Tide, Feather, Snow_ A Life in Alaska - Miranda Weiss [41]
The past winter, John had sent off for a kit so that we could build a boat for me like the one he had built for himself. The kit arrived in two boxes by truck, and we laid out the plywood pieces on the basement floor. It was a puzzle: Two spear-shaped sections for the deck would be joined at the cockpit and trimmed to size. Four plywood blades would form the hull. Wooden pentagons would become bulkheads, and rib-shaped pieces would be used to trim and strengthen. Everything was flat. Over the next few months, we drilled tiny holes into the pale wood and then stitched the plywood pieces together with copper wire. Winter was a perfect time for this kind of extended project, but I often didn’t feel like descending into the cold basement to work on it. The project required a kind of patience and strict attention to detail I lacked. One mismeasure, I feared, and I would ruin the entire boat. But John coaxed me through it, showing me how to use a plane, mix epoxy, make a joint. As the light began to return in late winter, we articulated the craft; the boat gained dimension like a pile of bones articulated back into its skeleton. I came to love the deck, with the camber of a thigh, and the hard chine of the hull, which would help keep me upright.
I did the finishing work alone that spring, spending hour after hour sanding and varnishing until the hull and deck shone flawlessly. I lay tape midway down the hull on either side of the boat, then painted the wood creamy white between the lines. If I overturned on the bay, the white stripe would be more visible to passing boats than a wood-brown hull. When I finished, John and I carried the boat down the bluff to the gravel beach. Gentle waves unraveled across the bow, and John held the kayak steady as I stepped in. Then he lifted the stern and shoved me off. On the boat’s maiden voyage, I paddled close to shore, slicing the gleaming craft through murky water. Narrow in beam, the kayak held me closely at my hips and responded gracefully to my strokes. It fit me perfectly and felt like mine.
I hoped that having my own boat would fortify me against the fear I felt on the water. I was terrified of the sea at the same time I was drawn to it. Half an hour from land, I would freeze. Suddenly, the blue depth of the bay was an incessant and distracting mystery. How many fathoms of water lay below us? What was down there? The sun shafted into the ocean, but those pillars of light dissipated in the darkness.
SHOULD WE GO? I asked myself. My hands dug into the pockets of my raincoat where sand had collected in the seams. I was relieved we had decided to leave our own wooden boats at home and borrow a double kayak for the trip. We’d paddled it before and knew the heavy boat was more stable in the water, better for less-than-ideal paddling conditions. John would take the stern, controlling our direction, and from the bow, the bay would stretch unbroken in front of me. I felt safer having him close; it was easy to get out of earshot paddling separately. But having only one boat meant that if we tipped, we both went in.
I looked across the bay. Patches of snow near the peaks of the mountains glowed under the sun. The only way to get over my fear was to force myself into situations that scared me. But the small chop on the bay that evening was the roughest we’d ever considered paddling through.
I had realized there was nothing you could count on about the sea. Mornings, the bay was usually glassy, but not always. Evenings, the sea would usually lie down, but not always. Such unpredictability meant that there were so many precautions to take and things to consider.