Day 10 began early, as we had to meet our kayaking instructor at 9:00 AM to catch the low tide for our trip to the Dungeness Lighthouse. It was too early to eat the three course breakfast on offer at our lodge, but we were given scones and yogurt by our somewhat eerie hostess instead, and then continued on to our day on the sea. After a short drive we pulled up in front of the instructor’s house, where he was busy lashing kayaks down to a trailer. We signed the by now expected waiver against death, injury, and loss of eternal soul, and then followed him down to to the spit to launch our boats. One quick (very quick) safety briefing later, and we were pulling on sea skirts, adjusting seats, and sliding into the two person kayak. It was at this point that I began to have an inkling that perhaps sea kayaking was not my cup of tea. The kayak had clearly not been designed with someone of my stature in mind, and I found that my feet were pressed into the bulkhead in front of me, with my legs locked into a semi-tensed position in an effort to keep them under the sea skirt. My fears were confirmed when our instructor came over and pointed out that I had to keep my feet on two foot pegs to control the boat’s rudder, which were a further 6 inches closer than the bulkhead, making my position downright painful. I nonetheless bravely soldiered on, and soon we were out in the shallow waters between the Dungeness spit and the smaller Clallam spit. My next discovery was that while controlling the kayak’s rudder appeared simple, it was actually quite difficult. Without being able to see the rudder, and with only a rough feel for whether my feet were applying equal pressure to the foot pegs, it was extremely difficult to keep the boat on a straight path. Add to that the fact that the kayak turned sharply with only the slightest rudder deflection, and I soon found that we were swinging wildly across the harbor like a drunken sailor. I eventually managed to get us pointed in roughly the direction our instructor had gone, and we zig-zagged our way across the water to the opening in the spit we were trying to paddle through. It was here that I found the final problem I have with kayaking – almost every sport I enjoy uses my legs, not my arms. Cycling? Legs. Running? Legs. Soccer? Legs – in fact you aren’t even allowed to touch the ball with your arms. Kayaking? All arms, all the way. Worse, I had apparently slept on my right side all night, and my right arm immediately began cramping up. We were only 15 minutes into our 3 hours of kayaking, and I wasn’t certain I’d even make it out of the boat launch area. Libby, meanwhile, was not proving to be the most sympathetic boat mate. My complaints about my aching arm fell on deaf ears, my problems with the fit of the boat were met with instructions to “man up”, and her response to my steering issues was: “How do I always get stuck with losers when I kayak?” – apparently her sea kayaking partner on her Outward Bound trip was utterly hopeless as well. On the plus side, she was only stuck in a boat with me for a couple of hours, instead of two weeks.

I slowly began to improve once we left the channel in between the spits, however, as my arms finally began to loosen up and the current we had unknowingly been fighting abated. I was beginning to enjoy the experience, with calm waters, easy paddling, and the sun shining through the fog, when I became aware of a different problem. Our guide, who was not the most sociable of people to begin with, had apparently grown tired of our slow progress and had decided to carry on without us; we could barely see him in the distance through the fog. Visibility was very poor at this point, and we could barely see the spit, let alone the mainland. We began paddling harder, hoping to catch him, but were not able to gain any ground. Finally, we began to catch up with him, and found him stopped near a marker. When we drew close, he shouted a piece of trivia about the portion of land we were near (the section of spit was called Graveyard spit, after a massacred party of Vancouver Indians slaughtered by a local tribe in the late 1800s), pointed out another buoy off in the distance as our next goal, and then once again left us. We soon figured out that this was his standard operating procedure; the guiding gig was merely a way for him to get paid to kayak by himself, as long as he met up with us every once in a while to give us directions and another bit of trivia.

Eventually we did manage to get to the end of the spit, where we pulled our kayaks up on shore and began exploring the area around the lighthouse. We ate lunch with our guide, who actually talked to us a little bit (we found out he’s an English teacher at the local high school normally, and that his summer job is kayak tours. We also found out he’s the only person with a permit to kayak out to the end of the spit). We then took a tour of the small lighthouse and its keeper house while our guide took a nap on a picnic table.

our "guide" taking a snooze

The lighthouse is now run by a volunteer organization, and the keepers were all vacationers who were staying on the spit for a week. Apparently in exchange for answering questions and doing a few odd jobs while they’re on the spit, the keepers get the run of the place for a week at a time. Upon hearing this, we quickly grabbed a brochure about the program for my parents, and then headed back to pick up our guide. Along the way we ran into a film crew from Good Morning America, who upon hearing we were kayakers, asked to film us as we paddled away from the spit. Libby of course immediately agreed, and was excited about her chance for fame and fortune on the small screen. Our guide was somewhat less excited, as to Libby’s disappointment he ignored the shouts of advice for a better scene from the crew as we pulled away, saying he was more concerned about our safety than the film crew at the moment. So, if you happen to see a couple of kayaks paddling away from a sandy spit on a foggy morning in the near future, that’s probably us.

On the way back we soon discovered that the wind had picked up considerably, and we were now paddling into the wind all the way back. In addition to making the paddling harder, this also had the effect of spraying me with water every time Libby lifted her paddle. She soon realized the benefit of this, and before long I was getting doused with sea spray. In the meantime, I discovered the benefit of smacking her on the back with my own paddle. Neither of these activities are particularly conducive to making headway, however, so we had to give up and resume paddling or risk losing sight of our guide entirely. The trip back followed the same pattern as our trip out – our guide would leave us, and then periodically we’d come upon him stopped in the water as he pointed out another waypoint for us to head to. By this point both of us were tired and a little sunburned, so fortunately I didn’t have to deal with any more of Libby’s smug remarks of “So, who’s the slow one now?” or “Does someone feel tired? Aww, someone looks tired”. We did see some more unforgettable sights on the way back, like the huge flocks of nesting cormorants on the sea shore and the playful harbor seals with their pups that followed close behind us to see what we were.

After another hour and a half of paddling we made it back to shore, where we dragged ourselves back out of the boat and I began trying to restore circulation to my legs. We quickly unloaded our gear and tossed it in the car, and then I went back to help our instructor load up his truck with the kayaks. As soon as they were strapped down, he gave a quick “good to have you on the tour”, hopped in his car, and was gone. Libby and I then went back to our lodge to hose off and relax before our evening dinner reservations at a nice seafood restaurant. We spent most of the afternoon napping and reading, before Libby made the fateful discovery that the lodge’s movie library contained a copy of Foul Play, a Chevy Chase movie that had been a favorite of she and Emily when they were younger. Since I had never seen it, the movie was immediately put in so I could enjoy the same experience they had. Two hours later, and only a little bit traumatized, we headed into town for our final dinner in the town of Sequim.

The dinner was actually very nice, with delicious fresh seafood and a view out the window of the town boat marina. After dinner, Libby and I munched on a Tiramisu we had gotten at the restaurant as we wandered along the dock looking at the various yachts and fishing boats, discussing which ones we liked and what we would name a boat of our own. Finally, we decided the day was done and headed back to our lodge for the night.

Disclaimer: Please do not judge Marsha or Ed Baltes for allowing us to watch Foul Play as children, I am sure they were not aware that we watched it and would not have allowed it.

Thank you,

Legal Counsel for Libby Kady

Worn out for the day,

Soaked Steven and I’m glad my life jacket was well padded Libby