Wet in Whiskeytown

I don’t really know how hot it was.  I just know that is was too hot for 9:30 in the morning.  The temperature had worked its way into the hundreds a couple days earlier and only promised to get hotter.  My skin was like a griddle.  I could have made a pancake on the back of my neck.  I struggled to pull the heat into my lungs and extract the oxygen.  My posture wilted.  The air pressed in on me, threatening to crumple me like a soda can on a redneck’s forehead.  After getting painfully burned on our hike at Mount Lassen, I made sure to slather every exposed part of my body in spf40 mineral sunblock.  I even wore a hat.  But sunblock can’t block the heat.

A picture cannot convey the heat.  Does my expression?

I stood on the shores of Whiskeytown Lake, just outside of Redding, CA.  The Park Ranger handed me a life jacket and a paddle and instructed my son and I to carry our boat to the edge of the water.  Ten other friends and family members were instructed to do the same, until we were all standing on the beach, roasting in the heat, and awaiting the clearance to get in the blessedly wet water.

Ready to kayak on Whiskeytown Lake.

After a brief safety lesson from Ranger Watkins, we were allowed to wade into the cool lake with our two-person sit-on-top kayaks and get situated.  There was a sustained wind that ruffled the surface of the water and dried out my lips and eyes.  Once we started paddling, bucking the tiny waves, the wind blew every stray water droplet from the paddles and wave breaks onto our bodies.  Relief from the heat landed one drop at a time and I was soon sitting in a puddle, damp and happy.

My son and I paddled in sync and pulled ahead of the rest of the group.  We weren’t trying to be first, but, in all fairness, it wasn’t our first time in a kayak.  I once spent a week paddling tandem ocean kayaks around Vancouver Island with a bunch of teenagers.  Seven days of constant kayaking sort of burned the motion into my muscle memory.  This is not to mention that I also own two lake kayaks, which my son and I take to the water as often as we can.  But, even with that previous experience, I think we also made a pretty good team.

My fabulous kayak partner.

The whole armada of kayakers, 11 boats in all, trailed after our Park Ranger through the choppy water toward a calmer part of the lake just around the bend.  My biceps burned and my arms felt sloppy after only a couple minutes of paddling, but they soon warmed up and settled into the familiar motion, like peddling a bicycle with my hands.  Most of the other teams also found their rhythm after a few minutes, but some never quite did.  The idea with tandem kayaking, as explained by the Park Ranger, is that the front person powers and the rear person steers.  In functional terms, this means that the job of the front paddler is to keep a steady even stroke going while the back paddler matches it and makes corrections as needed.  Letting the back person steer is the key to going straight; matching your strokes is the key to speed.  Teams who didn’t master that synchronicity soon became obvious as they veered from side to side, gliding into the paths of other boats (sometimes colliding), like bicycle couriers weaving through heavy traffic.  Their high-pitched bickering was also a good indicator.  Despite these comical difficulties, we all arrived in the protected cove in good spirits, giggles and grins emanating from every face.

We learned how to “raft-up” with each other, positioning every boat side-by-side and holding on to our neighbor’s vessel to create a yellow and orange flotilla.  Then we made our way up a narrow channel, catching peek-a-boo glimpses of a river otter in the water.  At the end of the channel we were given some free time to exit our boats and partake in a swim.  The relentless heat had already dried my clothes after traversing the windblown chop just 10 minutes earlier.  I wasted no time in going overboard to get some relief.  What bliss!  As an Alaskan girl, it’s ingrained in me that a dip in a lake can mean hypothermia even in the summer.  Not so in Redding, California!  The water was just cool enough to quicken my breath for a moment and then felt absolutely divine.  It was a heavenly moment, the kind I live for.  I soon coaxed my son out of the boat, and he practiced the Ranger’s technique of holding on to the bow with his feet while I paddled to shallower water. 

I am in liquid heaven.

This is a technique, really it is.

Too soon, it was time to get back in the boats and move on.  Ranger Watkins, who clearly enjoyed his job, did his due diligence telling us interesting stories and facts about Whiskeytown Lake and its environs at each of our stops.  However, I must admit here in writing that I completely failed as a fellow Naturalist to pay a lick of attention to what he said.  My excuse, apart from sheer lack of attention, was that I was distracted by my son’s growing insistence to control the boat.  When the boat was supposed to be still, he wanted to paddle (just a little); and when he was supposed to be the power, he wanted to steer.  It all came to a head when the Ranger set us up for a race around a small island.  It was the third and final fun challenge he devised to make the morning a splendid experience.  I was confident that my boy and I were going to do well.  After all, we’d ended up at the front of the pack on each leg of the trip without even trying, even when we’d started at the back.  We were a good team.

The Ranger prepped us by stating, “rubbing is racing.”  He meant that since we were starting from a raft-up position, there was no way we could hope to win unless we were willing to jostle and bump into each other to try and get ahead.  He was encouraging a boat scuffle.  He was insisting on competition. The only downside was that our boat was exactly in the middle of the flotilla.  We would need a lucky boost to get out in front, but apparently my son was realizing the same thing and he had a plan.  When the Ranger finally released us, my son pushed the boats on either side of us backward, propelling us ahead.  I dug my paddle deep and fast into the small gaps that formed between our kayaks.  I was desperate to try to win, and for a glorious moment it looked promising for us.  Actually, I can’t really say if it was a moment or a minute.  My vision immediately tunneled until all I saw was my son in front of me, and the dark water I was plunging my paddle into beside me.  Time became irrelevant.  And then my paddling became irrelevant.  Suddenly, two boats crushed up along side of us, leaving no room for me to put my paddle in the water and propel us forward.  In seconds (I think) the whole flotilla caught up, engulfed us, chewed us up, and spit us out the back of the pack.  I saw my son’s shoulders sink, but I heard myself yelling at him to just keep paddling.  “Right! Right! Now Left! Dig!!”  We were dead last.  What lay ahead of us was a snarling mess of crazy kayakers crashing into each other and getting crammed into the brushy shore halfway around the island.  I wanted to explain to my son that I had a plan to go around the outside of the traffic jam and let our speed get us caught up to the front runners, but all that came out was, “Paddle! Go! To the right, Right, RIGHT!! Don’t Stop!!!!”  In all the confusion and frustration of losing our lead he decided to shut down.  As I paddled ferociously, directing him which way to go, I watched in disbelief as he drug his own paddle in the water to brake and steer us the opposite way.  He was working against me!  He was sabotaging what remained of our chance at victory by avoiding all confrontation!  He refused to follow my commands until I finally explained my strategy and assured him we could still catch up (though I knew we couldn’t win).  He rallied his spirits and started paddling again.  Back as a team, we moved swiftly and efficiently around the jumble of boaters snagged on a partially submerged tree, some physically holding each other back in the name of friendly competition.  As we rounded the last corner of the island, I could see that my sister-in-law had already won and there were two or three other boats ahead of us nearing the finish line.  I prodded my sweet (but mutinous) boy to dig deep as I put my whole upper body into each stroke.  We managed to pass at least one more team to finish a respectable fourth (I think). 

Rafted-up and ready to race around that tiny island ahead of us.

I should mention now that I don’t particularly like competition.  It can conjure such feelings of disappointment in myself if I don’t do my best, that I can be quite sullen for days. It just doesn’t seem worth the hassle. I could see that insipid dejection working on my boy now and I felt it in my own chest, but it was such a beautiful day that I refused to let that little boat race get us down.  I assured him that he had been an excellent kayak partner and I was proud that we had finished strong.  I chalked our loss up to miscommunication, bad luck, and a poor starting position.  Excuses made me feel better.  But I also conceded that his auntie was a pretty strong woman and just might have powered her way to victory regardless.  He smiled at the idea of his auntie with Popeye arms churning the water like a stern-wheeler across the finish line.  To make further amends, I even traded places with him so he could steer the boat on the final leg of our kayak journey.  In case you were wondering, yes, we were the first ones back to shore.