Vacation and Unstable Kayaks

I'm a fan on Momastry. She's pretty darn amazing. She wrote a post yesterday about Jack. In the spur of the moment, I wrote his name on my hand, and Helli's and took pictures for her wall. In mama solidarity. This was an easy bit of hope, or peace, of togetherness I could offer. I didn't give it much thought really. I was saddened, and wanted to reach out, so I did.  The surprise came the rest of the day. Everyone I encountered asked what was written on my hand, and I found myself trying to explain, "well, you see, there's this woman, on the internet..." All day long, every time I caught sight of my hand, I thought of Jack, and Anna, and dark water. (I'm sorry Anna)  I was still thinking of it this morning as I walked the dogs, (I used permanent marker you see) and I remembered an incident on my vacation.  I've been meaning to write a serious of vacation posts. I took lots of pictures to go with them. This isn't the post I had in mind particularly, but it's important anyway.

Every time I remember this my throat gets tight, my chest gets tight, my heart beats fast, and I have to remind myself to breathe deeply, and slowly. It's fear. The fear that this could have ended differently.  It didn't. I'm telling you that form the beginning. Everyone is ok. There for the grace of god and all.

My dad has this big house, on this rather small island off the northern cost of Washington state.  It sits on lots of property. One property line goes along the beach, another along the line of the national park up there.  It's gorgeous, it's a great break from the city. My husband, our kids, and I go up every year as I vacation. This year the vacation was planned around the scattering of my grandmother's ashes.  There was one or two days where my whole family was there (minus one cousin who was traveling for work.)

My stepmom likes to kayak. They own sea kayaks. My step mom and my aunt go out regularly. They tend to have a rotating group of people that go with them, but they're the ones who usually go out every time.  This time though, on this day, just "the boys" went out.  My two cousins, my middle brother, and one of my cousin's girlfriends took the kayaks out.  Dave, and Colin took single kayaks and Jon and Meredith took a double kayak.  They had all been out in the kayaks before. They are all adults, and they all had experience. They paddled out to see the harbor seals that like to sun themselves on a rock a mile (or two miles?) from the shore line.  They stopped, and my brother, Colin, went to turn his kayak. Instead of turning, it rolled over.

He had forgotten to put the piece down that keeps it stable. An easy mistake upon going out on a lark. Now, the "proper" way to do this is to roll your kayak back over with you still in it. There is a way to shift your weight, and roll your kayak back over.  There are classes on it.  When faced with a sudden frigid dunking though, I'm not sure how many people have the presence of mind to do that.  My brother found himself, suddenly cold, wet, and belted in upside down. He did what most people with any presence of mind would do. He unhooked his belt and got to the surface.

After surfacing he was faced with the problem of getting back in the kayak. He could roll the kayak over, but every time he tried to get back into the seat, it just rolled over upside down again. Running out of energy he finally pull himself partially on top of the bottom of the kayak (which was, of course, now the part on top.) They were in what is the Salish Sea, near to The Strait of Juan de Fuca. This is hypothermia country my friend. The summer water temperature drops into the low 40s. The winter temperatures dip even lower.  My cousins Jon said that he would get Colin, and told David to go get help. My cousin David paddled as if the hounds of hell were chasing him. He beached his kayak, then sprinted the half mile (ish) to the house to tell my stepmother that her oldest son was in the water. Her, and everyone else in the house, with the exception of one person left behind to watch my grandfather and Demon, grabbed towels, jumped in the SUV and drove down to the beach.

In the mean time, my cousin Jon made sure Colin was on his kayak. Meredith held the kayak's rope, and Jon paddled all three of them all the way back to shore.  As my step mom arrived, they were beaching the kayaks. Colin was cold, and freaked out, but ok. Blessedly ok.

The reason this makes my throat get tight and my eyes water is that it could have ended so differently.  If my brother had panicked and not unhooked his belt, or tried to swim to shore, or tried to roll his kayak back over...

If David had not been so fast, if Jon and Meredith had not stayed calm and towed him in...

If they had not been so self processed, possibly if the fates had been kinder to my family the year before and they had not taken the threat seriously, things could have ended much differently.  They didn't, and i thank god. My whole family thanks god.

This was either the morning, or the morning before, we were supposed to spread my grandmother's ashes.

"The Boys" from left to right: Dave, Jon, Colin. You can see the water behind them. 

Meredith and Jon