Life Above Water

Vancouver Island Trip Report: 2023

Psychedelic green lines ripped out from the bow as the kayaks cut into black stillness under a moonless night. Each dip of the paddle yielded a burst of watery sparks that illuminated the pathways of tiny currents rolling in on themselves, adding motion to the starry bioluminescence. The stars of the Milky Way echoed above, slower in their motions and longer lasting in their explosion of light before their fade into darkness, but swirling just the same.

Ten kayaks with fifteen women floated the tiny bay on the coast of Vancouver Island on a moonless summer night. The women vacillated between delight in the paddle strokes that lit up the phosphorescent plankton and awe as they gazed skyward at the depths of stars, more visible from that remote corner of the wilderness island.

It wasn’t too long before the chill of night and water set in, and slowly the kayaks inched back to shore, paddlers unable to see clearly, a little timid with their landings. The initial exhilaration of rising to put on the water at midnight turned into an experience of reverence and wonder, and the group honored that with silence as they moved efficiently to get the long boats out of the water and on top of make shift drift wood racks. Five days of paddling together had resulted in less need for words, and more ease of knowing what was needed in the group, and how to use a body to meet that need. 

Inhales and exhales, feet shuffled through sand with the swish of synthetic pants as bodies circled boats, hands grabbed cockpit rims and bow and stern straps, a 3-2-1 lift, and a kayak floated up while muscles hugged bones and hearts pulsed to turn energy into motion. Each kayak taken out of the water, the headlamps began to disperse, with spotlights illuminating various parts of the basecamp in a dance toward sleep: tent corners, low hanging evergreen branches, feet still in wet neoprene booties, the one light going off to the privy, then tents illuminated from the inside like giant lanterns set on low. Wet clothes removed, some bodies collapsed immediately into sleeping bags, others took the time and care to thoroughly dry feet and ensure a warm and comfortable night of sleep. Lights out, and whispers swallowed by the forest. 

Who can believe the experience just shared? Not just the dream of a midnight paddle, but the five previous days of humpback whale sightings, bald eagles, pacific white-sided dolphins, sea lions, seals, two transient orcas! And of basecamp living with dutch oven cakes and afternoon beach yoga. Most unexpectedly perhaps, the wonder of observing the tiny miracles of the intertidal pools with their slow waltzing limpets, pulsing barnacles, and impossibly perfect periwinkles. The most tender organisms inhabiting the low low tidal zone, where they are kept in the protection of life giving waters, whereas residents of the higher tide realms don harder shells, a greater capacity for tolerating dry spells. And yet all of the life in these pools evolved with the pulsation of the rise and fall of the ocean, the inhale and exhale of the earth. 

The group experienced the same daily lift and fall, the ebb and flow, the energetic rhythms of waking, observing, moving, gently at first, then pushing, on to playing, then resting, and finally opening hearts to the deeper realms as daily tasks and jobs and screens and roles faded from sight on the distant shoreline. 

Shells open in dark waters and and tender mussels expose their beauty, sea stars come to life and seagrasses waves. Is this not a lesson for our own hearts? To find places in which, and beings with whom, we can honor our sensitive natures, while simultaneously strengthening our capacity to endure the harsh realities of life above water.