Riding With the Wind
Before I learned to surf I was a kayaker. I worked as a seakayak guide, taking paying customers, usually tourists, out on the ocean to find, observe and interact with marine wildlife, like turtles, dolphins, whales, and, occasionally and unintentionally, sharks. Before that I worked as a guide on whitewater rivers, running kayaks through rapids. For years I led multi-day kayaking trips on creeks, rivers and lakes in remote and wilderness areas for a living. My first forays out into the world of catching waves on the ocean were done in kayaks. I’d use a small, short kayak with a lot of rocker, a lot of curve in the bottom shape, and I would drop down into holes and race away along towering green walls while paddling like mad. The first barrel I ever got myself into was in a kayak. There’s drawbacks to that. You can get in there all right. You just don’t get out in one piece. The shape and size of a kayak is ill-suited to the confines of a barrel, and there’s no room to swing a paddle ar...