Bioluminescence & Adventure

on understandings

When we launched from Bellingham in May it took us far too long to pack the boats. When we finally slid them, three orange thin and long kayaks into the ocean and climbed inside, we seemed so slow and unsure that I was sure it was going to be a shitshow. 

I happen to know a thing or two about shitshow trips— two years ago I went on an ill-fated (but otherwise excellent) fall sea kayak circumnavigation of Isle Royale. On commercially guided trips, I’ve outrun about a dozen storms due to plan old bad luck, been puked on at least three times, and have a collection of wild stories. On a backpacking trip in Armenia, I was in so far over my head that I rubbed my feet raw with blisters. My first winter camping trip was objectively cold and miserable and neither of us slept a wink— my shrimp wouldn’t rehydrate and we spent half the time scraping ice off the skis and pulk sled rather than actually skiing. A backpacking trip last summer had both a friend and I crouched under a tarp in an electrical storm on a ridge, and then 24 hours later hike-jogged to the car to beat the following line of intense storms.

I think you could probably categorize just about every trip worth taking as a shitshow. But all good adventures are a little bit of a disaster in their own way. 

Three months ago, we set out to paddle from Bellingham, Washington, to Alaska. We had an ambitious 1500-mile route plan, of which we would do less than half. Instead, we would spend time off-route in fjords, exploring waterfalls, and in the hospital— not in that order. 

one of the many waterfalls were lucky enough to play in

On Jedediah Island we decided it was time to tapout early— we were in a tricky spot with the weather and a big crossing in front of us, low on water, fuel, and food, with a broken water filter. Things just hadn’t been going according to plan, and it seemed like the best idea with the information we had to call it before things got any worse. 

Instead of cross the Strait of Georgia, a crossing we’d been gearing up to do for days, we turned back, and paddled to Shingle Beach on Texada Island, a measly 8-miles instead of 120 back to Bellingham. 

It felt great. We landed at the beach, pulled up our boats to our beach campsite and took a moment to high-five and celebrate. No, we hadn’t done what we’d set out to do. But we’d still done so much and got to experience a part of the world we might not have otherwise. From a leadership standpoint, this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m fairly certain both Ebba and Andy feel the same way. Three guides, all with different backgrounds, is a hard dynamic on the water. We were out on trail for 70 consecutive days— that’s more days exploring the wild than many people get in a lifetime. 

Us, celebrating being done!

Though we had called it early, and did not make it to Alaska, and did not make it back to Bellingham, it didn’t feel like a failure. Because of the last 70 days, I feel better equipped for next time, and stoked for the next chance I have to do a big trip like this— we’ll be able to plan so much better, and pack smarter, and be more generally confident. We now have interpersonal and conflict management skills that we didn’t before, all because of the (many) ways this trip went wrong. 

When we landed at Shingle Beach, Triton the friendly campground host was happy to inform us that we made a good call— for the next week or so Southern British Columbia would be under a heat advisory. Kayak camping, short on water, exhausted, in extreme heat wouldn’t have been particularly fun, and potentially unsafe.

Triton not only assured us that Andy need not hitchhike to the ferry terminal, he would drive him and from the ferry terminal in Powell River to the airport, but also hooked us up with some ice cold cider— thanks Triton!

So Andy left with Triton the next morning, bound for Bellingham via airplane of all things, and Ebba and I took a beach vacation at the lovely Shingle Beach. 

We’d been kayaking and camping for so long, that even with Andy gone it didn’t really feel real. We still had to walk for water and filter (until, of course, Triton brought us a big jug of cold freshwater), and store food away from raccoons, and cook on the camp stove, sleep on the ground. We were still, despite our fancy water cooler and the groceries Andy sent back with Triton, in the wilderness.

We talked about a lot of things— about the things that went wrong and the things that didn’t, how we’ll feel about the trip in hindsight. Two days before on Jedediah Island after we had made the difficult decision to tap out and end our trip early I had cursed, thinking of how I’d had lots of hard days on the trip like this one, but when I look back all I’ll remember is orcas and sunsets, fjords and waterfalls. How is that fair? I’ll remember 70 days on the Salish Sea as some glowing, perfect time, and not one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Mostly I was frustrated because I was already doing that, viewing our time on the ocean through rosy hindsight glasses. 

Beach fire

On the beach with Ebba cooking over a beach fire, I could feel myself looking back fondly at the times I was miserable. Like Toba Inlet, the most beautiful place in the world, when I broke down and cried because we were in an incredible place and I was having a bad time and just so sad at the idea I could be having a bad time in an incredible place. In hindsight, I am mostly just happy to have been in the most beautiful place in the world. Or Teakerne Arm, where I was sick with diarrhea in the backcountry and thought I was dying? Somehow I was mostly thinking of that beautiful double waterfall and the jellyfish bloom off the island. Or the Copeland Islands, where we were windbound in a storm so disgusting that rain came flying sideways into the tent through the vents? The beautiful sunset was seared into my mind, but not being wet and cold. 

We talked about that, how the most miserable moments all become funny stories, how the especially beautiful moments you sort of keep to yourself. We talked too about communication, and the times (many) where ours all broke down. 

Who’s fault is a misinterpretation? The person who said the words, or the person who heard them? 

Why is it that we’re always asking questions of fault and blame? We spent a lot of time caught up in who’s fault things were, in whether or not an apology is owed or if that apology is good enough.

We’re all speaking our own private language most of the time, inferencing and assuming based on the things we’ve seen and heard in our own lives, and sometimes the massive understanding gap between individual humans is a canyon. We think we all speak a common language, but perfect understanding simply doesn’t exist. 

 I am thinking of “Tongues and Arrows” by Jessica Wilson the final essay in Women’s Best Travel Writing Vol. 8. 

“As if we didn’t each in our way already speak a private isolate; as if we weren’t all forever failing to comprehend one and other anyway. As if this failure weren’t the deepest source of a dream of uncommon understanding.”

Maybe the thing we call communication skills is simply defaulting to giving others the benefit of the doubt, always. Is it possible to view a person as they are, and not as world as you know it has told you they might be? To actually listen to each other without filling in details? Probably not, but we all dream of a common language. 

We spoke about things like this as the sun warmed pebbles below us grow cold and the sky turns purple. 

We were waiting for Andy, hoping he’d be back the day after he left but knowing he probably won’t catch the late ferry into Texada. A group of 30 somethings down the beach had a fire that shoots sparks up toward the stars. Our own fire was small, mostly embers. We were ready to put it out for the night when Andy called.

“Guess where I am!” He said over the phone.

“Where?”

“I’m on the ferry.”

“To Texada? You’re kidding.”

“Nope, I’ll be there in about an hour!”

It’s only then that leaving started to feel real. It’s dark and we flung stones into the ocean and watched them spark, thousands of tiny organisms glowing like fireflies under the water. Fish jumped in electric blue light. I had always wanted to see bioluminescence, but I imagined it would be like so many things are— brighter in expectation than actuality. 

I was wrong. We laughed and threw rocks and waved sticks, an arc of blue light sparking underneath. The bioluminescence is alien and beautiful, and so much more interesting and wonderful than my imagination could cook up or a camera could capture.

Andy made it to the beach, headlights temporarily blinding us to the underwater fireworks, and we ran over to greet him. For the last time for a while, the three of us sat on a beach by a small fire and cooked over it, and threw rocks in the water to watch them glow, and talked late into the night about how terrible and wonderful the last 70 days had been. 

“It’s been an adventure, if nothing else.”

But definitely not nothing else.

This is as close as I came to getting a good photo of the bioluminescence— basically I didn’t.