Cast of Characters:
Andy: volunteer, teacher, cayuco balance experimentalist
Don Salome: a lanchero or boat driver; Wearer of Hats
Neighbourhood dogs: various, of a scruffy nature
Neighbourhood ducks: various, unconcerned with:
Local cayucoists of note: including lady-with-child-who-says-hello; older-lady-with-surly-child-who-does-not-say-hello and old-man-with-crooked-smile
Many people, when faced with something like a kayak, will point to the law of entropy. Person in a dugout log, balance, water: they will mention inevitability, complexity. Complex systems decay, heat will dissipate – from a body immersed in water, for example – and stable things will become less stable. Equilibrium's a fickle fellow; they're bound to mention this. They'll be wrong, of course. Laws of entropy only apply in a closed system, and there are many things that can affect a person in a canoe. Arseholes, for one. Or more specifically the waves created by arseholes (some people choose to call them power-boat owners, but we shall proceed with the standard nomenclature here) when they pass you on the river at 15 knots or so, shore-boat casually slung from the back, token floozies decorating the sundeck. When faced with the wake of an arsehole, which can be up to a foot high, in a cayuco with a lip about 4 inches above the water, your choices are few and all involve wetness and cursing. When simultaneously accosted by God in the form of a heavy rain shower it's tempting to extend the period of cursing to after the immediate period of soaking, but it's unclear if this really affects the situation at all, least of all God or your damp trousers. Those who don't believe in trousers would argue we can't change what's not there, but they're missing the point.
Having got falling in the river out of the way in the first week I felt a sort of immunity; my number had been called and I had come out the other side a wiser, wetter man. The first time you paddle in a cayuco with someone else however, this belief is immediately shaken. One person can adjust his own weight relative to paddling and water conditions and remain upright with relative ease; two people, providing one of them is inexperienced, will attempt to compensate not only for their own motion and that of the water but for their partner's too; multiply this effect several times if there is alcohol involved and see the section on cursing above.
Another factor for the equation is positioning: experts [I don't claim to be one, you understand, but you only have to be at the bottom of the ladder to see what kind of shoes those at the top are wearing] will tell you that where you sit in a canoe will affect how it paddles a great deal. Too far forward and you won't be able to affect the drag enough to steer, resulting in most inefficient circling; too far back and you'll find water flooding in that innocuous looking crack at the back. None of these are hypothetical problems, you understand. The decision of how to sit is also a tricky one, at least if you have impractical sized legs as I do, with knees that jut out from the edge to be caught by every passing oar-stroke. The locals here prefer a small, low wooden step to sit on with their legs stretched out in front, but I find this restricts the comfort in my lower spine to about 30 seconds, and a hobbling English teacher is not a happy English teacher. My preferred method is to kneel. An average journey reconstructed might resemble this:
Push cayuco out to floating depth where it can be shoved off in comfort once inside.
Get into the cayuco. These simple words obscure a plethora of problems, all of them less interesting than the average water-borne parasite; suffice to say there is wobbling, and occasionally splashing and cursing.
Kneel down with the absolute confidence of one who knows people are watching.
Push off with paddle; perform customary foreigner-in-a-cayuco wobble and 270 degree turn to face where you wish to go.
Once you have overcome the initial fear of falling in (efficiently accomplished by falling in, as we saw above), the journey itself can be an exercise in Zen as the mind wanders pleasantly across the water without focussing on very much at all. Reach, dip, stroke, flick; repeat. Consider the ducks as they float by with cares no greater than finding some good-looking algae. Or the dogs; they may bark at your passing, but there is something pleasant in knowing they will be there to bark at you tomorrow and the next day. Even minor annoyances, once habitual, become pleasantly routine. Reach, dip, stroke, flick.
The flick is important, however, I should explain that part. A beginner in a canoe will naturally paddle on both sides, alternating as the boat wanders too far in the direction of important objects such as other canoes or trees. This results in the haphazard zig-zag pattern that would, if it were plotted on a map, resemble a somewhat confused snake. What quickly becomes clear from watching the locals is that this is not how they do it, not at all. Aside from having the natural grace of those who were born with paddles if not actually in their hand then very near by, they maintain paddling on one side for quite some time. Somewhat improbably, their cayucoes follow the line of a well-trained if somewhat sluggish arrow. This is because of the Flick.
The Flick: when drawing the oar through the water towards you, pull it past your body and then turn it sideways, trailing the oar behind you and thus creating a drag on one side of the boat; optional is to pull your top hand in towards you to kick the oar out and create more drag – the Flick itself. Effectively you are creating a rudder that draws you back to facing forwards after your stroke drags you to one side. This ensures that when paddling on the left, with the stroke naturally pushing the cayuco to the right, the Flick will swiftly pull you back to the left, maintaining a straight line and moving you one step closer to Looking Like A Local when paddling. There are at least 17 other steps before reaching Local, not least marrying someone's daughter and being able to hold a conversation while standing in a canoe and nonchalantly casting your fishing net, but every step counts.
Not looking like a tourist will gain you slightly more currency in the river pecking order. A smile from crooked-smile-man, the neighbourhood dogs failing to bark at you, a nod of acknowledgement from Don Salome. This, above all, is the nod of age and experience, the river reaching up to touch her cap with gentle civility. Don Salome's hat is as much a part of him as the lines on his face, etched from 70 odd years of life on the water, and it is impossible to imagine him doing anything but driving a boat; he is always the first to bail out water after the rain stops, and his smiles are gained only through a lengthy process of grudging acceptance. Rumour has it he keeps a 30 year old wife.
The river here is a sleepy beast. If we were to continue up the creek of animal analogies we would probably find ourselves facing a manatee rather than a mongoose, though strictly speaking a serpent analogy is de rigeur in this area; perhaps an anaconda, broad and languid, sleepily digesting the carcasses of boats with unwary drivers. She gained another just the other day as two collided head on not far from here. With none of the standard maritime rules for passing on this side or that, the occasional meeting of bows - as of ants passing along a trail, though often with more destructive force - seems inevitable. One sunk, the other limped on with the passengers of both aboard.
In parking a cayuco you must obey the same laws of supply and demand as motorists everywhere, as spaces are sometimes at a premium. Slip into the bay, deftly manoeuvre around semi-submerged rocks to find an unoccupied patch of riverbank and nudge aside all contenders to claim your space before someone beats you to it. There is an active community of students who paddle to school – all of them sporting faster, lighter cayucoes than us, I note with some jealousy – and arriving late can leave you sweating and heaving your half-tree up the muddy bank in a most ungainly fashion.
There are days when I don't feel like climbing into my Alaska (she was donated by an Alaskan, apparently one without imagination), days when I wish nothing more than to curl up in a nice lancha and let Don Salome do the driving. Most notable among these are when it rains so hard there is little difference between being in the cayuco and being in the water. But this is to miss the point: taking a cayuco to work means freedom, and not just the kind where you don't rely on lancheros to take you home. The ability to float downstream is to forget for a moment the stresses and practicalities of routine, the incessant obedience to ever more inventive timetables. It is the closest we come to being on River Time. Clocks may have reached their greedy hands into the deepest crevices of our lives, this is still what matters here. The river knows of hustle and bustle - she sees them every day with their outboard motors and schedules - but when their wake disappears she is the same, always. In truth my own path probably lies more in hustle, or at least in obeying the clocks that drive us forward each day, but I wish to keep a toe in River Time. Just a toe, trailing in the water with wet abandon until necessity finds me once again.
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