There’s only one thing to do when you find yourself submerged in the Santa Barbara Bay: Try not to lose your $70 sunglasses. Then yell at the person who got you submerged in the first place.
“Shelly Cone!” I gurgled, trying to get the water out of my nose. “What did you do?”
Shelly, our arts editor and resident ocean enthusiast, just had to stand up in the kayak. I blame our guide. Everything was going great—we were kayaking along, not falling in at all, when the guide challenged our group to try to stand up.
There was no reason given. It was just, c’mon do it.
Shelly was persuasive.
“It’s a women’s adventure trip,” she said. “Let’s try it.”
“Really?” I whined in my least adventuresome voice. “But we’ve made it so far without falling in.”
You see, I’m not a big fan of deep water. I like to know that what’s underneath me isn’t a deep abyss that could be filled with strange/slimy creatures. I’m just weird that way. But two weeks ago, when I got an e-mail from Women’s Health magazine inviting me to their “Road Trip” kayaking event, I thought, “What the heck, it’ll make a good column.”
That’s how I ended up being goaded into standing up in a kayak in the middle of the bay for absolutely no reason at all.
Quick side note: The last time I fell out of a kayak was my freshman year of college. We had made it all the way back to the shore and then got knocked over by a wave. My braces cut my lip and it bled. A lot. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, she must be a pretty good kayaker to make it that far!” and “Who still wears braces in college?”
Well, my teeth are beautiful now, so back off. Still, it was with thoughts of this incident in my head (but thankfully not the actual braces) that I cautiously and oh-so-carefully planted my feet, got balanced, and stood up in that kayak—for about three seconds. Success. Then Shelly gave it a go. We were in the water almost instantly.
Turns out being an ocean enthusiast can’t keep you from falling in—especially when that certain enthusiast decides to adjust her footing while standing on a wet slippery surface.
I like to complain, but when it comes down to it, falling into the ocean was not the worst thing that could happen to me. It was, in retrospect, great.
After all, why shouldn’t Shelly and I be in the ocean, fully clothed, in the middle of a workday? Lots of people would kill for that opportunity. I’m not gonna lie to you either: It was awesome being out on the waves in the middle of the day with not a care in the world.
We did wonder who, besides ourselves, could miss a day of work to go kayaking. As it turns out, it’s students, stay-at-home moms, and a few guys we assumed were the boyfriends of the students. This rankled a bit. The event was billed as a girl-power-type thing, but in the interest of fair play, we could see why Women’s Health decided to let a few girls bring dates.
On the guy issue, we were just thankful that none of our clothes became transparent after our dunk in the ocean and left it at that, because it seemed petty to complain about little things while out on the water.
We also didn’t mention our complete and total lack of preparation for this trip—the kind that led to us running down the dock 10 minutes late, hoping that they hadn’t left without us. The kind of super-duper preparation that led to us dropping the ball on getting a waterproof camera and relying solely on the kindness of public relations agents for photos.
But these things that we’d been beating ourselves up about on the way to Santa Barbara seemed insignificant out on the water. We were just thankful that, despite our deficiencies, we still got our butts out of the office and into the ocean.
There we were, sitting in a kayak, trying not to bump into the other kayakers, most of whom were readers of Women’s Health, and on the one hand we knew it was a commercial event being sponsored by Subaru, Teva, Oakley, State Farm, and Tampax. (Because, you know, it’s not really an event for women until a tampon company gets on board.) But on the other hand, it was just so darn pretty out on the ocean that it was hard to be cynical. We were just glad to be there.
In that way, this women’s adventure trip was a success. Let’s face it: For a lot of us—men or women—the biggest obstacle between us and our next adventure is a hefty dose of laziness. Sometimes it’s hard to try something new. You’re not prepared, you don’t have the gear, and maybe you’re afraid to get out of your comfort zone.
I’m not glad that we were so busy that we treated this trip as an afterthought, but I’m glad that we went anyway.
Besides, if we hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the singular pleasure of driving back from Santa Barbara in wet, salty clothing—and that’s not a complaint, either. In a clammy and uncomfortable way, it brought me back to my childhood and the trips we used to take to the beach. Driving home, we were always wet and disgusting, and we never asked ourselves if it was worth it, because it always was.
Sports Editor Sarah E. Thien still hasn’t dried off. Send comments to sthien@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 18-25, 2008.