Saturday, November 23, 2013

The Oldest Profession

11/21/2013


The oldest professions, is of course, kayaking.  Archaeologists have found evidence that Arctic peoples were hunting with kayaks at least 4000 years ago, and it’s possible they were at it long before that.  Probably not on days like Tuesday though.

Tuesday the weather was brutal and I stayed in my shack and read a book.  I told the captain of the port that the weather for Wednesday looked better and that I might be able to leave.

He tried to convince me not to.  I left it at “Maybe.  I’ll decide in the morning.”

Wednesday the weather made Tuesday look like a walk in the park.  Enormous waves heaved themselves over the walls of the port and lightning storms illuminated the sky far out at sea when they weren’t defining with thunder directly overhead. The captain of the port made fun of me all day because I had said I might go kayaking.

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Today I got a ride to the supermarket.  There’s a supermarket a 20 minute walk from the port, but the fellow who was giving me a ride took me to the one an hour away.


While he was driving I asked “quanti kilometer [how many kilometers]?”

“Three kilometers.”  He told me.

When we arrived my smartphone told me it was five.  I bought some bread, beans, and cream cheese and began walking back along the two lane highway.

I held my hand out to hitchhike along the way.  Thank god, no one picked me up.


I could see the back of a woman holding a cigarette on the other side of the road facing oncoming traffic.  Maybe she was hitchhiking in the opposite direction.  From behind I could see that she had shiny black hair down to her waist over a jean jacket.

I kept walking and could see her better when the bushes were out of the way.  The woman was most likely in her 50s and was wearing only a thong below the waist.  She was probably cold.

I kept on walking.

Here and there along the road, wherever there was room for a car to pull over, there were women in outfits that left little to the imagination, and I suspect this was bad for their business.  It would have taken a good deal of imagination to want to see more.

The sea along the road glistened two distinct clear colors, brownish grey and farther out azure blue.  Whitecaps abounded.  A double rainbow arched out onto the near side of a mountain just ahead on my right.  The lower of the two rainbows was surprisingly close.

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It started to pour.  The woman who happened to be next to me at this juncture went to get her umbrella and I put my pack down to get out my rain coat and pants.  I was putting the pants on when the middle aged heavy set blond wearing a miniskirt looked up at me from her low chair.


  I shook my head “no” so that there be no confusion.  I had stopped to put on my rain coat, not make a new friend.

I glanced at her.  With her knees up the way they were I saw she was not a natural blonde.  The movie Basic Instinct is forever ruined for me.

“Gana?”  She asked me, almost pleadingly.  It reminded me of Oliver Twist, begging for something so simple as a bit of food.  I don’t known what gana means and I don’t know if that’s exactly what she said.

I shook my head no.  She pleaded again.  “Gana?”

“No.”  I tried to say politely.  There was something very sad going on.  I didn’t intend to hang around and find out what it was.  I finished getting my rain clothing on and continued walking.

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It was pouring.  I realized that in my flight I forgot to put the rain cover over my pack.

In the afternoon I used zip ties to fix my seat.  I paddled around the port and found that I can invert my spray skirt tube to get most of my body rotation back and move the chafing from my back to my belly.  I also practiced some rolls, but missed my hand rolls.  Eventually, practice will make perfect, I hope.

Tomorrow the weather may well be good enough for me to paddle to the next port, Pizzo.  But the first half of next week is supposed to be stormy again.

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