September 1, 2003

The Matron Saint of Lower Columbia Sea Kayakers -- April 2003

The old Sea Kayaker magazines I recently put up for a friend were gifted to him by a woman who was the first person to sea kayak extensively around here. We call her "the mother of Lower Columbia River sea kayaking" because of it. She indirectly got me started in this stuff, so that's part of the story, too. She is our local paddling pioneer. Here's our pioneer's story:

Marcia (as she called herself in those years) was an import to the lower Columbia region. She came here to be trained as an ocean technologist -- to assist oceanographers both at sea and on shore in gathering oceanographic data, preparing and repairing gear, and helping to reduce the data to something useful. That's how I met her -- she was a student in one of my chemistry classes some 25 years ago at the local community college. [That program went defunct in 1985, as job opportunities for ocean techs increasingly went to folks with a bachelors degree.]

She was a one-of-a-kind person: wholly self-contained, yet not entirely self-confident. Imaginative and effective as a tech, but not socially comfortable in the usual modes college students favor. Sort of a loner, but not unfriendly or lonely. As comfortable fixing a transmission as she was wolfing down tofu. Engaging in one-on-one situations, but invisible in large groups (unless she'd been drinking!).

After receiving her two-year degree, she bummed around here, sort of in a holding pattern, hooking onto the odd oceanographic cruise, and in between doing odd jobs to satisfy her minimalist lifestyle. Maybe three - four years after graduation I ran into her at the laundromat and asked her what she did to entertain herself. She replied -- "Sea kayaking!" -- about which I knew nothing. I mean I'd never heard of it. Period. Which is kind of odd for a person living adjacent to the sea in a seafaring community.

Anyhow, Marcia went off and did her thing, and I lost track of her until the fall of 1986, when my then-spouse hooked us and my son into a for-hire sea kayaking trip out of Loreto in Baja California. We did not know whether we could handle this, though we had a canoe and had paddled it on flatwater some. I remembered Marcia, and somehow we located her. She was ecstatic to have someone else who wanted to paddle her craft. We met her at the local boat ramp, PFD's and egos in hand.

In turn, we each hopped in and paddled up and down the adjacent slough. Seemed OK to us, so we went to Baja over Christmas of 1986. Had a blast. Loved it. My son and I paddled an Easy Rider double together most of the time, me in the rear seat. One day a basking shark whacked our bow silly as we lagged behind the others -- scared us spitless! My son showed a remarkably good command of language I normally reserve for bad drivers.

Scroll forward to 1990. Marcia had moved to Corvallis, Oregon, worked for a couple years at Oregon State as a real ocean tech, got burned out, and migrated over to custodial work. She decided to move on to other recreational habits, and basically "gave" her entire sea kayaking kit to her former ocean tech instructor, my long-time buddy Gary: boat, two sets of paddles, tons of dry bags, VHF, etc., etc. He gulped and said "thank you," promising to give the stuff back if Marcia ever decided she needed it.

That boat spurred Gary into sampling the Columbia. A few weeks after his inaugural outing, he told me about it, and within a couple months, I hooked up with a used boat and we were off. That was 1991.

Marcia covered the entire lower Columbia in her boat, a good bit of the San Juans, some of the Gulf Islands, several paddlespots on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and visited Desolation Sound. All of it solo, and all of it accompanied by her small cocker mix, Lacy. Lacy rode on a rubber carpet pad behind the cockpit, but when the water got rough or Lacy got scared or cold, Marcia slid the dog into the cockpit, and Lacy peered out over the top of the sprayskirt!

Only a monster cockpit could handle that, and Marcia's boat had it. It was one of the original designs Eddyline produced: the Orca. A terrific boat in calm conditions, but a mother in a following sea. It had a microcephalic bow and a bulbous stern, making it one stone broach machine! I watched Gary "surf" a following sea one day, pleading with the sea gods for mercy, now and then slapping a low brace out to prevent catastrophe, as I ho-hummed away next to him in my Wind Dancer.

And Marcia took that boat all those places.

Here's the end of the story: Summer of 1993 Marcia came back for a short visit. We arranged for her to paddle her old boat, with now-ancient Lacy on deck, to one of her favorite local campspots on Long Island in Willapa Bay, WA. The rest of us (some four-five strong) followed behind in deference to her return, speeding up at the last and whipping out a bottle of chardonnay, a glass, and a trio of roses as she and the dog slid ashore. Marcia was speechless. Lacy ambled off to pee.

Marcia never returned. She moved on to backpacking, hauling Lacy. But, we all remember her for what she started down here.

Whoever got Marcia's magazines -- be sure to pass on the story as you share them around.
---
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 2003 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Republished here with permission.