rbp Winter Story Contest - My Inter-net Date
Mike McCrea
No, not that kind of inter-net Date - I'm a happily married man. This
was a paddling date, a canoe camping trip with a few friends and
acquaintances. In addition to ten local paddling pals with varying
degrees of canoeing expertise I invited an internet acquaintance.
Let's call him Barry.
Barry and I have made numerous attempts to paddle together over the
years, but something always seemed to come up at the last moment that
suddenly prevented his actually showing up. Car trouble. Family
arriving unannounced to visit. Bad weather.
After several years of near-misses and last minute cancellations Barry
did show up one year for a summer trip in the Adirondacks, although he
arrived shortly before we broke camp and no one actually saw him
paddle. He seemed far more interested in regaling us with tales of
past paddling prowess and in making sure that we knew, to the penny,
the exact cost of his hand-laid canoes and his custom paddles.
But this year, this year is going to be different. This year Barry
assures me, he promises, he swears that he'll be there. On the right
day. On time. Ready to paddle. And lo and behold there he is. His
canoe is a gleaming Kevlar beauty without a blemish. His paddles are
custom made, transported in fleece lined carry bags. The rest of his
gear is all top of the line and he makes sure we know it. To the
penny.
My local paddling cohort is feeling a bit abashed; their canoes are
not just battered with use, three of them are paddling cast off hulks,
rebuilt with scraps, spare parts and cunning improvisation. Their
paddles are nicked, gouged and patched. Their gear is old, dirty and
worn from frequent use. The only thing they know the cost of is the
duct tape that holds their stuff together.
As we load our canoes Barry regales us with tales of past paddling
prowess. The rapids he has run, the wilderness expeditions he has led,
and the canoe races he has won. We are in awe. His mastery of the
canoe, his expertise in all things backcountry, the expense of his
gear. To the penny.
So awestruck are we to at last be paddling with a true virtuoso that
we pay no heed to Barry's avoidance of the common gear pile and in the
end the stoves, fuel, tarps, poles, Dutch ovens, pots, pans, griddle,
water containers and other camping accoutrements are heaped in our
canoes, in piles towering above the gunwales. Barry's kevlar
perfection ($1934, plus tax) bobbles like a cockleshell, unencumbered
by any such bothersome burden.
We launch from the put in and Barry unlimbers his custom wood bent
shaft ($127, fleece lined carry case extra) and takes his first
stroke. We watch expectantly, the seconds tick by, time passes, and
then, and then...then he takes his second stroke. By this time our
flotilla of grubby canoes and crappy paddles has traveled fifty yards
and we all stop to wait.
We pause on the shore of a small peninsula, watch and wait. Soon a
third stroke is produced, and eventually a fourth. And we wait. There
is talk of lunch. A fifth stroke is taken. Cigarettes are rolled. A
sixth stroke. Time stretches on. A seventh stroke, an eighth. Soon
Barry's stroke count will reach double digits. Hooray!
At length the Master arrives, beaming with pride. He has made it the
first fifty yards. The rough boys in their nasty canoes shoot me a
look. It isn't a nice look. I explain to Barry that we now have to
cross a shallow embayed shore, aiming for a point a half-mile away
where we will pause again.
Crossing this shallow bay the wind is in our face and the
eighteen-inch depth produces choppy conditions. I follow the rough
boys as they muscle up and cross to the tip of the next peninsula. As
I reach the shore I see that the rough boys are shaking their heads
with disgust. Aussie rough boy Davis asks "Wots 'is pro'lem, mate?". I
disembark and turn to see that Barry is all but stationary,
maintaining his languid stroke rate, making imperceptible progress.
German rough boy Franz asks "Vot zee 'ell isz he doink". This question
appears to be directed not at me, but to the heavens. Good thing too,
because I sure don't have an answer. We count Barry's stroke rate. He
is at least the master of consistency; twelve strokes a minute. Not
eleven, not thirteen. Twelve.
We wait. We watch. Soon we cannot bear to watch any more. We turn away
and look down water towards our destination 5 miles away. Rough boy
Bob calculates that, at our current rate of progress, it will take
upwards of ten hours to reach our intended camp.
Thirty minutes later Barry has reached the halfway point. Twelve
strokes a minute, no more, no less. Bob and Vince announce that they
can take no more and push off towards camp, promising to have lunch
ready for us by the time we arrive. Or maybe dinner.
And we wait. Twelve strokes a minute. And we wait. At last there is a
change in Barry's stroke rate. Not a good change. Eleven strokes a
minute. Ten. Nine. Interminable wait. Eight strokes a minute. At last
Barry reaches a position a scant twenty yards from where we stand. And
goes no further. Seven strokes a minute, just enough to remain
stationary.
We reboard our canoes and I ferry over to his side. "How ya doing?" I
ask. "Not bad" he replies, "Just paddling along, taking my time,
thinking about Johnny Cochran". The understatement of the year,
although the Johnny Cochran reference is, at the time, a mystery.
I explain that we now have one hard pitch; around the far side of the
peninsula there is another half-mile stretch to tackle into the wind
before we enter a protected narrows, and after that much of the route
can be snuck along the lee shore, out of the wind. Barry nods,
seemingly unperturbed, and I paddle around the point, following the
rough boys onward.
The rough boys gain the far shore where we again beach our canoes and
turn to wait for Barry. Where is Barry? Barry has not yet even rounded
the point where we last stopped. Even Barry with his incredibly
consistent stroke rate should have traveled twenty yards by now. We
wait.
Wait and wait and wait. The rough boys not only paddle crappy old
canoes, but we're bit slow on the uptake too. It takes an hour of
waiting and watching for it to dawn on us. Barry has given us the
slip. Turned tail. Run for home. With none of the common gear in his
canoe, and with the put in still in sight the expedition master has
called it quits. Two hours on the water, one half mile paddled and
Barry has surrendered. I felt like I'd brought an inter-net date to
the Senior Prom and she turned out to be a strident hag who couldn't
dance.
Oh, the Johnny Cochran business - in Barry's own words he was thinking
"Must-a-quit, must-a-quit"
Post script: Barry's paddling prowess lives on via the inter-net
however. In his retelling of this trip the waves were towering, he was
hallucinating with effort and it was only through sheer grit and
determination that he was able to survive the harrowing half-mile
paddle back to his car.
Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, you can't believe everything someone posts
about his or her experience and expertise on the inter-net. Like I
said, a little slow on the uptake...
Wilko
> My Inter-net Date
>
<snip>
>
> Post script: Barry's paddling prowess lives on via the inter-net
> however. In his retelling of this trip the waves were towering, he was
> hallucinating with effort and it was only through sheer grit and
> determination that he was able to survive the harrowing half-mile
> paddle back to his car.
>
> Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, you can't believe everything someone posts
> about his or her experience and expertise on the inter-net. Like I
> said, a little slow on the uptake...
This brings memories of many a paddling trip with paddlers I had met
only through the internet, especially the ones where their recounting
of a trip made me feel like I had been on a different trip altogether.
That's a bit awkward when you walk towards a campfire late at night,
hear a story that sounds vaguely familiar (at least the river names),
but which sounds like it was the Niagara gorge with the top paddlers
of this world.
Also, looking at a couple of broken and badly damaged paddles and
boats with unusually deep scratches, I've become more careful to whom
I borrow my paddling gear.
Then again, most of the "blind date" trips were wonderful. I have
enjoyed many a special day on the water with someone who only had seen
my mail or posts before. That's why I keep inviting paddlers stranded
in Europe without a boat, paddling buddies or a river to paddle.
Wilko
(Update: Added a bunch of winter paddling pictures to the 2nd and 3rd
winter paddling galleries as well as a few pictures to the 4th hall of
shame gallery)
Mike McCrea
> Then again, most of the "blind date" trips were wonderful. I have
> enjoyed many a special day on the water with someone who only had seen
> my mail or posts before. That's why I keep inviting paddlers stranded
> in Europe without a boat, paddling buddies or a river to paddle.
Wilko, most of mine have been the same. And on the retelling of the
tale from different perspectives, I hooked up with an rbp'er -
strangley enough with the last name of "McCrea" - for a paddle last
year. He brought some friends, I brought some friends and we had a
grand old time.
He (Tom McCrea, now affectionately known as "Cousin Tom") recently
brought this trip report of that paddle outing to my attention.
Another version is in the rbp archives as "A Movable Zoo".
http://www.seakayak.ws/kayak/kayak.nsf/NavigationList/NT00004CAA
William R. Watt
Mike McCrea (mcc...@umbi.umd.edu) writes:
...
> Post script: Barry's paddling prowess lives on via the inter-net
> however. In his retelling of this trip the waves were towering, he was
> hallucinating with effort and it was only through sheer grit and
> determination that he was able to survive the harrowing half-mile
> paddle back to his car.
>
> Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, you can't believe everything someone posts
> about his or her experience and expertise on the inter-net. Like I
> said, a little slow on the uptake...
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Wilko
>
> He (Tom McCrea, now affectionately known as "Cousin Tom") recently
> brought this trip report of that paddle outing to my attention.
> Another version is in the rbp archives as "A Movable Zoo".
>
> http://www.seakayak.ws/kayak/kayak.nsf/NavigationList/NT00004CAA
Thanks, I just had a look at it. It's nice to see the way he
illustrated his trip report with pictures, although when comparing it
with "A Movable Zoo", I prefer your style of writing.
Wilko
Mike McCrea
> this is why I prefer to paddle solo. nobody can check my stories. :)
That's also why I write a trip report after every outing - my
retelling becomes the "official" version. Not that I would take
literary liscense, stretch the truth, indulge in hyperbole, or
anything like that ;-)