{"id":1946,"date":"2020-05-29T14:24:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T14:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2020-05-29T14:24:45","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T14:24:45","slug":"dres-west-coast-adventure-part-two-im-so-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/dres-west-coast-adventure-part-two-im-so-lucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Dre\u2019s West Coast Adventure: Part Two, \u201cI\u2019m so lucky.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June 13<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I\u2019m on Day 3 of this adventure and on my 2nd weather day! It\u2019s amazing the difference 2 days make. (Day 1 was a weather day, and I still had my head in 2 worlds). I was super stressed the last couple days before the trip started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then also on the first paddling day, I had a REALLY slow start (I had to carry the boat about a quarter-mile, then all the gear), a really heavy boat, I didn\u2019t know if it may be loaded too heavy and bow heavy, there was water coming over the bow… I was still stressed. Was it a bad idea to round Cape Flattery like this? The forecast was 5-foot swell at 12 seconds – I expected some energy out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The kinks ironed out, the boat performed admirably, I remember I could paddle – and I got to the Cape and the stacks off the Cape. It was gorgeous. While I still had regular thoughts that I muttered aloud, \u201cwtf am I doing?\u201d – they became increasingly peppered with \u201cI\u2019m so lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had to take another day off today. The forecast said 7 foot swell at 7 seconds, then 6 feet at 9 seconds, then I couldn\u2019t get the right forecast and the marine forecast on my Garmin didn\u2019t differentiate between wind waves and swell and seemed to show wind speeds on land, not water… the beach looked big. All the forecasts agreed it would diminish. A friend sent me ten proper forecast, and indeed, it\u2019s supposed to be smaller. The beach is already looking smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So today I made the best of a ridiculously high percentage of weather days and walked to the Cape Flattery trail to see what I paddled yesterday. Gorgeous. And all I can say is – I\u2019m so lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Post-Expedition Thoughts<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t particularly remember that my head was still in two places the first couple days of the expedition. It\u2019s an interesting reminder to read that several months later.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I DO remember was competing thoughts of \u201cwtf?!\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m so lucky.\u201d I didn\u2019t know at the beginning of the expedition \u2013 and probably wouldn\u2019t have guessed \u2013 that those two thoughts would be my constant companions through the next 3 months. I think that every single day, I said both of those things out loud. I still think both of those things every time I see photos from the trip \u2013 and I see them every day because they\u2019re my screen saver now\u2026 I see the photos, and I think how unbelievably lucky I am to have had the chance to do this and to get to see all the indescribable beauty I was immersed in for 3 months. And I also have that moment of \u201cwtf?.\u201d As I was planning, as I was paddling, and after the whole thing was over, I\u2019ve had this constant feeling of something surreal. I mean \u2013 really? I lived out of my kayak for 3 months? On the beaches of this country \u2013 a heavily populated, heavily industrialized, heavily regulated country?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m grateful for one more thing now \u2013 I feel so lucky I took this trip last summer. My initial plan was to do it summer 2020. I don\u2019t know what prompted me to move it up by a year \u2013 but wow am I lucky I did!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m on Day 3 of this adventure and on my 2nd weather day! It\u2019s amazing the difference 2 days make.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8900,"featured_media":2004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[170,9],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expeditions","category-trip-reports","tag-cape-flatteryu","tag-sea-kayaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/June-13-5-of-6-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8900"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2006,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/2006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phseakayaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}