't take into the account weeks and months if we take account

that. Well, it's also a national pancake week and peace core week. And the little old February,

the shortest month of the year, is the month of 50 plus things. I mean, we know black history

month, but it's also like a national goat yoga month. It's national preventive litter month.

It's spunky old broad month. It's vegan cuisine month, library lovers month,

more fun awareness month, national bird feeding month, North American inclusion a month,

and so forth, I said over 50. When we have so many, it's really hard to recognize things

because we're just recognizing too many at the same time, but then again, maybe I'm just being

too grumpy. I guess I should just be grateful for so many celebratory days. I mean, that way,

if you have a really bad day, like if your boss yells at you at work, you can at least come home and go,

well, you know, it's chocolate souffle a day and go to town on chocolate deliciousness. That's

assuming you can make a chocolate souffle a day that doesn't flop and completely break your sanity.

But you at least have that. Alright, let's get back to the story. I know I've been gone

from it for a little while, but don't worry, you haven't missed anything. We're still paling

against the current and not getting anywhere. So, realizing we needed to try something different.

My son and I decided to try to go further out from land and deeper into the ocean to see if we

could get out and away from the current, uh, and at least try to get around it to get back to where

we came from. So we'd go 50 feet, 100 feet, whatever, and then we'd try to go, you know,

back into the current, which wouldn't work, and so we'd try another 50 feet, 100 feet, and then we'd

try again, and, uh, of course, this wasn't working. But what was happening was the ways we're

gaining huge, and me and my little kayaks started to seem very insignificant as we started to look

up and up at the waves. So I decided this was a little too dangerous and called it to a halt.

Caleb probably would have just kept going. I mean, his kayak would have been demolished,

but he probably would have just surfed on his paddles to the next island. But we still had me and

Kelsey to think about. So I called the children together and said, you know, we've, we've got to

go with plan B here, and that was to just paddle down to the lighthouse and hope that my wife and

youngest son just put two to two together and figured out that that's where we were going to go,

and hopefully would drive down there and be there when we arrived. Once we made that decision,

the rest of the journey was very easy, you know, because it was beautiful and we were going with

the current and, you know, how we imagine it would be except for we didn't see any wildlife. Oh,

well. But we got to the lighthouse and there was one problem. There was no place to land. It was just

sharp rocks. There was no cliffs, greatly. So, you know, if we get past the rocks, we could make it.

So I did find one little spot that if we could hold the kayak steady, if someone could jump

just at a couple feet, they could probably scramble on up. So I volunteered Caleb as he was the most

athletic, and I trusted holding his kayak steady, and had a feeling that I tried it, I would either

end up in the water or with my head dashed against the rocks. Long story short, plan worked. Caleb

got out, managed to hold our kayak steady as weeks, scrambled upon the shore, and we walked

towards the lighthouse, yay, and we got it on the shore, and we looked around, and no wife and son.

Okay, so now we had to figure out what to do again. Well, I didn't feel comfortable leaving Caleb alone.

He was the youngest there of the group with the rafts, and so I decided I'd stay with Caleb

and the rafts, and my daughter who was pretty old teenager at the time, we found a family that

looked less murdery for her to kind of hitchhike with to go back to where we started from to look

for my wife and youngest son. Well, it turns out my wife and youngest son Adam was looking for us,

just that they were driving back and forth along the road, thinking that maybe we'd gotten out somewhere,

not realizing that it was just sheer cliffs, and we couldn't have gotten out. So they, of course,

managed to miss each other, but they at least found us, my wife and son Adam, and despite this

comedy of errors, my daughter did figure things out and managed to get back to us. So none of us died,

or even got seriously maimed or injured. So what's the moral of the story? Perhaps that you can

make seriously bad decisions and still have lots of fun and get a great workout? That doesn't

seem like a great moral. Impulsivity is fun, no, that doesn't seem good either. I guess I can't

really figure out a moral of the story, but I do know this, San Juan Island still owes me some wells.

Thanks for listening. Please check back every month for another adventure of an Idahoan.

Until then, take two big bites out of life and call a loved one in the morning. This has been

Robert Sidwell. I look forward to talking with you again soon.