Re: [Paddlewise] Vertigo?

Greg reflects;

>Freuchen writes:
>"The Greenland fjords are peculiar for the spells of completely quiet
>weather, when there is not enough wind to blow out a match and the water is
>like a sheet of glass. The kayak hunter must sit in his boat without
>stirring a finger so as not to scare the shy seals sway. Actually, he can
>only move his eyes, as even the slightest move otherwise might mean game
>lost. The sun, low in the sky, sends a glare into his eyes, and the
>landscape around moves into the realm of the unreal. The reflex from the
>mirror-like water hypnotizes him, he seems to be unable to move, and all of
>a sudden it is as if he were floating in a bottomless void, sinking,
>sinking, and sinking .... Horror-stricken, he tries to stir, to cry out but
>he cannot, he is completely paralyzed, he just falls and falls and falls.
>   This trance may last until perhaps a slight ripple of wind on the
>surface of the water brings reality back to him."
>
>Freuchen mentions no cure, the "kayak illness" accounted for the ruin of
>many able-bodied Greenland kayakers who were no longer able to provide for
>their families.
>
Greg this really hits home.
 During my 20 day out at sea alone I felt truly part of the sea in the Gulf
of Mexico.  Each day brought it's own trials and tribulations.  Each was
anticipated except for day sixteen.  All the previous days was days of
chaotic seas ranging from three to ten foot waves created by the loop
current.  This day, day sixteen was one of 98 degree F and dead calm seas.
It was truly a day of confusion. Should I paddle, no I can not afford to
sweat, the fluid within my body was to valuable to waste in my quest to head
north.
The effort to make fresh water from the salt water that supported my vessel
was to intense to replenish my body.  Should I sleep in this scorching
environment, how can I?  I laid still with my head on the rear deck, no
there was no sleep, my mind was fixed on the happenings around me.  I could
not keep my head on the rear deck.  I was waiting, waiting for what?  I did
not have a clue but my mind told something was going to happen.  Why was I
so fixed on the happenings around me when it was dead calm?  This feeling
did not evolve on the hectic days of confused seas and ships encroaching
within my boundaries threatening my life.
   Where am I ?    Only two forms of the environment existed, no land,
miles upon miles of water surrounded my kayak and three miles thick below me
and the vast heavens above.   There were no family or friends I could turn
to, no comfort of a bed, no solid land to set foot upon.
I had this feeling of the ocean bottom with all it's creatures would emerge
from the depths below at any time.  The sea seem to be a sleeping giant that
I felt was going to waken, with a mighty roar as the depths would rise to
the surface.  Something is wrong here why won't the sea move?  What creature
is going to surface?  The sea is preparing for something.  Something must be
going to happen why is the sea at rest?
   During a moving sea waves kept me aware of my surrounding and kept me
busy surviving.  I had no  physical challenge this sixteen day.  The
challenge I have this day was one of the mind.   The sea became vast it's
true depth was relized  There was no feeling of sinking but a feeling of the
ocean bottom and the creatures would be coming up to greet me at any moment,
friend or foe I did not know.  A feeling of not sinking but the sea
surrounding me with it's depth and creatures yet the tiny vessel staying on
the surface of the water.  I stayed fixed on watching the slime gathering
against my hull an eerie feeling it was.  No wind no current, how can this
be so far from land in the Gulf of Mexico.
   I research and was prepared for every thing that happened thus far in a
small vessel hundreds of miles from the closet land.  Through my many
readings and raised on the water with commercial fisherman in the very
waters that engulfed me on day sixteen, nothing prepared me for this
experience of the true power of the sea.  Sure one can talk of the awesome
power of the sea and surf.  I have personally experience the true awesome
power how the sea can over power the mind even at it's most placid state.
It was this day of calm waters that was truly the most fearsome. It was this
day the only day that visual hallucinations happened.  Before this awesome
day the only hallucinations was only entering through my ears not my eyes.
Sure the big macho types can talk bout the big waves, powerful surf and
fearsome currents lets see how they handle the dead calm in a true survival
situation.   The big waves, powerful surf and powerful currents are the easy
part of the sea, they are predictable.
   I have been in placid water with no sight of land before but never
experienced a feeling like I did on day sixteen.  Guess with so many factors
involved, sleep depravation, alone at sea for so many days, near miss from
death by ships and fishing vessels,  threat of water spouts and thunder
heads, the pain from the many salt water boils over my entire body as fresh
salt entered the wounds, missing my family and friends.
I'm clueless to explain that feeling of day sixteen.
Prior to my experience on that day sixteen I would not have understood
Greg's clip from what Fleuchen wrote, now I do with all my heart  Do I
understand the feeling, yes. Understood why, I may never know.  Could be I
don't want to know.  I  would welcome the sea to enter my mind again.  Acid
and LSD ain't hitting on nuttin, the open sea is my drug of choice.
How to over come her power over our simple minds...................  I'll
wait for
someone else to explain how it's done.   Then I shall sit back and  :-)


           Our Mother The Sea
The fatuous, she showers with humility.
No fleshly form can match her force.
Respect to her is breadth of vision.
Beholden too her if to survive.
Arthur Hebert 1998
http://homepages.gs.net/seacajun



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