2. The experience really was rooted in wet neoprene, in the seat of the wetsuit, in the motion of the swell under the kayak, in the lifting and the dropping and the shifting and the pulling and the pushing. On the afternoon of the 30th, the tug was back into the harbor, but the swell was rising and the wind had created chop, so there was a constant motion -- up down thisway thatway-- that the morning had lacked, had been so flat and calm. I love the water movement, and the sit-on-top is so well-crafted to ride such movements. Even now, two days later, if I just sit and unfocus, I am moving in my mind with residual body sense-memories. A lovely sensation to me.
3. Then, besides the emphatic floating quality, the sounds! So many birds flying, shrieking, calling, ker-plunking into the water after the anchovies. Pelicans and terns and murres and cormorants and classic gulls. Terns and pelicans out with us, mostly. Then, the barking of sea lions in the distance, the splashing of seals nearby, the crunching-lunching of otters. The chatter of humans: excited, agitated, inane. "HOLY SHIT" were the first words out of one fellow's mouth, as he rounded the small point to leave the harbor only to be faced with a lunging whale. (That fellow was off his game, more nervous than his date, and he shadowed JP and me off and on, nervously. Still, such caution in such a situation is no bad thing, and his date may have been more water-savvy -- or simply oblivious -- than he was.) The whales' spouting, blowing, and splashing. Occasionally, the power station would let out great blasts of steam that would mimic the whale spouts--and would confuse me, for a moment, as I looked for that other whale. The water made the most noise and the most noises, lapping and slapping and splashing and crashing along and onto the jetty, the kayak, the whales, itself.
