A cup of life’s soup de jour: change

I woke feeling sad from all the heavy rain that was still falling. The plan had been an adventure, an excursion to circumnavigate an uninhabited barrier island by paddling the rivers, creeks, surf, ocean, to walk on the beach, spend the day outside with my lover, creating life memories, now seemingly washed away by the heavy wrath of storms.

Negative thoughts continued to fill my skull while driving to the boat landing as rain drops splatters on my windshield. Conversations in my mind circled of how this wasn't going to happen, would we get our money returned, surely the trip can't happen now based on this damn act of god. The rain did stop as we got the landing but heavy moist clouds kept the skies ominously grey.

Our guide was already there standing on the beach with boats staged for the trip, a young fella, ex-Army Ranger medic who cheerfully met us with the news that we’ll push on with the chance of rain hopefully lessoning for the four hour excursion. "Hopefully, pffsss" was my silent quick witted thought as I looked up at the skies. We shoved off the wet sandy beach at the end of Ally 3 with every negative emotional anchor still gripping my soul.

The river was calm, an eagle perched high among the island trees watched as we floated by, egrets fished the creek, pelicans and other sea birds flew low along the water while other birds hunted minnows in the shallow tidal pools. Our first miles were through a small narrow twisty creek, seeing other small islands over the walls of tall green marsh grass.

We reached the beach from behind the protected island, portaged the boats a short distance over sand before leaving to explore. We strolled along the waters edge, enjoying the quiet sounds of nature, the fresh undisturbed air, the scenery of marsh grasses atop sand dunes, hammocks of pines and palm trees sitting on the highest ground, the sound of waves breaking, and feeling the water moving across our feet as it rolled up the beach. Sure, a relaxing time but the skies as far as I can see over the ocean showed stormy weather, rain curtains.

We left the beach paddling in the direction of the surf. As we entered the surf, the guide was yelling, "paddle hard directly into the waves!" Our adrenaline was running high as we fiercely paddled our boat, cutting through and over the oncoming breaking waves, the waves punching us in the chest as we crossed through the white water, our kayaks with bows pointing to the skies then falling into the crest of the next advancing wave. Our animalistic screams of nervous excitement happened with each successful engagement until we finally made it past the break. We turned and continued paddling now following the coastline behind the surf as the wave energy beneath us swelled up then dropped, a chance to exhale for a minute.

Then, as we were preparing our reentry into the surf, we saw a large fish behind a wave suddenly jump out of the water with the dorsal fin of several sharks in close pursuit. Seconds later, another shark struck the port side of our guides boat with a loud thump, then splash! The look on his face wasn't reassuring. A sudden and increased fear of capsizing joined the paddle party with the proven knowledge that a man eating fish with extraordinarily sharp teeth was now lurking below! We renewed our focus paddling through the surf, engaging the ocean with a tone of survival. We surfed waves now approaching from behind, calling on our paddling skills to avoid capsizing in the break, pure instinct to remain upright, avoiding the hungry predators beneath.

At last we reached the calm protected waters sitting between the island and the sand bar giving us a relaxing stretch to finish the day. We all exhaled followed by laughing loudly! We each shared versions of our intense adventure, stopping to watch as a pod of dolphin past in front of us, one the guide named Notch as she was missing a hunk of her dorsal fin. This awesome day of kayaking, an epic day producing a fantastic life memory that wouldn't have been the same without the weather ladened skies above. This "living-life" thing we just did, a memory worthy of a story was simply amazing completely filling my spirit.

I woke up the next morning to find a parking ticket on my truck.