Kayak!

I went kayaking one time. Exactly one time. Exactly one miserable time, and it was enough. It’s kind of sad, because you know what? I bet I’d like it, had the conditions been better on this inaugural excursion. Allow me to explain…

My brother-in-law Chris is pretty much Captain Awesome. Just a great guy; he fights fires and saves lives as his day job (in South Central LA, no less), and climbs glaciers, kayaks oceans, and bikes across continents for fun in his spare time. His wife Minette is no less awesome. In fact, her awesomeness likely supersedes her husband’s, as she’s also saving lives as a nurse practitioner, and adds marathon running to her list of hobbies, on top of everything she does with Chris.

Chris and Minette offered to take me kayaking on the mighty Columbia river once, when our families were vacationing at Cannon Beach, a scenic little town on Oregon’s North Coast. I was excited—I’d never been in a kayak before and I loved the outdoors. It seemed to me that it would be like mountain biking, except on the water. In a boat. Okay, it would be nothing like mountain biking, but I wanted to do it nonetheless.

Chris and Minette had their own gear, and they tracked down a rental place for me 20 miles upriver from the beach house we were staying at. On a sunny morning in late summer, we drove their SUV to the spot we’d be starting our paddling—right next to the rental place.

We went into the shop, and I sat inside a few kayaks until I found the one that felt the best; it also happened to be the biggest one they had available. It seemed to fit me just fine—we made some adjustments to the seat and to the little things that are kind of like stationary bike pedals—you rest your feet on them for leverage while paddling.

Uncle Chris taking the boys on a test run

Feeling like the kayak was maybe just a little snug, and certainly not too tight or too small, we launched into the slowly driving current. Chris and Minette gave me some pointers, and I took to it pretty well. I did a fair amount of rowing in rowboats, rafting in rafts and canoeing in canoes as a teenage Boy Scout, and I was enjoying the gentle breeze, the peaceful solitude of the wide, rolling river, and the companionship of these great friends, whose family I’d married into eight or nine years earlier. I was feeling really good, except for maybe a little thing or two.

Before I continue, I should tell you some things that I inherited from my family. Not cool stuff like glass eyes, mansions or treasure maps, but physiological things. I’ll generously call them traits. The first I’ll mention can be imagined easily enough by hearing what my Dad’s Uncle Howard used to call my younger brother Tim when he was young: ‘hog legs.’ Yes, the Anderson boys have strong legs—we can bike, squat, leg press, and hopscotch with the best of them. But with this great power comes great responsibility—responsibility to buy pants that have ample room in the upper-to-mid thigh area.

It is not unusual for an Anderson male to buy pants four inches too big in the waist to account for our gargantuan thighs. While I never earned a cool nickname like hog-legs (which seemed like an affectionate term of endearment to Tim, I’m sure), I do have some of that going on in my legs, if you catch my drift.

Another gift we Anderson males are blessed with? Extreme rigidity—the opposite of flexibility. I never saw my dad touch his toes—or anyone else’s for that matter. One summer, as a teen I ran three miles every day, all summer long, stretching and everything, and I could still barely bend over and touch the tops of my socks. And this was the 80’s, when your sock-tops flirted with your kneecaps!

Not only can I not touch my toes, I can barely straighten my legs, especially if I am sitting down on the floor. When I sit on the ground, legs outstretched in front of me (loosely using the term ‘outstretched’), my upper body’s natural state is about a 45-degree angle to the ground. Envision freezing a video of a normal person doing a sit-up, right in the middle of sitting up. That’s me, trying to sit up straight, if my legs are parallel to the ground.

This complete lack of flexibility, combined with my Ahh-nuld-like thighs (or maybe Kevin James-like thighs, to be honest) has left me with limited options for comfortable lounging, especially if there is no furniture at hand. Criss-cross applesauce? No thanks. A picnic? Sure, if I can bring a chair. Sitting on the sandy beach? I’ll lay down or stand up, or maybe dig an elaborate contour into the sand to cushion my abnormality of a physique, but otherwise I won’t be sitting.

Perhaps I should have thought of all this when sizing my kayak. Clearly, I didn’t think of any of it.

Maybe I should have done a dry run too!

About a half an hour into our ‘trip,’ I started to feel some real discomfort. My lower back was starting to stiffen. My hamstrings felt as tight as piano wires. I tried to wriggle around a bit inside the kayak, but you literally sit down inside the foul contraption, and have some rubber prom-dress-like thing keeping you attached to it, keeping water from getting in and you from popping out. There would be no wriggling or bending of the legs, knees, lower back, or anything that wasn’t above my belly button.

The discomfort turned into pain, and eventually into panic. My peaceful sighs of nature-loving satisfaction became heavy breathless gasps, as the kayak maliciously tightened its grip on my lower body.  A half mile or so down river, a giant tanker menacingly inched toward us. The gasps turned to grunts and squawks—yes, I literally squawked, seemingly forgetting how to form words. There was an island just a hundred yards away, and I managed to blurt out, “I... need... break!”

I paddled feverishly toward the island, wanting to get out of the boat and stretch my legs. I was also nervous about the tanker approaching; surely it was going to pin me to the river bottom, sealing my watery grave. Finally, my kayak made it to the island’s sandy shore, and I lifted myself up, ready to free myself from the torture. As I did so, something completely unexpected happened.

I swung my legs out of the body of the kayak and planted my feet on the warm, welcoming sand. Standing up, for what seemed like the first time in years, I fell face first to the ground. As I attempted to get up again, I had a strange sensation. I couldn’t feel my legs! Now, I don’t mean I had little feeling, or that they felt weird, I mean I could not feel my legs.

A few more times I tried to stand up, on legs that were suddenly made of fleshy colored jello. They buckled, they wobbled and they splayed all over. I tried to walk, taking steps to steady myself, but my feet seemed to be pinned to the sand—they wouldn’t budge. Chris and Minette handed me a water bottle and told me to just lay back and rest until the feeling—or at least the blood—came back to my legs.

I laid back, propping myself up a bit on my elbows, trying to will the life back into my inanimate limbs. After several minutes, I could move my legs a bit, and then a bit more, and after maybe fifteen minutes, I could get up and walk around. I guess sitting in that position, wedged into the kayak that was just a bit too small, compressed some nerves and arteries in my legs and put them to sleep, rendering them useless. It was clear our kayak trip was going to end hours earlier than we’d expected. 

The kids with Uncle Chris and Aunt Minette

I wedged myself back into that kayak, feeling like a clown getting into a tiny circus car. I made a valiant effort, but I just couldn’t maintain that posture—I was done. Chris tied my kayak to his and paddled us toward our starting point, with me laying back, halfway out of the kayak, trying to stretch out a bit. I imagined he looked like some native American tribesman, towing behind him a giant, pale six-foot sturgeon that the whole tribe would live off of for the winter. But at least I was getting somewhere, and wasn’t confined to the floating torture chamber.

We made it back to the car, dropped off the infernal death trap, and drove back to the coast, my legs no longer tingling. All the family got a huge kick out of hearing about my brush with doom, or at the very least, with discomfort. They were in tears as we related the tale, especially the part about Chris towing me back. 

I’ve been in canoes, rafts, rowboats, and fishing boats since then, but I still have no urge to try kayaking. At least not until I can rent one that's made for a six-foot-long inflexible, pale sturgeon.