Farewell Spit

The air is so clean it becomes a vacuum, pulling trees and plants alike inward until I can reach out and touch them from my spot on the chaise. The sweet aroma of new grass and fresh flowers wafts in as familiar and powerful as baking bread. The cicadas are at it again and the air is filled with their song. The chickens rustle in the brush down by the stream and it, in response, gurgles back.

Waiting, just behind the veil of noise the silence is waiting to be heard. It is waiting to move in and take my heart in a vice grip until once again I feel utterly abandoned, but the silence never comes and I can breath and the smells come through the window with the tree branches and songs of nature.

It is an idyllic setting. The Inlet is a house, cozy and converted into a home for vagabonds, gypsies and soul searchers. A wrap-around porch hugs the house like a skirt. It is rain beaten and sagging from the weight of the world on its planks. They come from all over, each carrying their own burdens, and the porch carries us all. It protects the house where the siding still bears paint and the structure, sturdy after all these years, stands tall in a harsh juxtapose to its sagging skirt and guardian.

Faintly, almost unnoticeable a fiddle is tuned, it is the background music. Mary begins to play and it takes center stage. The insects grow a little quieter and anyone doing dishes takes care not to clink the plates and rattle the silver lest they upset the wavering notes coming from the other room. She plays with a broken finger and not a person in the room can tell. You get use to hearing certain instruments; guitars and voices are the most common. We are so use to them that they can cease to move you or make a whole house stand still and listen. It could have been any number of instruments, a brass or a wind, achieving the same effect but today, in this home it is Mary and her fiddle.

The kayaks are pulled from the beams of the barn, cracking against old wooden planks and the hard earth as they slip from our grip and tumble to the floor. But their hulls do not crack and they are assembled on the car, one on top of another with paddles hanging out the window. It is a colorful and dilapidated contraption: my silver car, the yellow and white vessels, paddles as blue as the deep ocean. We bump and slide down the country roads. Riding on pavement, sliding on dirt and rocks. At a sharp turn both boats slide left and I instinctively take my foot off the gas, but they are merely adjusting and not falling. On the return trip they will be more securely attached.

The Whanganui Inlet is a national preserve and host to any number of wild fowl and underwater creatures. Brochures boast of rainforests but as we paddle out Mark and I both think that we have seen more rainforest on the drive out than on the bay.

Happy go lucky we plod on in the car. As we near our launch point the wind starts to pick up. Dust flies through the open window where the paddles hang out and a fine layer settles on the interior. It matches the layer on the exterior.
Pushing off into the choppy waters of a receding tide we have no plan but to paddle. We take aim at a near, though distant, shoreline. The waves and the wind put up a worthy fight. We battle our way out pausing only to wipe the stinging salt spray from our eyes, lest we let the boat list and are toppled by a wave. Water is pouring in and the level rises until all but our knees poke out. Risking a rollover to prevent a capsize we frantically pull at the cork stoppers in the bottom of the kayak. They resist freedom and it is a harrowing balancing act, fighting the waves and trying to muscle free a couple of bits of bark. The water level quickly drops as the holes unplug and the added weight drains away.

Made lighter and more buoyant we travel quickly, flying blind for the most part, till a shallow bottom stops our progress. I peak out from salt water caked eyelids. Spreading out for meters all around we have beached on a great green carpet, the rocky bottom trapping bright green algae as the waters recede. Paddles sink into sludge before lodging in the rock below. We punt alongside the green giant until the choppy waves carry us away and onward. There is no going around it though and our excursion is over before it even began.

To proud to express it, we silently exalt that the trip is over. Arm mussels scream in protest as we pull the kayak around. We have been battling the waves and wind for going on two hours with little headway. Straining at the paddles we achieve in turning back toward the coast where the tide pulls back but the waves, propelled by the stronger and more adamant wind, carry us forward. We lie back, laughing with exhaustion, and let the sea bring us in.