Kayaking
Heading out in the early morning pearly gray, the sea lions are arguing about who’s bigger and gets prime locations to sun and enjoy female companionship. One swims along side of me for a while as were headed the same direction; after a time, I cannot keep up. The marina gas dock is not yet open, but a very large vessel from Jaluit in the Marshall Islands has tied up there. I wonder who in the Marshall Islands has the kind of money needed to purchase and keep up such a behemoth and what the heck is it doing in our harbor.
A big tree with big nests constructed by cormorants. It appears to be stripped bare and skeletal like drying bones. As I round the corner an egret is perched in a prime rocky spot to grab a passing fish. A little further are three small blue herons each with its own rock and territory to fish in; are they juveniles? A few days ago, a great blue heron flushed and flew noisily and majestically across my path.
There is an open lock today and the channel is draining fresh sea water into the Venice canals. An egret guards this prime fishing spot.
The tide is low so the sandbars are showing today. The godwits and willets have gathered to feed on the little worms, crustaceans and insects burrowed in the sand. The godwits have a long red and black bill to probe and feed. The willets have shorter bills and beautiful black and white wings when they take flight, usually when one raises a noisy alarm, and the whole flock takes of in panicked flight. They coexist with the gangs of little sandpipers dashing en masse to and fro.
The sandbars give way to rocks where the plovers and black turnstones run about their business. In the winter, they are joined by the red billed black oystercatchers; they always go about in monogamous couples and not straying too far from one another as they feed on clams, mussels and oysters.
There is a little tide rip at the end of the jetty. The fishermen and occasionally a fisher woman cast into tide and slowly reel their lures back in; sometimes they catch a fish, other times they might snag my kayak until we disengage.
I kayak along the beach until my muscles tell me it is time to turn around. Lately, I surf onto the beach and go for a swim out to the lifeguard buoy. There is nothing quite so glorious as swimming on one’s back, watching pelicans, terns and gulls soar above. Occasionally a pod of dolphins swims by; a few days ago, I was surrounded by a pod of about 12, including two little ones as I followed them down towards the Venice Pier. Some were doing aerials.
On the beach, some people stop and like to chat about anything and nothing, just connecting for the joy of it all, asking questions, sharing their observations, their lives. The dogs run after balls and sticks and each other and then may plunge into the surf just for the sheer excitement.
On the way back into the slip, I usually run into a paddle boarder, a kayaker or a paddler of an outrigger I know in passing. We may stop to talk about nothing at all or just exchange greetings of the day. People on the jetty wave and make small talk. By this time, the big boats with lots of passengers are headed out; you have to time their wakes to avoid getting soaked. On summer weekends, there is a lot of boat traffic; some do not know what they are doing or are simply distracted. I hug the shore then; they don’t want to put their boats up on the rocks.
My equipment is aging as am I, but by now we are well broken into each other.
Lucien Wulsin
July 27, 2021