Lost

"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly"

- Richard Phillips Feynman 

I paddle off in the direction of Kho Yao. Just as my waiter had predicted, it's late afternoon and the waves have picked up again; the wind skimming the tops of the swelling tide. To make matters worse I have no clue what part of the miles of shoreline I should be, generally, aiming for. Fortunately, there is little one can do in this situation but paddle and I do. For hours.

But, when the shore is finally close enough for me to identify distinguishing landmarks, I don't recognize anything about it. I paddle to the next bay. This one seems vaguely familiar, in fact I think it might be exactly where I want to land so I head in. When my kayak hits the sand, a tall, athletic Scandanavian woman gets up from her blanket to greet me.

"Is this Coconut Corner?" I ask, while the stern of my kayak is tossed about by the waves.

"I don't know," she answers. Instead of feeling disappointed I am reassured that someone is more lost than me. She asks if she can see my map.

"I still don't know. My friend will tell you. He is also better with English than me."

I hadn't noticed any deficiency in her use of the lingua franca but I wait while Hans strides down the beach to confer with us. He moves like a man who has lost his cross country ski poles but hasn't noticed it yet. As this thought crosses my mind a random wave catches the stern of my kayak and water sloshes into my cockpit. I curse, unhitch the skirt and scrabble clumsily onto the beach.

"Yeees? Can I be ov help to you?"

I look up, waaaay up into the steel grey eyes of a perfectly chiseled, earthbound Norse god.

"Well," I begin, trying to wipe the salt off my face as I proffer my map, "I'm wondering where I am."

He squints at the map, then stoops lower as if trying to read the topography of an anthill on earth from his perch up on Mars.

"'May I?" he asks, gesturing towards the map I've been holding up towards him as an offering.

"Please," I almost beg, while glancing back nervously at my unmanned kayak being roughed up by gangs of shore seeking waves.

"Ahhh, yes, here. You are here." I stand on the tips of my toes and peer over the sides of the map to see where he's pointing. This bay is still miles away from Coconut Corner.

"What?!?!?"

"Yes, yes. These circles are those islands over there," he answers certainly, pointing to the islands I just paddled from. The distance seems impossible. If he's right I would have had to have paddled over ten miles yesterday, which would have been unlikely enough on a calm day if I'd left shortly after dawn, never mind in that storm with only four hours of daylight left.

"Oi," is all I can manage as I take the map from him.

"You seem not to believe me!" He is defiant, daring me to contradict him but I am too exhausted, and if he is right, I still have far too far to paddle to waste any precious seconds arguing.

Instead I say, "It's not that, it's just I'm trying to get down here and I don't think I'm going to make it before dark."

His gaze follows my finger on the map. "Oh yes, you have very far to go, very far," he answers agreeably.

I thank him and try to relaunch my craft. Instead I slip on a rock and tear open my foot, my blood staining the water pink. Odin rushes forward.

"You need help," he announces, scooping me up, plopping me into the kayak and pushing me out to sea. "Good luck," he calls after me. I'm sure he means well, but something about his tone sounds ominous.

The puddle of saltwater I'm sitting in stings my wounded foot, and more water spray is leaking through the skirt as the waves batter me from the east. I try to find a clear line of valleys in the waves to tack into but, like yesterday, the water no longer has a clear purpose. Several times over the next few hours I am actually body checked by random swells.

My arms are numb with exhaustion. At the end of every bay I tell myself, "Just around this corner. It's got to be here," but when I survey the coastlines there are no recognizable landmarks. So I make deals with myself. "Just to the next one. If it's not there you'll stop for the night." It's the only way I can convince myself to keep going until, after rounding the third corner, I begin to make deals with the Universe.

Not deals, exactly, it's more like desperate pleading. "Please," I groan, "please, please let it be the next one. I can't take this anymore." Saltwater stings my eyes and when I open them again I am certain I see a large fin surface on the water fifty yards ahead.

I struggle past two more bays before the third swell strikes. With the sun balancing precariously on the horizon I realize, I will have to stop at the next bay no matter what may lie there. My cockpit is full of blood infused water. One more big wave, two more small ones and I'll have to start bailing that blood scented water into the shark infested sea precisely at their dinner time.

My next five strokes are clumsy, sloppy, efforts that move no water at all. Oh god, I've pushed myself too far. I can't go any farther and I'm at least twenty minutes from the rocky undockable shore. I think of the fin. I lift my paddle out of the water, the kayak sways then surfs a wave two feet closer towards the distant shore. I raise my paddle over my head. My shoulders scream in agony, and I scream out loud in frustration.

Then, with another large swell heading straight towards the broadside of my boat I dig in with a second, angrier yell. The sun has already sunk halfway below the horizon when I round the craggy bend, but the water in this bay is relatively calm. I can smell a campfire burning somewhere on shore and I can only hope that it's keepers are friendly and kind. But the beach is deserted.

I hobble ashore leaving my kayak dangerously close to the tide but unable to pull it out of harms way by myself. I limp my way up the beach, onto the freshly manicured grass towards the giant log burning in the neatly arranged fire pit. There is no one there. No one sitting on the teak wood benches with white upholstered mattresses stuffed so full a Princess wouldn't feel a pea under it, no one basking in the orange glow of the white paper lanterns and no one singing sea shanties and folksy ditties around the blazing yule log.

"Hello?!?!" I call out into the inky night but no one answers. I limp towards the large gazebo that serves, judging by the stainless steel appliances, as an outdoor kitchen.

"Hello?" I call again, moving tenderly towards the wooden deck of the white canvas tent.

Still no answer.

I continue walking through a well tended garden calling as I go but the place is deserted. I look back at the glowing fire which begs to contradict this conclusion and realize, uneasily, that this is how horror movies start. Bored nouveau riche Scandinavians, create an elaborate scheme to hunt people for sport. They set up a kayak shack in a touristy country. They hire a local paying him large sums of hush money to be their front man renting adventure sport equipment to travellers. When their addled prey return they send someone out to meet them, misdirect them, set them farther off course. They light the sort of fire only a Nordic could and wait for their prey to drift ashore. They watch from the darkening corners of the night as she wanders around this seeming paradise. They watch her settle in to this impeccable scene they've created. They wait patiently while she gets comfortable. When she has finally succumbed to the false sense of security they spring from the darkness, the adrenaline kick that her terrified scream injects into their cold, cold hearts is better than all the....

Enough. What choice do I have anyway? I walk gingerly back to the beach. It takes me ten minutes to haul my kayak the six feet required to get it up past the tide line.

I open the hatch, haul out a bamboo mat, the map, my bananas and bottle of water and limp back to the fire. I spread out my belongings, study my map and wait.