Can You Canoe?

Last weekend, K and I went canoeing out in the back bay with some friends visiting from Pheonix.

At Cuesta Inlet, where we planned to launch, the water looked pretty low. But, down at the water's edge, the mud wasn't more than a few inches deep, so I decided that the channel was probably deep enough to float the boat. K was doubtful, and suggested we drive over to the launch ramp in Morro Bay. But, I didn't want to do that. Boating over where all the sailboats are moored is fun, but I wanted to have the wilder experience of exploring the back bay on this particular day. Eventually, she decided to respect my judgment on the water level due to my "greater experience." Together, we got the canoe down from the roof of the van.


(This photo was taken on a different day, in Cayucos...NOT in on the dirt road at Cuesta Inlet. But, I wanted to show you how we rig the canoe for travelling to and from the water.)



It couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. But, by the time we had everything unloaded and ready to launch, the water level had significantly changed. What had been a narrow, but useable channel, had shrunken to a muddy ribbon, barely big enough to float a rubber duckie.

"This doesn't make sense," I protested! "Low tide was almost two hours ago. The tide should be coming IN right now!" At this point I remembered that the tide chart I was using was for the Pacific Coast of Southern California...not for the back end of Morro Bay. You might not think it, but the bay tide lags behind the ocean tide by almost an hour. And, the very back edge of the bay, where we were, probably lags behind even more than that.

After considering our options, we decided NOT to pack it all back up and head over to the deep side with the paved ramp. Surely, we reasoned, this was as low as it was going to go. In a few minutes, it would fill back up and we could push out. Only moments after we came to that conclusion, water started rushing back into the inlet. In minutes, it was as full as it had been upon our arrival, and still rising. So all three kids and the other two adults piled into our big pink canoe and pushed off. I followed behind in a sea kayak we borrowed from our neighbor.


At first, it was magical. We floated along towards the wide open water, with the scuplted dunes of the sandspit beckoning in the distance. I knew there was a chance we might get stuck in the mud at some point, but I wasn't worried. Since the tide was coming in now, even if we did get stuck, all we would have to do would be wait a few minutes for the water to rise, and then continue on our journey.

And that's exactly what I told everyone when, a few minutes after emerging from the inlet, we started scraping the bottom with our keels. It wasn't so bad, just sitting there for a moment, enjoying the view. It didn't get bad until we noticed that the water wasn't getting any deeper. It was getting shallower! Right before our eyes, our sheet of shining saltwater became a muddy marsh.


We really weren't that far from solid ground. But the soft sticky mud was over a foot deep, with a layer of slippery clay below that. Getting back would be messy, if not impossible. Our only real option was to wait and see if the water came back.



Eventually, it did. Thank goodness. But I learned a lesson from this experience. Rather, I figured out that I NEED to learn a lesson about the tides and how they work before I take any more out-of-town guests boating in the back bay.

Our plan was to paddle all the way to the sandspit, haul out, and explore the dunes. Once on dry land again, we would marvel at the tiny rows of fairy-sized prints left by the kangaroo rats. We would climb up the soft hillsides, just to have the fun of tumbling down again. We would look for live sand dollars growing in the shallow water, and collect the skeletons of dead ones from the hard packed sand on the beach.

That was my plan. But, we couldn't find any hard packed sand to land on. All we found near the spit was mud, mud and more mud. We paddled along, hoping for the terrain to change, but couldn't find anywhere we could get the canoe close to the solid shore. Eventually, we decided we'd better head home before it started to get dark.

It sounds like a disappointing afternoon. Nothing really worked out as I'd promised our guests. But, like those bumper stickers about fishing, a bad day paddling around in the back bay is still a pretty good day. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny with a light breeze. The views were amazing all around. And, it's just fun to be out in the middle of water in a boat you are powering with your own energy and skill.

To top it off, we had a couple of unusual sightings. The first one showed up on the other side of the canoe from where I was, so I couldn't see it at first. I could only see the others waving excitedly and pointing. The distance between us was such that I could just barely make out what they were saying. It sounded like, "Shark!"

At first, I thought maybe they were just joking...trying to scare me. I wouldn't blame them. After all, it was my fault we'd spent half our afternoon stuck in the mud and weren't going to enjoy exploring the sandspit. Then, suddenly I remembered that the southwest corner of the bay, not far from where we were, was sometimes called "Shark Inlet." Uh oh.

Then I saw something swim around the back of their canoe and start heading my way. It had a triangular fin sticking up from the center of it's back. I could see a little bit of what looked like it's head weaving in front, and a smaller triangle flipping from side to side in the back. I guessed that was it's tail fin. As it got closer, I could see that I was right, it was a tail fin. And my friends were right too, it really was a shark. And it was coming toward me.

I started scanning my mental files for some kind of useful information that applied to the situation. I did manage to remember that the sharks most commonly seen in the back bay are leopard shards. And that, despite their dangerous sounding name, they are harmless to humans. The voice in my head very calmly reviewed these half-remembered facts.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," it concluded confidently.

But it was hard to listen to that voice when that ominous triangle was getting closer and closer every second. Behind the rational words, I was starting to hear music. You know the tune...duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh. This shark might have only been 3 feet long, but it still had JAWS big enough to tear the flesh from my limbs. My heart started beating faster.

"Nonsense," said the voice. "It's perfectly safe in the boat. Anyway, that shark is going to change course in a moment."

But a moment passed, and it didn't swerve or veer. It just kept coming straight at me. Watching it get bigger and bigger as it got closer and closer, my face got hot and I started to sweat. I clenched all my muscles tight to keep my self from paddling madly away. It wasn't the calm voice in my head that convinced me to keep still, it was my fear that I might accidentally tip the boat in my panic to get away.

We hear a lot about the "fight or flight" response to danger, but there is a third option for channeling adrenaline that doesn't get as much publicity, "freezing." That's what I did. I froze.

It's a weird feeling to inhabit a body rigid with fear, while listening to a calm inner voice explain all the reasons why there is nothing to be afraid of. It turned out the voice was right. At the last moment, the shark banked right to avoid colliding with my kayak. It swam so close beside me I could have reached out and touched it if I'd wanted to...and had any mobility in my arms.

It was beautiful, so pale and so graceful, it could have been called the swan shark. From nose-tip to tail, it was adorned with spots and striped that hinted at it's feline namesake. The pattern was in blue. Against the ivory background, it made me think of a china plate, delicate and fine...smooth and strong.

You might think after admiring it up close, and safely surviving the experience, I might have a different response the next time a leopard shark swims at me. But I don't think so. I think there is something primal about watching that triangular shape sticking out of the water, weaving from side to side as it rapidly approaches your own soft human flesh. It think I'll be just as scared next time, no matter what the voice in my head has to say about it.

Obviously, I wasn't able to take a picture of this shark, since I couldn't move. But, here's a picture I nabbed on-line, so you can see how pretty they are.


And here's a link to an amusing video taken by some other kayakers who encountered the same species in the same body of water. It seems like they weren't scared at all. But then, the sharks weren't coming right AT them either!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdOo9cvgmew

Happy to still be alive and in one piece, I took a few moments to calm down and just appreciate the amazing beauty of the day. That's when I noticed an unusual wispy shape in the sky. At first I thought it was a cloud, but it was much darker than the other clouds. Then I decided it must be a flock of birds coming in from far away. But I watched it for a while, and it never seemed to get any closer.



I still don't know what it was. Maybe it was pollution. That's a depressing thought, and a scary one. The hill I watched it drift over was one of only half a dozen that separates our little town from the nuclear power plant in Diablo Canyon.

Now obviously, a black cloud approaching from a nuclear reactor holds a lot more possibility for harm than a three foot shark. But for some reason, the dark shape in the sky didn't scare me at all. I watched it with interest the whole time we paddled back to the inlet, and forgot all about it by the time we were home eating macaroni and cheese.