Boat-Saver

Yesterday we went on a beautiful guided kayaking tour along the Geiranger Fjord. Here is a picture of the fjord as seen from the road above before we drove down to where we were set to launch. This photo has been taken by everyone who has ever been to Norway. And I guarantee if you ever go to Norway, you will take it, too.

The fjord (any fjord), the giant cruise ship dwarfed by the water and mountains, it is a required photo-op for any visitor. In fact, they check your cameras at the border when you leave the country and if you haven't taken this photo or one just like it, they confiscate your camera (clearly you have no idea what should be photographed and what should not) and charge you 10,000 kroner. You've been warned.

Now, this kayaking trip was to be relaxing and beautiful, and was to include one hour of paddling, then docking at a little inlet, walking 20 minutes to a farmhouse, having lunch and then paddling back. I would like you to pay special attention to the section where I mentioned the 20-minute walk, because that is what the man on the phone told me it was, a 20-minute WALK. Easy, no problem.

I should have known better. The Norwegians are worse than the Swiss in their total underselling of the effort involved in any given task. I thought they were masters of understatement in Switzerland, but the Norwegians put them to shame. An "easy, 45-minute walk" will take you an hour-and-a-half and be straight uphill. A "3-4 hour moderate hike" will take you ten days and require the intervention of Search and Rescue.

But those Norwegians are tough folk, and as we were kayaking along the lovely fjord in the gently falling rain, our guide pointed to cliffs and trails way overhead and described the 95-year old woman who lives alone in a village under constant threat of rockslides who still walks two miles uphill (both ways) to get her groceries.

That was followed by the story of the midwife who, some time in the late 1800's walked in pitch darkness in a snowstorm along a cliffside trail that today people will only attempt with crampons and pack-mules, in order to help a woman birth a baby. Oh, did I mention that the midwife was 77 years old at the time? Well, she was 77 years old at the time. True story, apparently.

There were 8 of us on this kayak trip, plus our guide. Three pair of us were in double kayaks, and then there were three in singles. The paddle part was lovely, though we didn't take many pictures since it was raining, we were paddling and our camera was stowed in a dry-bag, but trust me, it was very pretty.

I was feeling all relaxed and happy when we kayaked our way into a rocky inlet for our "walk", and our guide pulled all of our kayaks out of the water onto the rocks to await our return. There was no word of warning at all about this "walk", other than that it "would get our hearts beating" and we should take our time.

Now let me say here that I have a shady past with hiking. Sometimes I love it, often I hate it. Part of the problem is that Steve is so much fitter than I am that he takes off up or down a mountain like a goat while I am left huffing and puffing (and some time later, crying), in his wake. Being a cyclist, his idea of how long it takes to go a certain number of miles is very skewed, and he will insist that a 9-mile hike isn't very far at all, forgetting that on foot over rough terrain that will probably take about 7 hours. Something like that.

Basically I enjoy a hike that feels like a difficult walk. I don't mind some uphill here and there, and I don't really even mind the distance. I love to walk through woods and by streams to be rewarded with a lovely view at the top, etc. What I don't enjoy is feeling like I'm in danger. I go walking or hiking to relax, breath fresh air, get my heart rate going a bit. I don't want to feel like my lungs are bleeding; I don't want to feel like I'm going to die from sliding off the edge of a cliff. I have never enjoyed pushing myself physically until it hurts and I want to cry for my mama.

I create enough stress in my every day life; I want time spent outdoors to be relaxing. Invigorating is all right, too, but not death-defying.

This hike was horrifying: it was a vertical ascent up dirt and rocks that were wet with rain and moss, and I got up about 100 feet when I realized that there was no way I could do it. Getting up would be bad enough, but coming down....forget it. I hate nothing more than slipping and sliding down a super steep hill over rocks and dirt where you just know that if your feet really get away from you, you have a nice drop down to the bottom of a crevasse to look forward to.

I panicked. I full-on panicked. Steve took one look at my face and was like"oh crap". I told the guide that I couldn't do it, and that I was happy to take my sandwich and hang out on the rocks by the boat until they came back. The guide said that he couldn't leave me on my own for liability reasons. I swore at him in my head and took about 4 more steps. I turned back to him again and this time he really looked at my face and saw the fear and, embarrassingly, the tears starting to form in my eyes.

He very kindly said that though he wasn't supposed to since he could lose his job (though technically he was an un-paid intern), I could go back down and wait it out. He begged me not to hurt myself in his absence, and begged me not to mention it to his bosses upon our return.

Steve wanted to stay with me (well, he didn't WANT to, but that's what a very nice spouse offers to do), but I sent him on his way with a ham and cheese sandwich. Once the others were out of sight, I sat down on the trail and literally slid my way down on my ass over dirt, rocks, and what I am desperately hoping was not Poison Ivy.

When I got down to where the boats were docked, I sat on a rock and ate my sandwich. I am embarrassed to say after all my rantings my sandwich was salami and cheese. You try and escape it-I dare you!!

I watched the water, and I have to admit, I felt bad. I felt like a coward and a failure. I felt that Steve would be disappointed in me for not being brave. But I thought about some of the things I've done in my life: moving out to Los Angeles at 20 years old having never seen the city and not knowing a soul there; being an actor for most of my life, constantly being on stage, or auditioning in front of audiences of 2 or 200, when for most people public speaking is scarier than dying; acting in front of the camera; not to mention putting everything in storage and taking this trip we're on now, and i thought different people are brave in different ways, and I had nothing to be ashamed of.

On the tail of this thought, a very large ferry passed by in the water, and about 40 seconds later, a wake came onto the rocks. It was a big wake and it lasted a long time. It didn't reach me, but it dislodged three of the boats from where they were stowed on the rocks. The one nearest me I was able to grab onto and pull back onto the rocks before it got swept away. But two others got smacked repeatedly up against the far rock wall and then swept out into the water.

Luckily, there was a man in a small boat nearby who was just preparing to leave the inlet. He kindly pushed first one, then a second kayak back toward the rock near me, and I sat at the edge of the rock, butt in the water, grabbed each boat in turn and pulled them back up onto the rocks out of the water.

I felt so pleased, and couldn't help thinking that everything happens for a reason. Had I not been there, we would have returned to find three boats gone. I was the boat-saver!

Our guide, when he returned, insisted that the boats were tied to each other and the rocks and wouldn't have gone far, but I can tell you that when those two boats sailed off one after the other, they weren't tied to any rock, nor were they anywhere near each other. And as he went about getting the boats ready for us to leave, he himself noted that the ties he had fastened from boat to boat and boat to rocks were, in fact, no longer in place.

I was hoping to wheedle a free trip out of my adventure, but the poor guide was so concerned about getting fired that he insisted again that I tell anyone who asked that I had done the hike, since if I told my exciting "I saved the boats" story to anyone he worked with, they would know he had left me alone. Just another unsung hero, me.

Steve later told me that I hadn't missed that much at the top of the hike, and that although he had been disappointed at first that I stayed back, the further he climbed and the worse it got, the happier he was at my decision, since if I'd made it up, he didn't think I would ever have been able to get down again. I would have had one sore butt, that's for sure.