A Rite of Passage by Karen Drake

A Rocky Beginning
We awoke to the endless roar of white water. The surf was crashing into boulders—some the size of tree-stumps, others the size of small cars—uncovered by the retreated tide. It was too risky to try launching in the surf. We sat around a smoky fire, Suresh popping anti-inflammatory pills, his back already shouting with pain after an awkward kayak lift the evening before. It was a harsh reminder of the importance of being systematic and careful while lifting and carrying heavy kayaks over rocky ground.
Suresh expressed his doubts about being fit enough to get in a kayak that day. I was worried. We were already struggling only a day from Vancouver and still had a thousand miles of harsh wilderness to go to reach Juneau. By lunchtime, Suresh’s back warmed up and the wind and waves had settled enough for us to leave the beach.
We arrived in the well-protected haven of Smuggler Cove. Meandering over the calm green water, we explored the convoluted shore and its rocky islets. Within minutes, we’d lost sight of each other. It was probably a combination of eagerness to find a good camp spot for the night, but our drifting apart may have grown out of a desire for space and peace from our group of nine. Despite all being friends, things had been pretty intense preparing in Vancouver, and I felt as though we all needed space to breathe and to settle into finally having begun our journey.
Over the previous year, Suresh and I had nurtured the idea for the journey, and gradually friends, friends of friends, and regular acquaintances added to the momentum, bringing together our team of nine—some more closely acquainted than others.
Whatever the case, our teamwork was in a shambles, and when we woke the next morning, we discovered two kayaks missing. We found them a few minutes later. They’d drifted ashore and had been breached on sharp rocks. Everyone had assumed that someone else would tie the boats up, but we’d left two of the kayaks unsecured in the rush to camp, and they’d floated out with the tide. We were lucky to find them. It was obvious we needed to tighten up our act and assign clear roles within the team.
Enjoying the warmth of the June sun on our bare skin and the opportunity to dry our surf-soaked clothes out, we didn’t notice the tide creeping farther away, exposing a shelf of greasy-slick mud. It was a hard lesson. Adi and I watched as the others slipped and sank knee-deep in the sludge, precariously balancing the kayaks on lifting straps, white knuckles clinging tightly at either end.
When it was my turn to be carried to the water’s edge, I sidled from my grassy patch into the blue canvas seat, being careful not to sit on one of the four handles in each of its corners. In position, four of the team each grabbed a handle, and on the count of three lifted me up. We began staggering toward the mud, the two at the back tripping over the heels of the pair at the front. “Let’s do diamonds,” Pete called. “Doing diamonds” had quickly become the term for rotating the seat 45 degrees, so that those carrying were not tripping over one another. Like royalty in a sedan chair, it gave a much smoother ride, with less chance of my bottom grating on a barnacle-studded boulder. That morning, however, I didn’t have to worry about slippery boulders or barnacles—just mud.