Create to Play: Wildlife Cove

Day 3 - January 29, 2012 (The Marathon)

Day’s Total Distance: 17nM

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried fruit

We’re getting our morning routine a little tighter now, and we’re on the water by 6:55am, barely light out yet. I feel clear, both psychologically and physically and I’m ready to conquer the day! As we leave the beach and get out into the open ocean, I smile big with the swell of the ocean...she feels as though she’s just waking up, having her morning stretch going through the motions of a flow yoga...gentle rolls and swells like a good cat/cow yoga pose...lifting me in my boat and gently propelling me forward. To add to the beauty of the morning, I hear howler monkeys all around me, sounding like wind racing through a steep couloir, deep and mysterious because you can’t tell where they could possibly be coming from! The coastline is steep cliff-sides, the water is much more interesting with real motion, and my heart races with the movement of it all.

The swell feels like the ocean's morning yogic stretch, and I'm absorbing its energy as I'm lifted by the motion and propelled forward in my kayak

By mid-morning we’re on the lookout for a shady beach to rest. It’s really hot today and I’ve been paddling hard all morning with my extra energy, and it’s now caught up to me. I start to slow down and grow weary with the heat. I’m feeling ill to my stomach even, but I don’t dare tell Jaime, not wanting to restart the conversation of our slow progression. I too want to circumnavigate the island dammit! I came out here to see it all, and not to backtrack only halfway - I don’t like going over my tracks, I like moving forward. So I have the pep talk with myself this time, as I dry heave over and over into my lap. I’m growing delirious from this heat but still I push. It’s clear to me that we have nowhere to stop among these cliffs, devoid of any shady beaches, and so I have no choice but to keep paddling no matter how difficult it is. Where did my pace go from this morning? Where’s that good feeling? I try hard to grasp for it to get me through this, I push every ounce of muscle I can feel in my weakening arms, I do my best to rotate my ill-feeling core with every stroke. I’m going at a snail’s pace. Around 11:30am, Jaime finally sidles up beside me to check in, and sees the state I’m in.

“Allie you should be splashing water on you all the time to keep you cool!”
“Yeah but it’s salt water and that just feels gross, and it dries out and what do you mean anyway, I’m not hot, I’m just dry heaving ‘cuz I just need to eat or something...”
“Allie, how much water have you had to drink today?”
“Umm...probably like, half a litre by 11am this morning?”

Trying so hard to stay on track...er, TRAK?

He immediately and invasively starts pouring water down my back, splashing my spray skirt, soaking my arms, as I reluctantly wet my dreads. I didn't want to do it to myself, but I don't protest Jaime doing it for me. It does feel better, imagine that. He says we’re not going anywhere until I drink.
This pushed me through until 1:00pm. Waves of energy would wash over me, pushing hard, feeling good! Then it would pass and I would dry heave and feel like I could not possibly put one hand in front of the other, and so I wouldn’t, and I would just sit and float, feeling defeated and frustrated. I want to push through this dammit!

After what feels like an eternity of hardship, we find a beach but of course there’s surf to get through first. Argh! I’m in no state to be concentrating on getting through this, and sure enough I get caught sideways as the wave peters out on the beach, and I bail out of my boat. I’m fine though and the boat’s contents are intact. It’s tough getting criticism from him because I’m genuinely trying to follow his instruction and I understand that he’s trying to help.
He takes off to the left of the beach in search of fresh water, and I’m quick to follow. We frighten a little fresh water lobster while walking up creek and I’m so refreshed by this clean water that my ill-state has all but disappeared! We made it! That was the hardest morning I’ve done, paddling 6 hours straight in this heat...I don’t want to feel like that again. But look how we’re rewarded with shade and fresh water! I throw the water up in the air, bending forwards to dip my whole head in, I can’t get enough! Glorious!!

The tide comes and goes as we take a short rest for food, a wash, and some wildlife sightings!

This creek was r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s. I am in my bliss

Washing my salty dreads, the water was immediately cold and refreshing that I was staking out the sun spots still!

I spot a rather large spiny tailed lizard burrowing into a sand hole as I walked down the beach, and a deer cautiously passes us as we lunch on leftover coconut fish with pitas and tomatoes and a fresh pineapple for dessert. We decide not to nap, having stopped so late in the day, and to push on instead. It seems as though I’ve made it over the hump! As hard as the morning was, Jaime lets me decide whether we push on or not and I’m motivated to go! As we’re finishing eating, reading the sets of waves to know when best to get out, I spot something in the wave breaks...

“Jaime are there crocs in these waters?” I ask nonchalantly. “‘Cuz I swear I just saw like, the profile of a nose and eyes”
“Naw, it’s probably just a big fish, I saw some big ones when we were coming in”
“Oh. Ok...” I answer, unconvinced, given that it was such a clearly defined profile, but oh well. Hard to tell now.

At 4:00pm we pack up and are heading out, and my nerves come right back, having to head out through these crashing waves. Jaime pushes me out first with instruction to wait in between the sets of whitewash.

“Jesus christ! Jaime!!!” I scream as I paddle furiously backwards! “Jaime!! There’s a fucking croc staring me right in the face at the bow of my boat!!!”

Just as I reach him, heart pounding, we look out into the waves and right there on the face of the wave in clear view is a 6-foot crocodile in profile view, his whole body surfing the wave, looking at us with his beady right eye.

“I told you there were crocs in this water!!” My heart is pounding so hard it hurts and I’m positively trembling as we punch through the surf with a 6-foot croc surfing not 5 feet from our right side. I paddle faster than ever to get distance between us and I’m laughing incredulously once we’re safely out of there. I couldn't stop grinning and laughing with Jaime. That was so cool!

Just in time to capture the macaws take flight

Today certainly was a day of wildlife as the croc sightings didn’t stop there. We saw on our chart a possible beach with a river source, and when we pulled up to it, we caught glimpse of a croc just slipping into the waves, giving fright to ten scarlet macaws that were just to the right of him, grazing on the beach. Sweet! We’re totally camping here, we decide together. We realize though that it’s a very exposed beach and we decided earlier in the day to spend an extra night at the next camp we found. So we pull around the corner of the headland and there’s a perfect shaded cove with no surf. We get out of the boats and try to climb the hill back over to the exposed beach that had the estuary, but it’s too steep to access from camp. No fresh water for tonight, but we decide to paddle back around the headland tomorrow to go up the creek in search of that croc!

We climbed to the top of this hill from our camp behind us, to see what the estuary was like on this side, and if we could get down there to wash for the evening. It wasn't accessible by foot, so we would paddle back around the headland to the left of the photo the next day. The beach at the far side was too exposed with sunlight to camp on. This is also where we knew we'd find the croc we'd seen from the water when we initially approached the beach.

Back on our side of the headland, this is where we would make camp for an extra rest day. A nice secluded cove.

Dinner: Pitas with hardboiled eggs and tomatoes, prunes (keepin’ me regular!), crackers and peanut butter, and fresh baked cinnamon raisin bread with chunks of caramel candy, cooked in the dutch oven over a fire. (Simple recipe: flour, yeast + warm water & honey, oil, salt, flavour additions to make it a sweet or savoury loaf) Heaven!

It’s a well earned feed, and my body hurts. It’s all I can do to find a decently comfortable position on a log-less beach to watch the ocean, listen to the crickets, to the birds, the monkeys somewhere deep in the jungle, and finally stretch under the starry sky before bed. Our biggest day at 17 nautical miles, I can’t believe I made it through, it’s been an absolute marathon for body mind and soul, but through it all I was greatly rewarded by sharing it with beautiful wildlife, fresh water when I needed it, and a partner who simply....understands.