Water Boy

"I'm sure you're fit enough to finish the race, but paddling twenty-two miles across Lake Tahoe with a seven hour cutoff might not be the best idea for your first paddle race".  This was the latest message in the email chain that I had been exchanging with the Race Director of a stand up paddle board race across Lake Tahoe that I was considering doing.  I've been doing water sports off and on since I was a kid, but I had never participated in a paddle race before, and it was clear that I was a little in over my head.  I agreed to sit this one out, do some shorter races first, and sign up next year.  I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that I likely dodged a bullet.  On the morning of the race I hopped into my car before the sun came up, stopped at 7-Eleven for coffee and provisions, put on some good music, and hit the road, arriving in Tahoe City around 9:00 AM.  I was going to stick to my original plan, only with one minor change.  Instead of racing, I would spend a few hours paddling around the lake on my own so I could enjoy the experience without the pressure.  Once I parked, I walked down to the beach, rented a board and paddle, and off I went.  Lake Tahoe is one of my favorite places.  It rests majestically at 6,200 feet in the Sierra Nevada mountains, offers stunning scenery, and is a year round paradise for outdoor enthusiasts.  The water was clear, blue, fresh, and calm as I paddled along.  Tall mountains surrounded the lake as the sun lit up the tops of the pine trees along the shoreline.  As I admired the scenery, I spotted a couple of sailboats out in the distance.  I fixated on them for a few seconds before shifting my focus back to the open lake in front of me.  My mind began to wander.         

I remember the first time I went sailing.  Actually, no I don't.  Which is probably a good thing, otherwise this story would be super cliche, but sailing played a significant role in my life while growing up.  My dad and his buddies participated in sailboat races before I was born and I grew up spending summer weekends sailing with my family and our family friends as a way of enjoying the outdoors.  laying out on the deck near the bow of our twenty-six foot Ranger sailboat and looking out at the water was always a nice distraction from whatever I had going on at school or my part time job.  I remember always looking out at the buildings along the distant shoreline and reveling in the peacefulness of the lake.  It was mellow compared to the hustle and bustle of the cities along the shore.  Every July my dad, along with a few other guys, would assist his friend Gale, who I respectfully called "Uncle Gale", in sailing his boat from Lake St. Clair to a small town called Presque Isle on the northern coast of Michigan, a trip that took approximately forty-eight hours.  My dad's other friend Mike joined every year as well, while the rest of the line up rotated year over year.  Once the guys arrived up north with the boat, Uncle Gale's wife, Aunt Gina, would drive up north, get on the boat, then my dad and the other guys would use her car to drive back to my hometown in the Detroit area, while Uncle Gale and Aunt Gina spent anywhere from three to five weeks on the boat together, sailing from town to town.  In the summer of 1999, when I was thirteen years old, my dad asked me if I wanted to accompany him and the guys for the trip north.  He explained that if I was going to join I would have to follow a few rules.  One of the rules was don't get too drunk, which wasn't a problem for me because I was barely a teenager.  The other one was that since we were sailing through the night, each of the guys had to take two hour "shifts" while the others slept.  This basically meant that one guy had to sit in the cockpit to make sure we didn't hit any freighters or collide with any boats.  The auto-steer function kept us on course so we didn't need to worry about steering the boat.  My dad said that we could both do his shifts together.  I happily agreed to join, and did so subsequently every year all the way up until my mid-twenties when I moved to California.  After the first couple of years, I began participating in the return trip from up north back down to Lake St. Clair as well.  Ever year was a different experience.  Most years, the weather was great, and the water was smooth as glass, other times it was stormy and the lake was so choppy the boat was bouncing almost the entire time.  But it was always fun.  The first year in particular when I was thirteen years old was game-changing for me.  The trip had everything you'd expect from four guys on a sailboat together.  There was plenty of foul language, dirty jokes, and laughs.  On the way up north we would always stop in a town called Port Huron.  We'd always leave Lake St. Clair on a Friday afternoon and make it up to Port Huron by around 10:00 PM, pull into the harbor, and stay for the night.  Why Port Huron?  Because every year, the Friday that we left was Boat Night.  Boat Night was the night before a yearly sailboat race that started in Port Huron and it was a giant party chock full of alcohol, drugs, and other debauchery which flooded the streets of downtown and brought a large amount of business to Port Huron's bars.  Every year, we'd arrive, get off the boat, and go for a walk to admire the chaos while all the drunks stumbled around and puked in the alleys.  Believe me, it was quite entertaining.  Especially when my dad scolded me for mouthing off to some drunk douche bag who made fun of my Limp Bizkit T-shirt.  Boat Night was fun, but what I really looked forward to about those trips were the adventures on the lake.  Sitting in the cockpit in the middle of the night with my dad under the stars was one of the coolest things I remember.  I had always thought being on the water was peaceful, but being out there at night was a whole other experience.  We were always about a half a mile from the shoreline and I loved watching the lights from the lighthouses flashing on the distant shore.  The absence of light pollution on the lake presented skies full of beautiful stars.  There were millions of them and they were more steadfast and bright than I had ever seen.  Typically, there wasn't much going on out on the lake in the middle of the night except for the occasional freighter or sailboat that would cruise by, although my dad and I did see some crazy stuff on occasion.  One year we saw the northern lights, which is incredibly rare in Northern Michigan.  Another year, we saw what we actually thought was a UFO.  It was so strange.  We were sitting in the cockpit, when out of nowhere, a mysterious black object appeared overhead, probably about a quarter of a mile ahead of us.  The object shined a light on the lake for about five seconds, then completely vanished.  No sounds or anything.  My dad and I looked at each other in disbelief.  Of course, Uncle Gale and the rest of the guys didn't believe a word we said the next morning when we told them about this surreal encounter.  There's nothing like watching a sunrise in the middle of the lake either.  One year when I was nineteen, I was in the cockpit as the sun was rising.  The thin clouds took on various shades of orange and yellow as the sun fired light across the morning sky.  The Blue Water bridge appeared in the distance, meaning we were about to enter the St. Clair river.  As I was enjoying this euphoric moment, Uncle Gale poked his head out from down below and handed me a cup of coffee.  "Here's your coffee, Duker".  He never called me Liam, I was always Duker my whole life, and still am to this day.  "Thanks" I replied taking the steaming mug.  "Oh wait, do we have any creamer on board?" I asked.  "Nope".  I drank my coffee straight up and from that day forward, never used creamer again.

Refocusing my thoughts on the present, the lake was becoming more choppy, as more motorboats, some pulling wake boarders, were now speeding across the lake.  As the waves rolled towards me from the middle of the lake, I began to roll up and down, which added more excitement to the paddling experience.  I thought about how much my dad, Uncle Gale, and the guys would love sailing on Lake Tahoe.  I thought about sailing on Lake St. Clair and the sailing trips to and from up north and how much I wanted to do it again.  I thought about kayaking on Grand Lake during the summer every year in Northern Michigan at the Fireside Inn (that place will get it's own blog post eventually).  Lastly, I thought about how all the experiences have led to my love of being on the water as an adult.  Sadly, I don't sail as much nowadays since I've moved to California, but one of these years, I'll visit Michigan in the summer so I can reconnect with sailing and Lake St. Clair.  In the meantime, enjoying the lakes of California on a kayak or paddle board is an excellent way to keep my love of being on the water going strong!