For my quest to explore more of planet earth than anyone in history using only human, wind, and solar power to be successful, I need a variety of skills. My chosen methods of transportation are sailing, mountain biking, kayaking, and… well… by foot. Since I’m not a fan of being dead, it’s in my best interest to get as good as possible in all of these disciplines. The goal in my mind is at the lower end of the expert level. I got an early start on mountain biking, so that’s the least of my worries. I have some sailing experience under my belt by now. Not as much as I’d like, but the learning curve is favorable. The skill I thought would be the easiest to pick up has surprised me in its deceptive difficulty.

The gap in difficulty between flatwater kayaking and exposed, open-ocean kayaking feels gargantuan. Get yourself a nice day on a lake with low wind, a boat and the supporting gear, and you’re good to go on day one. Sure, things will feel a little awkward at first. Your paddling technique will need work. Balancing will be disconcerting for a few minutes. But the timeframe from zero to confidence and fun can be something as ridiculously low as about 15 minutes to an hour. I’m not recommending that you do this with zero knowledge and zero support, but it can be done. I’ve witnessed other people go through it. I read a bunch of tactical stuff before trying it myself, but that’s basically how I got started.

I’m essentially a do-it-yourself kind of guy. If I had a therapist, she would probably trace it back to the hedonistic Lego culture in which I was raised. From my parents’ stereo equipment to sailing to reading anything non-fiction, my habit is to disassemble everything and see how it goes backs together. Whether we blame Derrida or tiny plastic dudes with cylindrical, yellow heads is irrelevant.

So before I paddled out onto the ocean for the first time, I did a little due diligence. I spent time in calm waters practicing paddling strokes and braces. I spent time at the gym performing self-developed balance workouts designed to mimic the torso rotation of paddling while my hips and legs were doing something completely different. I put miles on the boat. I got to the point where I’d grin when the wind whipped up on lakes and I could smash the bow through some waves. My confidence was high. I felt competent. I’d read magazines and seen pictures of what appeared to be friends of my grandmother out paddling around in the ocean with their fluorescent colored drysuits and having an apparently grand time doing so. Surely a relative whipper-snapper like myself could DIY his way to expertise.

Another typical day on the ironically named 'Pacific' Ocean.

About three seconds after crossing the river bar and officially entering to the Pacific Ocean, I was back to square negative one. Whole. New. Ballgame. Unlike the rivers, the current wasn’t flowing in a visibly obvious and predictable direction. Unlike the lakes, the waves weren’t all lined up in parallel at regular intervals. The submerged rocks do not reveal their jagged silhouettes only to be plunged beneath the surface and rendered completely undetectable seconds later. Turn left and I get to line up with the surfers and have my 16′ by 23″ boat take curling a 6′ wave on the beam? Turn right into a scene of agitated seas churning and foaming around volcanic rocks playing hide-and-seek? Go straight and play chicken with fishing vessels that appear momentarily while I’m at the top of a swell then disappear from the face of the planet when I’m in the trough? What’s worse… that I can’t see them or that they can’t see me? Have they ever even seen a kayaker in these waters before to know to watch for one? I certainly haven’t. And now I’m starting to see why!

The worst part is that these waters are familiar to me. I’ve been sailing here for over a year. I knew to expect swells. I know that wind waves are another beast altogether. I know there will be fishing boats all over the place. I probably know some of the skippers piloting them. The first time I hit the ocean in a kayak, none of this experience did me much good. Well, I probably would have had a panic attack if I didn’t know what I knew, but knowing what to expect wasn’t enough to grant me the skills to deal with all of the variables. The first time you’re faced with the decision to paddle the easy route straight into the swells until your arms fall off or you hit another continent, or turn around… you realize quickly that at some point you are going to have to be parallel to the six foot waves rolling your way to make that turn.

I didn’t even know what to look at. Watching the surface of the waves moving in every conceivable direction virtually destroyed all sense of balance. Watching the horizon seemed to return my equilibrium, but felt so unnatural that I couldn’t force myself to take my eyes off the waves. For the first time in a long time, I was not feeling joy from the cockpit of my kayak.

Since that day, I’ve been on the ocean a few times. Each as lasted a little longer and has felt a little more comfortable. However, at this rate, I’m not going to reach competency before I’m 100. That’s going to make the goal of expert difficult to achieve before age 150.

Someone yesterday commented on an article I’d written in which I’d overlooked something because I didn’t read the instruction manual first. The assumption was apparently that I was one of those types who exercises arrogance in refusing to read manuals at any cost. My philosophy is different. When it comes to most things, I try to take them as far as I can on my own. When I can’t figure out the right combination of buttons to make it do what I want, I read the manual. I find value in trying to figure things out. With kayaking, I’m at that point. Pressing the buttons is not getting the result I want. I can keep banging my head against the wall hoping for a breakthrough, or I can try to find the manual. Since not getting the thing to work right potentially ends up with a dead Andrew, I’m leaning toward the instructions.