“K” is for Kayaking

The bright yellow mass is carried to the edge of the shore. Together, we drop the two-person kayak into the water and push it further into the bay. My sister and I guide the vessel past the small tides letting our bare feet leave the hot sand and follow it into the cold water. We manage to hop in our seats—me in the front, and my sister in the back. The long double-sided paddles that lay in the watercraft on each of its sides are picked up and held in our hands to steer us beyond the beach.

The sun continues to beam its bright and very hot waves down directly over our heads, but after several minutes of paddling hard against the oncoming current, we manage to meet up with the other kayak that held our friends.

Each kayaker converses in unrelated friendly banter. And then, within a glance, a wordless conversation propels us into a race. Immediately each of us takes our paddles and slices the water on each side of our kayaks. As the paddles swiftly lift out of the bay, little droplets of water baptize us, invigorating our spirits and further pushing our efforts to reach the next bend.

The kayak I’m in eventually reaches our destination before the other kayak can come close. Sweat pores down from our foreheads as the kayak narrowly misses the land bank to our left. We slow our paddling and let the small waves created by the cool wind take our kayak where it pleased.

For the remainder of our time out on the bay, the four of us gently paddled around looking at all of the sights. Birds native to the area flew above our heads while jumping fish swam alongside our feet. We spent hours circling around the water before we guided our kayak back to shore.

At the end of our day out on the water, we stepped out of the kayak, grabbed the bright yellow mass, and dragged it on to the shore. And together we walked out of the cool water and onto the hot sand with our two-person kayaks in tow.

Past Writers of Kern Blog Challenge Posts