hindsight & foresight

on making hard decisions

Jedediah Island is a favorite among sea kayakers, but it isn’t easy to reach. Charms include beautiful campsites, sea cliffs, idyllic coves, sweeping views, wild sheep, and more. Obstacles include being tucked in the middle of the Strait of Georgia between the already remote Texada and Lasqueti Islands. 

A local on Texada Island told us Lasqueti Island is an incredible place— a tight community where people barter moreso than use money. “The islands got more guns than people,” he remarked. We paddled by, but didn’t get the chance to land.

Paddling toward Jedediah along Texada

We made it to Jedediah early enough in the day that we had time to walk around and explore the island, something we hadn’t really done on the way out. We made a big dinner, and talked over the weather forecast for the following day.

Day 68 of a long sea kayaking expedition, and we were tired. We’d spent the past six days held up on Texada Island for a combination of windbound, then medical, then a fun day to visit the Farmer’s Market and lift spirits (worked, briefly), then a gear incident. Sixty-eight days is a long time to be out on any trip, but especially a physical kayaking trip, and most especially when things have been going wrong, repeatedly and often. 

When we sat down to check the weather on the radio and Garmin InReach, the forecast called for a strong Northwest in the morning, dying to a weaker Northwest in the afternoon. 

I’ve said before that the worst position you can be in outdoors is one where you feel like you have to do something risky, convincing yourself that there’s no other choice. 

Right now, we were on Jedediah Island with 30 L of freshwater. We needed to paddle a 17-mile day including a fully exposed 6-mile crossing to our next campsite, which would also not have freshwater, then another 20 miles the following day to our first campsite with a pump. We had iodine tablets, so as long as we couldn’t find a puddle we wouldn’t die, but still, dehydration isn’t ideal for that kind of paddling. 

We had roughly 8 days left to Bellingham if we paddled every single day with no windbound days, but with how the winds had been in the past week it seemed extremely unlikely the weather would suddenly, unforcasted, stabilize. We had 14 days of food comfortably, and probably closer to 21 if you can stomach plain rice and quinoa. There were a few resupply options, but no one wanted to add the two days it would take to fully resupply. We were low on fuel too— one of the bottles of white gas had leaked, and we hadn’t been able to find gas on Texada. 

Still, the biggest thing that made me nervous wasn’t the wind or waves or lack of supplies, it was how badly we all wanted to be back home, how tired we were of paddling and camping, of the stress that had come with making group decisions. Every one of us had motivation to make a riskier choice than we normally would, and our supplies situation to back it up. 

Looking at the borderline forecast, it felt like there was only one possible choice— we try and cross the Strait of Georgia tomorrow, come hell or high water. 

The next morning it was windy. Was it no-go windy? It’s hard to say. Our beautiful little camp was tucked in a cove facing the wind, with every gust funneling in, so it probably felt windier than it actually was. Still, with binoculars squinting in the narrow passage between two islands out at the Strait of Georgia, you could see large swell on the horizon. 

We started packing. 

“It’ll die around 11, then we’ll launch,” we decided. 

One of the beautiful island coves

I didn’t like it, but started packing up anyways. But I couldn’t put my finger quite on why, and I couldn’t find a way to voice what I was worried about in a way that didn’t sound to me like nervous anxiety. 

Ebba and I paused to have a cup of coffee, and a couple motored over from a sailboat in the harbor and hiked up. We made small talk, telling them our story and how we’ve been out since May. 

The man laughed. “Aw geez. Well the weather’s been real shit for you.”

“You’re telling us,” Ebba said. We were laughing too. 

A cold rainy start to the summer, and we’d been out camping and paddling through most of it. For as beautiful as it was to paddle Toba Inlet under the waterfalls, or watch to orcas in the Teakerne Arm, sunsets from the Copelands, it’s also been cold and wet and exhausting. There with our cups of coffee in our seawater cleaned mugs, I felt exhausted. Eight paddling days to Bellingham. What’s eight more days?

Ebba left to walk and kill time waiting for the wind to die. I sat down next to Andy in our tent. 

“I’m nervous,” I said. 

He listened, tent poles shaking in the wind. 

“We don’t have to do it,” he said. 

I shook my head. “Yes we do. We have to, and I can.”

“I know we can. But we don’t. We can bail in Nanaimo. I’ll get a rental car and go back for the truck. Then I’ll come get you two,” he paused. “Or from Shingle Beach, heck. Get a ride to the ferry, a plane from Powell River, rent a car in Vancouver.”

I didn’t say anything. 

“No one would blame us. It’s just been like banging our heads against a wall for 70 days. Maddy, you went to the hospital. We didn’t quit then. We’ve all, every one of us, wanted to quit so badly at one point or another and we didn’t, even when we probably should’ve. We’ve already paddled the next stretch, from here to Bellingham. Why do we need to paddle back? To say we did? This way, we end on our terms.”

Somewhere through saying it out loud his face changed, like he had offered it to me as an option, so I knew we weren’t trapped into a potentially dangerous crossing, and then heard what he was saying and it made more sense than he thought it would.

“It’s not like quitting, and it’s not like a rescue. It’s just a tap out. The weather’s been bad. We’re short on water, and fuel. We’re tired. I’m tired, aren’t you. My shoulders been hurting, and I didn’t want to say anything before. It’s been really, really hard, and it’s okay for us to decide to be done.”

“I— we have to talk to Ebba.”

When she came back from the woods Ebba crawled in to the half-packed tent with us. 

“Here’s… not a plan but a thought for consideration…”

I watched her face change while Andy talked, surprised and maybe a little happy.

“We’ve done so much, and come so far,” Andy said, “It wouldn’t be a failure to tap out now. I don’t think anyone would blame us.”

We went off separately to think about it, while the trees continued to shake and the wind failed to die, contrary to forecast, again. I made a list of pros and cons, because I’m that sort of person, but even the cons of leaving turned into pros. When we came back to talk about it again as a group, it was unanimous, like I more or less knew it would be. 

We were tired, and hungry, and maybe part of the reason we’d taken so much extra time between being windbound and other things on Texada was simply because we needed to. We should’ve left a break like that feeling refreshed but we didn’t— it was still exhausting, and we were slammed immediately with more gear issues. Though we hadn’t made any dire mistakes yet, we hadn’t needed an emergency Coast Guard evacuation or become one of those wilderness horror stories, the warning signs were there. Rapidly approaching day 70, hurting and sore, broken gear and tired physically and mentally, and wanting to be home— probably the most important skill any of us had ever learned in the outdoors is how to recognize a bad situation long before it becomes a situation. 

We weren’t in a situation, yet. But had we crossed the Strait and tried to push through in a heat wave with limited water, exhausted, low on supplies, and with our strongest paddler hurt? We’d have said we should’ve seen it coming. 

Instead, we all agreed— back to Shingle Beach, flag down the friendly campground host, and see if he knows someone who can give Andy a ride to the ferry. If not, hitchhike, then fly back to Vancouver. In the meantime, hot lunch.

Sunset on the bluff

That night, we all sat up on the bluff looking north over the Strait of Georgia, shadowy mountains of Vancouver Island to the left, and Texada Island to the right. 

“How do you feel about it,” I asked. 

“I hadn’t even thought about it before, not going back, not until you guys brought it up. But it makes sense. I’m okay with it. We’ve seen and learned so much already.”

Andy nodded. “It just… it’s what makes sense. I’m a little sad, but I was sad before.”

When you’re on trail long enough, the “real world" ceases to exist. In that moment Minnesota was a fever dream to me, less real than whitecaps and starfish and the abstract idea of tracing a line with my fingers on the sea. Less real than aching bodies and hauling gear and sleeping on the ground; less real than salty air and rugged islands. It’s beautiful out here— part of me did not want to leave ever. The way of life in waking up early, making coffee, packing up and paddling, landing and unpacking, eating, sleeping, then simply repeating— it’s hard and also very simple. The challenges you encounter are so markedly different than the front country that it’s hard to imagine they exist on the same earth in the same lifetime (it’s hard to imagine that the me that is typing this on the computer is the me that lived on the ocean for 70 days). 

Most of me though, was bone tired, and I’d dreamed so much about Michigan and my family that the whole state wasn’t real to me any more, just a made up fairytale land with sandy lakes and clean sheets, kitchens and sisters who look like me, all of which is not real; all that is real is salt water and the Whisperlite. 

I didn’t have a way to answer my own question that encompassed both how much I missed Michigan but also how much I have loved, and hated, and learned from every single second on the water, and how grateful I was to have both of them along with me, sitting on a rock in the ocean watching the sunset. 

So I didn’t say anything at all.