4-22-2011 0610 Muir Beach. Goldang and yikes!!! God threw another off-pace Rapture Ball at me and I swung and missed! Probably because it's still relatively early in the season, and I am still rusty at spotting a swatable Rapture when I see one. It looked like just another day in Paradise.
Beginning with the light coming up behind the Monterey cypress on the lot next door, on the East, to our left as it were. Sunset Way is one of those Pine Mansions or Walnut Hill names that is more wistful than descriptive, because both sunrise and sunset occur in the privacy of the other side of rockbound ridges. Opalescent, this crepuscular emergence, with those shimmering tones of rose and grey blue. The horizon, out beyond the shipping lanes, has been a little blurred by mist the last couple days. But not enough to vanish the departing container ship, all three football fields of it, cranking up to the steady oil burning 26 plus mph that it will maintain across the Pacific. The wind is hiding and seeking around our back decks already. It's still a tentative mousy little windlet. Later on, assuming that the Central Valley heats up as it did yesterday, its gonna roar up the gulch we perch next to, rattling windows, and if we open doors at the same time, blow away whatever flimsy notes and comments I might write down on paper. That'll larn me to write on paper!.
No white caps showing so yesterday while I waited for the end of the world, I scratched the little dog and after she went back to curl up beside Sala, I struggled into my kayaking dry top. Checked the knife in its quick release holster on my PFD. I finally figured out to coat the blade with vaseline, so it doesnt rust as badly as it did. And the compass, and the emergency parachute cord; check and check. And walked down, picked up the kayak from its place on the little grassy spot with all the other neighborhood kayaks and surfboards, and stumpled down across the rocks and logs to the broad sandy low tide beach of summer.
The morning miracle of rising light on a beach waiting for gulls, dogs and children to scratch its surface is a strong temptation, and yet the lure of the water easily trumps that. I let the kayak slide off my shoulder onto the sand, and start making the letters of the alphabet with my arms, while looking out to sea. The breaking waves are only a few feet high, and beyond them the moving surface is pretty bright, in keeping with little wind. Further out though, there are already a few white caps. A serious squadron of brown pelicans enters stage right, soaring on the moving air, moving west along the shore, a few feet off the sea. Up above, where the direct sun is starting to hit the tops of the eucalyptus on Spindrift Point, which makes the Western edge of this little South facing cove, a raven squawks as it plays with two others. Gull mewing, and in the background the peeping of Pidgeon Guilliemots looking for their babies.
There's more water movement than I thought. The surge around the rocks at the end of Spindrift Point is very bouncy. It sucks me right in , and for a moment, as the incoming next wave sucks the water out under me, I have a little clutch of concern that I have underestimated the power of the next wave. It comes roaring in through the opening between the rocks, and like a March lion, is mostly froth and after bouncing the boat around a bit, slurps out again. I ride out a couple of these , as several unbelievably neatly dressed gulls wearing their pearl grey morning coats over their bright white shirts open up a loud long cry...just in case anyone wanted to know there was an intruder.
Out around the point, the water gets even more bouncy. It's not long sweeping swells of winter, or the almost oily calm of some summer days. This is more of a chop, a lot of up and down thats banging the bottom of this little tupperware river kayak, dropping suddenly out from under, popping suddenly up again, and sloshing down on top. What a great technology, this man/boat fusion the Greenlanders seem to have invented. Of course, in the temperatures they hunted in, bailing out of the kayak was not an option. Here I can at least pretend that if I have to do a wet exit, I could right the boat, bail it out, and get back in. Hmmmm. Better to stay with the boat, and my roll is generally pretty solid in these relatively easy waters.
I get to the rock off the end of the point, the one with cormorants and gulls and oyster catchers and pelicans all vying for roosting room. The guillemots roost further up on the mainland cliffs. And right now, its pretty un-tenanted. These birds put in a long days work. The incoming rollers, in keeping with the bouncy quality of the water generally, are really smushing and smashing as they reach the rock. To the west, there are actually several mostly submerged rocks, then a little cauldron, before the main bulk of rock that is high enough to stay free of barnacles and mussels. This means that there is a big sussurus of noise as the water is pulled back out of the cauldron and over the mostly submerged rocks, and then a loud noise as the next wave breaks, falls over into the cauldron, bashes and smashes back and forth and slaps against the main wall.
And suddenly, paddling to stay in place just outside this foamy mayhem, I can see exactly what Hokusai saw. The tips of the waves really do have those sharp little crescent shapes. The foam really is pounded into droplets that hang off the end of each little claw. The whole picture, existing only in my mind now that the instant is past, is just as sterotyped and filled with energy as if Mt Tam were Mt Fuji. Of course, that's usually not what I let myself see. I am looking for motion and so that's what I see...a welter of motion. I could just as well see a series of static snapshots. For years, I didn't let myself see colors that I labeled 'not real'. The colors of the pre-dawn sky...after all, the sky is blue, not pink or purple. The colors of the reflection of a red bouy, or a green one; those are reflections, not colors ( I apparently told myself). And now the sudden experience of enjoying the moment of a perfect wave, without the clutter of all that movement to blur out the details of each precious particle of energy.
Well, that's Paradise for you; 'Same Old Paradise'. as Steve titled his book. No Rapture for me today, I guess.
Fuji and I fly off to Boston and then Woods Hole on June 6th. In the meantime, off to work in the Concierge practice...but more about that at a later date.
Aloha
Alan
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