[Paddlewise] Fear is the Ocean (was Quirks and phobias) LONG

Ken said:
>My quirk/phobia is deep water, which is anything I can't stand up in :-)<

Well, humour aside, a consistently strong fear of deep water is an actual
medical condition. I know, because I suffered with it, to a certain degree
anyway, for most of my childhood  -- and on into my tween years before
abatement in adulthood. I was fine in the water, with bodies of water such
as small lakes -- if I stayed close to shore and the shoreline was
reasonably manicured (free of weeds, etc). I was okay with pools and ocean
shorelines too. While perhaps a pseudo Aquaphobia -- and more of a fear of
being in the water as opposed to being on it -- I did notice early on an
aversion to being aboard larger vessels (Gephyrophobia) while moving through
deep water. I hated it when my father would force me to stand near the guard
rails for those photogenic moments in the Mediterranean as a youngster.

Swimming out to a moored platform at a large lake would often really freak
me out, and was cause for more than a bit of teasing from my sister. Fish
darting about, lake weeds undulating and glistening underneath as the sun
penetrated to depth -- ugh! I hated it. I'd swim out to deeper water to get
away from the shoreline, but then I'd get that feeling of "deepseaitis." A
fishing trip out through the Golden Gate Bridge once, was another one of
those truly awful memories of yesteryear when we moved to the USA for
awhile. Funnily enough, I had no fear of ocean shorelines and waves
(Cymophobia), enjoying body surfing/playing in both the Pakistani and
California coastline when and where undertow could be avoided and adult
consent gained.

As a young teen having arrived in Victoria, I attended a boy's school
adjacent to the sea, where there was a sailing tradition to uphold and
maintain. I could never bring myself to a point where I could enjoy the
sailing or relax out past the breakwater. It eventually developed into a
real abnormal fear of the ocean, in particular (Thalassophobia). I've talked
with other paddlers who had to overcome similar phobias and degrees of mixed
fears. Some couldn't even bring themselves to get their faces wet. Perhaps
there are a variety of water related phobias, as individual and complex as
the people involved.

Niels was talking earlier about a slow process of desensitization to a given
fear. For me, my life has always been earmarked by radical paradigm shifts
in my control and overcoming of fears, which are after all, almost always
irrational and therefore, simply a matter of changing one's perspective or
adjusting one's attitudes.

In terms of sea kayaking, I'd enjoyed a few years of canoeing and river
kayaking (as we used to call it) but didn't appreciate the social dynamic
and need for shuttling, etc. I finally swallowed my fear one very unexpected
fall day, took my river kayak out off Beachy Head in what I later found out
was a pronounced tide against wind situation. And oh, was the broaching
maddening and dangerous in an unskeged, rockered short kayak. I was scared
straight and refrained further forays until the winter of 1980, when I again
swallowed my fears (and didn't even think about enlisting help or
educational assistance) heading out to Port Renfrew, where I launched into
verified 20 foot plus seas by riding the surge out from a gully behind the
local hotel/pub, where the seas engulfed the small river gully with each
swell. I was scared out of my mind, but strangely in this longer excursion,
not of the sea itself. I had no safety gear, no paddlefloat, bailer -- 
nothing. Just a PFD, boat, paddle, and woollies. I didn't even know there
were such things as trueblood sea kayaks, classes, or anything related other
than those foldboat things that grumpy old Germans paddled. I also had my
new PFD, which I had been told by the club, would make me a safe paddler. A
funny situation, now that I look back.

Anyway, surrounded by vast, endless log jams eerily bobbing and rolling and
colliding in the steep, fast moving swell (and by individual trees trunks
yanked off the shoreline by the swell and higher than normal, low-pressure
induced tide height), I was in deep trouble on that very intriguing day of
my life. I was taking on water through the skirt, and it was only a matter
of time before tragedy would befall. I knew there was no way I'd swim around
the indented smaller bays full of floating log jams, let alone safely
scramble ashore. As a trained lifeguard, I was also aware of the limited
distance one can actually swim, once in the water.Yet nevertheless, I
suffered no apparent dismay of deep water while busy trying to stay upright
and navigate back from the point near Botanical Beach.

There's something about sitting in a kayak, low to the horizon, with an
obtuse view of the water's surface that diffuses that sense of vastness,
deepness, and accompanying dread. Sailboats, dories, rowboats, and even
canoes had always been a problem for me. It was like the difference one
feels driving one's vehicle too fast, as compared with the way one feels in
the back seat of a car when
someone _else_ is driving the car fast (or even at the speed limit). Or as
one poster to the list stated,
sitting in a kayak just feels right.

I made it back in, exhausted and frustrated with the kayak, and immediately
headed for the kayak store listen in the Yellow Pages (a friend had made my
river kayak). A bright yellow Nordkapp sat on the dealer's wall. He said
"now THIS is a ocean kayak" (he never called it a sea kayak or sea kayaking)
and "it's what you want." Tippy and heavy, it was mine the next day, and I
never looked back. Subsequent exposure to my then soon-to-be mentor, Fred
Potter (an ex westcoast commercial fisherman), taught me the basics of sea
kayaking, and even more so, good seamanship from a paddlers perspective,
including hypothermia avoidance and proactive problem solving. Further
exposure to Derek Hutchinson in the following year(s) solidified my new
found love for the sea and the sense of control of self and situation upon
our planet's inchoate seas full of ancient devils and deep mystery. Derek
also showed us how (those in our club) to safely push limits and potentiate
further challenges safely. But it wasn't until a daunting 30 plus minute
swim in a tide race/storm condition off Trial Island many years later that I
finally lost that fear of "things underneath." In that case, it was a forced
issue (and further introduced me to the relative and successful benefits of
rescue aid technology with multiple backups).

My point in all this is that sometimes one just needs to figuratively or
literally dive right in - just do it as the ad campaign suggests. Do it cold
turkey. If you like turkey warm, then sure, take it slow if you must. Some
may also have physical limitations. And if you can't overcome a fear, then
learn to live with it, adjust to it, and don't let others bug you about it.
What fear are they hiding? I admit I do have more respect for someone who at
least gives overcoming a particular fear a reasonable try.

Fear of the night/darkness was another issue I tried to face down over the
years (Scotophobia). My first solo wilderness sea kayak trip was fraught
with despair and imagined evils. In usual fashion, my first trip was an open
ocean adventure -- for a week down the West Coast Trail (by sea of course)
during the shoulder season, with a big sea running. It was my first
multiday/night trip. How silly now that I look back, but it was a big deal
for me at the time. I used to be scared even at home in the dark.

I've also suffered with terrible nightmares for many decades up until
recently. You know the kind, at that point where one goes into deep REM
sleep, but somehow you have a bad dream and wake up immobilized -- in
neither world fully. For me, there was always a Satanic theme. Finally, just
before my night storm paddle a few months ago where I grew horns, I was in
the middle of one of these dammed despicable dreams. Something twigged. It
was time to meet this head on, and I reached out to grab the dreamed-up
demon by the literal neck, half asleep, punching it as hard as I could.
"Come on, bring it on, I yelled." When I finally awoke in a start, it was my
spare pillow suffused with light through the window from a nearby traffic
light. Now I look forward to my bad dreams (though my wife says she's awoken
with big kick-mark welts on her one thigh) and I frequently walk through
buildings with the lights off purposely at night. It's cool stuff when you
overcome a fear. Perhaps not all fears are always the best subject matter to
share publicly, but these things do illustrate some of my notions.

It's all about facing your fears squarely. Public speaking may be another
one for some  (Glossophobia). For me, my eyes fluttered wildly and my mouth
dries up). My first router seminar was 6 hours long, none stop save for
lunch, in front of 30 men and women. I overcame. I also had the opportunity
to go back to my old highschool last week and give a small talk to the
Biology 11 class on flesh eating disease (NF) and the rapidity of
synergistic gangrene, in conjunction and at the request of the daughter of
one of our Paddlewise members. Faced it down, and had a lot of fun speaking
and answering questions, including how one faces fear and overcomes
adversity. How often does one get an opportunity in life to do something
like that, three decades later after graduation, when one is wiser and has a
captive audience where one is also free to tell youth that they need to
"seize the day" and live life to the fullest in a responsible manner? Not
many if one lets fear rule. I wonder how many exciting opportunities I'd
have missed out on with my sea kayaking if I'd let fear hold me back.
Respect the sea and her capricious ways, but don't let fear immobilize you.

Okay, way too much cyberspace.


Doug Lloyd (who still fears offshore winds, however)
Victoria BC

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"Whatever can be said at all can be said clearly and whatever cannot be said
clearly should not be said at all."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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