After a picnic lunch we prepared to leave the island. We carted all the stuff down to the motor boat, loaded it, and finally set off in our kayaks. Aaron had told us that the journey back would be much easier and quicker. Not sure why he’d said this, as it seemed from the start more difficult to keep the boat in the right direction, there was much more wind and swell making the journey difficult. I never realised you could feel seasick in a kayak, but you can. Bet was on her own again, and really struggled. So about a 1/3 of the way, Aaron asked for a volunteer to swap with her. Even though we were really the least fit and experienced, Leon ended up volunteering. So we waited for Bet to catch up, then Leon had to get out of our kayak without capsizing me, then roll into the single kayak. He managed the first part, but not the second. He’s never rolled a kayak before, and Aaron was not good at explaining how to do it. He just kept saying ‘You’ve got to get in there mate, there’s no other way back’. Leon was getting very tired, and just couldn’t manage it. So Aaron impatiently tied up the kayak, and told him to climb aboard the back of the motor boat. Easier said than done. The boat was rocking with the swell, and there were no steps up, he’d just got to haul himself on. It took another 20 minutes for him to get onboard. We thought that he was then going to just ride back in that boat, but oh no. Aaron told him he’d got to get into the kayak by climbing over the side. He managed to do this, so was finally in the single kayak, which had a foot-controlled rudder for direction. We hadn’t got a rudder on our kayak, and had to do the opposite steering thing - paddle on the left side if you want to go right etc. So Leon exhausted and seasick was confused, and started to paddle off into the open sea. Aaron finally realised that it would have been better all along to have just towed the kayak. Yet again for some reason he didn’t do it the easy way, with Leon in the motor boat. Oh no, he towed the kayak with Leon still in it, and went so fast that Leon capsized. And Aaron wasn’t watching so didn’t see him fall in, and it was only his shouts for help that made Aaron (or Moron as I now think of him) stop. It was horrible, I couldn’t get close because Bet & I could hardly paddle our kayak. I imagined he’d somehow got mangled in the propeller and lost a leg, but things seemed to be OK, and Aaron just sped off towards the shore. The rest of us made our way back. It was tough, we were all very tired, and anxious about Leon. Carmen, who was travelling with her 8 year old son Jackson was paddling on her own effectively, and said that she’d just had to grit her teeth and keep pushing on - he felt sick, was crying, but fortunately went to sleep for much of the way.
The sun was blazing down, and made it hard to see the shore. Bet & I were exhausted and frustrated at the difficulty of steering, but just kept going knowing we could collapse when we made it to the beach.
Finally we were all back. We landed at one end of the beach, not knowing that Aaron would drive the kayak trailer to the other end. So we then had to haul the kayaks through the swell, and load them on. I didn’t help I’m afraid, I was exhausted and also had lost all good will toward Aaron, so as far as I was concerned his kayaks could stay on the beach.
It’s a shame the trip ended like this, we’d been enjoying the kayaking experience and were talking of doing a course. I don’t think Leon will be going near a sea kayak again for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment