Kayaking with Crazy Chic

It's about 12:30 am right now and I'm drooling over some very fun Thanksgiving activities I HOPE to do with the boys in school time this week. I have found tons of cute printables and resources, but...{tangent}.

Okay, so started typing my little tangent there and where all it went, but then I quickly cut it out. It's not pretty, it's not funny, it's just depressing... so no need to hash it out. Instead, I'm going to pick back up with these blog posts and hopefully get a few ready to go tonight :)

A few weeks back I had the chance to guide my first trip. It wasn't planned like this. We had planned all along for Dallas to head out on this trip with some 'dude' from Norway that wanted to do a lot of paddling. It was a last minute booking, so the reservations forms were returned to us about two days before the trip. And on there we discovered that Almut from Norway that wanted to go paddling for a week on a trip with just Dallas was a DUDETTE.

For many, many reasons, we could not run the trip with just Dallas and Almut out there, so I was up to lead the trip. Our first stop for lunch seemed to set the tone for the 'communication' on this whole trip. She asked me, "why do you not trust me to go out for a week with Dallas?" I tried to explain it to her from our different standpoints, but she just seemed to get more upset with me the more I talked. I explained it, then it just seemed to get a bit awkward. And so begins our trip...

The paddling was amazing! I definitely enjoy kayaking. I had a few 'navigation' glitches that she wasn't fully aware of, but we managed to get where we were heading and all was well. This chic was afraid to be in the water because of the sharks (or possibility of sharks) and we spent about 15 minutes ALL WEEK snorkeling in the water (so sad for me because that is one of the best parts out there). However, this particular night she was set on going snorkeling and insisted on going. This picture below was us going into the water, as the sun was setting.... I didn't label this "Crazy Chic" for no reason!

We weren't in danger, but it just feels creepy snorkeling as it is getting darker. She literally lasted about 1 minute and then was ready to get out. Lesson #??(learned a lot on this trip)-As the guide, I can say "no, we don't need to go snorkeling at sunset, we'll go when it is nice and bright and sunny instead."

It did make for a really peaceful little paddle back around Normans Pond Cay to our campsite though, but it also made it to where I was cooking dinner in the dark, so that was the main problem and frustration.

The great thing about camping is that you go to bed nice and early most nights because you're pooped from kayaking and being in the sun all day, so waking up with the sun is so easy and always starts the day off on the right note. This photo below was our second morning out there. At this breakfast I was so nervous that I was going to run out of food with this chic. She ate so much food! I mean, she told us to keep the food very simple so we could keep her cost down since she was paddling by herself. So, when we were planning a menu for two women paddling for a week we thought this should be pretty easy. If I had known the amounts she needed and how often she needed to eat, I could have planned a menu for 4 adults and probably been way more accurate. It was crazy. I finally had to just mention that 'if we run out of food, we'll have to go back' so she would know we can't just pull into a winn dixie and run in and grab more food out there.

"Homegal" (which for some reason was the nickname I gave Almut all week in my head) wanted to paddle pretty much 8 hours a day. The hard part was that she was super slow. I'm not trying to be mean, just stating the fact. When you try getting into a good rhythm out there with your strokes and paddling, it is super frustrating to have to constantly be stopping and waiting for someone, but I took it nice and easy and tried to be the nice guide out there. One time I got her to really pick up the paddling (there were a few times I really needed her to because of currents and the situation) when I told her, "you see that island up there? when we get there we'll eat." She paddled like crazy for about 5 minutes then :)

Above is a pretty evening at Lignumvitae Cay. Below is the view directly behind me on Lignumvitae Cay. I never thought camping on the casuarina pine needles would be such a nice change of pace. It helped keep your feet from tracking all the extra sand into the tent, so that was very nice.

We decided to stay for two nights at Lignumvitae Cay so we could do some day paddling around the area a bit further north and then return to camp since we would be heading back down south the next day. There is an old historic home on an island nearby. Everyone calls it the German Castle. It is an old rundown house, but it still has so much character. I hope to find photos of it someday online of what it looked like in it's Glory Days.

The story goes that a Nazi-Sympathizer owned the island and house and built this place as a 'station' for the German U-boats during the World Wars. He began dredging out the channel between the two islands and stopped. I'm not 100% sure on the facts behind this, but regardless, it is an amazing home and location.

Some of the doors, cabinets and furniture was still in there and in place. Just makes you wonder, who sat there, what letters did they write, where were they from?

We got to snorkel for a few minutes after our hike to the castle this day, and it was so nice to be in the water. My camera wasn't working in the water case on this trip, so I didn't get any 'wet' shots this trip :) I did get to dive down and touch a stingray though..always exciting!

Almut was really disappointed that our trip wasn't going to be taking us to Thunderball Grotto up by Staniel Cay. I tried to explain to her that she chose the trip that didn't go there and that we had sent her the information and quote if she wanted to do that trip instead. Yet another awkward encounter out there--those we had PLENTY of :(  We were however able to paddle up to this cave (above) on Rudder Cut Cay. We sat in our kayaks and ate lunch inside here this day. It was actually very pleasant sitting in there eating lunch.

On our paddle back to camp, we decided to head back down our route on the ocean side of the islands. This doesn't happen often because the 'ocean' is usually too rough to paddle in safely. We had a really calm day and seemed to have the perfect opportunity, so we took it. It definitely felt odd being on the 'other' side of the island :) But it was fun! We paddled over some amazing little coral heads along the way, and as usual, I was fascinated by how much you can see while cruising along in the kayak.

Above are my little trinkets the boys sent out with me on the trip :) Emit chose the ball and Joss chose the cool jet for me to take along. I had a few sweet conversations with my fellas and they seemed to be having a blast with Daddy-O. I think they missed me though, because even today (a couple weeks later) Joss told me, "mom, you know when you go out on a trip in the kayak like daddy? I really miss you then." Makes me feel good that they 1) miss me and 2) can have a great week with their daddy.

This was our long stretch of the trip returning from Lignumvitae down to one of the lower cays to set camp for our final night. We stopped for a little break at Neighbor Cay shown above. It was clearly sunny and bright here. As we left here, about 5 minutes later, the sky got dark and the rain came upon us. We paddled through a challenging little stretch water and finally made it back over to Normans Pond Cay as the rain was leaving. It took us a long time to cross and there isn't anywhere to get out and stretch or hold your position along the way. The wind was coming right on us, so we didn't want to stop paddling for long when we did because we would lose all the ground we had gained the 5-10 minutes prior.

We went back to Normans Pond so we could paddle into the salt pond here that is only accessible at high tide. We had missed the tide the first night we were there. This was my first time in the pond and it was very surprising to me. It was a lot bigger and prettier than I thought it was going to be.

As you can see above, the clouds got dark again, but the next thing we know we're sitting ducks in the pond with a lightning storm right over head. It turned from a nice casual paddle in the trickling rain to total chaos in a matter of seconds. Her kayak flipped twice, trapped me in mine and had me wedged into some mangroves in the current pouring into the pond that we were trying to get out of so we could get to the beach and get into our lightning ready positions....the drama went on for a long time. If you really want to know details, you'll just have to call me or email me for that because I can't even begin to type it all. We made it out and decided to set up camp on Normans again since we weren't going to get to the next site I had planned before sunset. I said NO :)

Our final night was pretty miserable. After the storm blew through, the wind completely dropped off and the bugs came out in full force. We both just grabbed our dinner and jumped into our tents away from the pests. At least I had a nice view of the sun setting and the water though :)

Our final paddle day was brutal. We were heading straight into the wind, 'Homegal' was not picking up her pace paddling AT ALL so we couldn't get out of the tough currents quickly, instead we just had to sit in them for a really long time as she slowly made her way through. Finally, I hooked up the tow rope and told her I would help to just keep us going. We had already tried earlier in the trip for me to tow her around a point with really strong current, and I was strong enough to get us both out, so she knew she still had to paddle with me, but I would help to keep us from getting separated and drifting too far off course. We finally made it back to my boys and I was SO happy. I was so stinking exhausted though and my hands hurt for days after the trip. But I DID IT!!!!! :)

View Tamara's Kayak Adventure in a larger map put link here

62 MILES to be more precise!!!!! I kayaked 62 miles in about 4.5 days...not too shabby if you ask me. I was pretty proud of that. You can see the route we did if you click on the map above.

I am patiently waiting for my afternoon coffee here as I try to relay all the trip events to Dallas. There is nothing quite like that first warm shower, dry clothes, fresh coffee and my hubby after a week of camping. There's a lot of kind of 'negative' points in here, but I really did have a good time with the kayaking and camping part of it. Just would have been a lot more enjoyable with someone I had more in common with. At least I know, I CAN DO IT! And with a little more training under my belt, I will be able to do it a lot better :)