UNPREPARED EXPEDITIONS
Cindy Maddera
I had agreed to go on a kayaking expedition to Cuba with three other people. It was expected that it would take us at least three days of kayaking to reach our destination. As I sat down into my kayak, I noticed my other travelers really packing stuff into their kayaks. I looked around me inside my own kayak and realized that I had packed three cans of Slim-Fast and a bag of potato chips. I also had a broken fishing rod attached to one side of my kayak. Before I could even really think through my choices of things I should have packed, a crowd formed around us to send us off with fan fair. Every one kept asking me if I was sure I really wanted to do this. I have only been kayaking three times in my life and all of those times were simple day trips, tooling around on a lake. I kept replying “Yeah. Of course. I can totally do this. I can do this.”
It is probably a good thing I woke up before I actually headed out into shark infested waters in a small kayak.
It had been a crappy night of sleep from the get go. I struggled to go to sleep at bedtime and then I woke up around 1:00 AM where I continued to toss and turn for well over an hour to get back to sleep. I was hot. I was cold. My hips and knee were achy. Laying on this side wasn’t comfortable. Laying on the other side wasn’t comfortable. When I flipped onto my back, I could feel my sinuses starting to drain down my throat. I just couldn’t get comfortable and when I did finally drift back to sleep, I was in some variation of the above dream, sometimes stopping by my house so I could get a sweater or a granola bar. Every time I’d wake up, I’d marvel at how unprepared I was for a three day kayaking trip. I mean, that’s one Slim-Fast a day and a third of the bag of potato chips, which were already opened and sealed up with a close pin before I even started the expedition. If I managed to catch a fish with my broken fishing rod without capsizing myself, I’d have to eat the fish like a wild animal, just biting into the fish and ripping the flesh off with my teeth. I did not pack a knife.
But isn’t it just like me to insist that I can totally kayak three hundred and thirty miles to Cuba with very little resources? Hell, my kayak could be leaking and I would be bailing water while frantically paddling along and still insist that “I can totally do this.” It is not that I am not willing to admit defeat or that I am stubborn. Except I am stubborn, but I insist only to convince myself. I need to prove it to myself. Though while I’m willing to say right now that I can do this, I’m going to fess up and tell you that I’m going to need more potato chips.