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The Kayaking is done for this weekend. There is good news and bad news of course. The bad news is that I didn't come anywhere near my goal of kayaking from Yokosuka to Ei-no-shima. I set out early enough in the morning, and even with the wind and waves, it was beautiful weather for kayaking. The waves were at about my head level, making it exciting and fun enough, without the element of true danger. The fact that there were other boats and people within 100 meters at all time helped add to the feeling of safety.

I was hoping to camp at the tip of the peninsula, allowing me to see both the sun-set and sun-rise over the ocean. I only made it about halfway there when I ran into a large break wall with terrifying amounts of foaming sea water gushing over the top. after trying to follow the coast, inside the breakwall, but running into a dead end, I decided to brave the elements. I turned around and went outside the wall. This was perhaps the greatest adventure I have ever had in a kayak (although he lightning storm in Maine was a riot too). As soon as I rounded the corner, the coast disappeared only to reappear 5 seconds later. I blink and it is gone again. The wave here were three times higher than on the other side of the wall. When I was in the trough I could see nothing but water. On the crest I peed my spray-skirt when I saw only more humongous waves for at least a kilometer until I could reach calm water.

Now is time for some good news. Since the waves were not coming in an even order, nor from only one direction, it was extremely hard to keep balance, and before I knew it I was UPSIDE DOWN!!! YeHAA!!! This is the first time it has ever happened against my will. The perfect chance to see how much my rolling practice has paid off. With one beautiful flick of my hips and swish of the paddle I was up top where I could only see the face of another wave. I guess this threw me, 'cause I was under again in a second. This time, with my confidence shaken, I had no choice but to do a wet exit. This was the scariest moment of he trip, since if I couldn't get back in the boat I was sure I would be driven toward and smashed into the concrete break wall. Getting back into he boat is hard enough when the water is calm, but for some reason, adrenalin maybe, it was a snap this time. It probably took 60 seconds, but I didn't even notice until I was back inside with the skirt strapped on.

A little thanks to God, because when I looked up now, I was back on the "good side" of the break wall, and only had to paddle over a few feet to find "small waves". Here I was able to pump out most of the water from my boat and limp back to the last beach I had seem to completely empty it.

While part of me was saying that I had to go back out there if I ever want to get good enough to beat waves that size, the lazy me took over and I decided to go fishing instead. So I leisurely paddled back to a nice place I saw to camp, fishing along the way, but catching only weeds.

That night I was glad I never made it to my true destination, as I was sure that the tent was being moved ever so slightly by the wind despite the fact that a 180 Kg person ( 2002/05/22 - make that 80 kg) with gear was inside. The wind didn't let up and in the morning when I woke up I found that it would be blowing against me the entire way home. Not impossible, but definatly tiring. After having a breakfast of Udon with Chazuke powder on top, I was all set to head back to where I started yesterday... figuring about three times as long a trip because of the wind. I was a little happy as I could chalk it up to me experiences, and it would definatly hel;p me the next time out.

Just as I was about to head out, I met an old man who wanted to see the boat so I gave him a full tour and started chatting. It turns out he is a retired camera man from NHK (Japans BBC). He started working there before there were TV's in Japan. He filmed the news shorts that were shown before movies. He offered me a ride to the nearest station, which I first rejected, since I had actually come to kayak, but after talking with him for a few minutes, I changed my mind, packed up the kayak, and went back to his mansion on the coast where I wound up talking with him for seven hours, listening to his stories of a career that started before TV, ended with producing interactive digital films about dinosaurs for a museum, and in between included the Vietnam War, war in Laos, documentaries about everything from famous composers to Persian rugs, being forced to retire from NHK at the official "retirement age", starting two succesful production companies of his own, and finally completely retiring last year after breaking his arm in a fall while climbing the Himalayas.

I'd love to do a complete writeup of hs story, maybe an interview... Mybe this should be a new section on the site ...Japanese People where I interview cool Japanese people... hmmmm.....

Not a bad weekend.

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