Beached

The sky is turning to coral pink and I want to get off the water. My body is aching from the paddling and the sitting, I need to pee and I need to set up camp while there's still light. There's also the sharks, which the pocket book authority on the subject assures me, usually feed, and therefor attack, at dusk and dawn. It hasn't been the sort of day to tempt the fates.

It's at least another half a mile until I find a deserted beach and head towards shore. Approaching the beach I become so enamoured of the white sand against the flaming orange of the setting sun I forget all about the ocean behind me. I take too long to get out of my kayak, and end up washed ashore by a wave that also breaks over the stern and fills the cockpit. I scramble onto the beach and pull the kayak onto the sand but with my jellyfish arms it's a struggle. I manage to get the kayak out of the water but, with all the camping gear, it weighs almost as much as I do and dragging it up past the tide line seems impossible.

After bailing the water I accept that my arms are useless to me and crouch down instead, using my legs for both leverage and motion in a sort of crab walk. I make it half way to the tide line then, eying the darkening sky warily, I decide it's best to unload.

I choose a spot at the top of a miniature sand dune beside a sandy gully and underneath a large, bare branched tree to try and set up the tent but the poles are rusted and brittle. The wind is still gusting and I need to anchor it but the pegs are useless in sand. I lose two pegs in the process and end up just tossing as much of my gear inside the tent as possible. It will keep the tent from blowing away but it's a question of when the poles will blow over collapsing the tent, not if.

I walk down the beach one last time to drag the kayak out of the ocean's reach, carefully picking my way around the sand crabs that scuttle from the threat of my feet and scatter to safety. When the kayak is stowed under the bushes that line the beach, I gather up the last of my gear and walk back to the tent, collecting twigs and driftwood.

I dig a pit in the sand, fill it with dry leaves and twigs and light a fire. I unfurl a bamboo beach mat, open my bottle of wine and watch the lightning to the North, East and South of me. I am glad I pitched the precarious tent, certain at least one of those storms will pass over me tonight, but when the wine is gone I fall asleep on the mat gazing up at a blanket of stars and listening to the tide roll in.