An adrenaline junky I am not. Distinctly absent from this blog is any skydiving, bungee jumping or downhill skiing. At heart, I am not a fan of anything that involves falling – or could involve falling if you don’t get it right. So quite honestly, I have no idea why I let Darren talk me into going jet skiing. And not just any old jet skiing trip… jet skiing from Long Beach California to the town of Two Harbors on Catalina Island. A distance of around 25 miles (each way). Small consolation that bad decisions make good stories.

Still, the day started out with a bright and sunny morning, so off to a good start. And I was rather pleased that the wetsuit I was given was emblazoned with pink stripes. At least I looked the part (in my mind at least – feminine and sporty!) I glanced around at the other jet skiers in the group. And tried to ignore the fact that everyone else on this trip was younger than us. I put my game face on. Let’s do this!

We were strictly warned of the 5mph maximum speed limit in the harbor area, so we pootled out at 4-5mph. Yeah, this is cool – quite comfortable, feels like a good speed. We cruised past Queen Mary (the old Cunard ship now a long-time permanent resident at Long Beach). Ironically, there was a Carnival ‘fun ship’ docked next to it, stacked high with passenger decks laden with balconies, the old style Cunard liner looking very graceful and elegant in contrast.

We re-grouped briefly, and then with a nod to the open ocean and an arm gesture like a dance move from Greased Lightning, our leader indicated it was time to open up the throttle and head out to sea.

And… boom! It was like being in a cartoon car where the accelerator is binary: either on or off. This one was well and truly on. And the cartoon version of myself mimicked the real life me, all of a sudden shot back at a 45 degree angle.

Poor Darren virtually had the life squeezed out of him, I was holding on so tight. I wanted to close my eyes (and for it all to just be over), but my best chance of staying on this damn thing was to try to peer past Darren’s head to anticipate the bumps and upcoming swerves. And so I gritted my teeth, held my breath and clenched hold tightly, my muscles virtually cramping with the exertion. This I did for 30 minutes (which felt like 3 hours), until we paused briefly to check out some seals. Never have I ever been so happy to see seals, if only to get a break from the torture.

More of the same followed. Me: on tenterhooks, heart pounding, thinking I’m about to die at any moment. Darren: oblivious, lapping it up and enjoying the ride, wondering why I’m holding on so tight and politely (!) requesting that I relax my hold in order that he could breathe.

Basophobia. I looked it up. Basophobia is the fear of falling (which by the way is very different from the fear of heights). What I needed was a distraction from my fear, something to loosen my jaw, relax my body and free me from my internal terror to instead relish the moment. That something came in the form of dolphins. Not just a few dolphins but a shit load of dolphins. A Disney-movie style dolphin experience. We found ourselves surrounded by more than 150 of them! They took command of our flotilla, riding on the bow waves of every single jet ski out there and flanking us on all sides.

The thing about jet skis is that you’re kind of close to the water. So when dolphins are riding your bow wave, you can practically touch them, almost smell what they had for breakfast. I was ecstatic. The dolphins were kindred spirits, their preferred cruising speed more in line with mine, powerful and relentless yet smooth and graceful. The euphoria of being with them on their own territory overcame me. It was just a brief respite from the speed, the grueling pounding of the waves, and the noise. (That constant grinding jet ski engine noise, somewhere between chain saw and pneumatic drill…). But as we cruised along with those dolphins, a euphoric Enya track morphed in my head, drowning out any real world sounds… I was at one with nature, embracing the moment, and all was at peace with the world.

As quickly as it started, it was over. The dolphins were veering too far from the course we needed to take to get to Catalina. And I was thrust back into the deep dark depths of my interminable inescapable jet ski journey. You see, we were in the middle of the ocean and there was no way out – other than to fall off, which I was desperately trying to avoid at all costs.

One final distraction awaited as we neared the shores of Catalina island. Actually two distractions. The first was a rather cool swim through a cave, complete with an abundance of sea life and tendrils of seaweed waving back and forth in the current. This did not involve a fall from the jet ski but a dip in the ocean under my own terms and so was just fine (notwithstanding the cold water!). The second was the entertainment provided by a fellow jet ski couple who managed, rather bizarrely, to up-end their jet ski and catapult, circus-like into the water. Not once but twice. Having flooded their engine, rendering their vehicle unusable, an impromptu tow rope appeared and we limped slowly into shore. Limping speed, oh yeah, give me more, I could handle that. So happy that a) it wasn’t me who fell off and broke the jet ski, and b) we got the opportunity to cruise along slowly again 🙂

Taking a break

Once ashore, we found a cute spot at a beach cafe to linger in the sun and grab some lunch, and I gradually regained the ability to breathe normally again. First on my mind was to rid my body of its cold, shivering, restless state – a quick trip to the tourist tat shop and I sported me a brand new Catalina Island hoodie, complete with buffalo. (Later described by a friend as “so uncool, it’s almost cool”).

Second on my mind, and of rising importance, was how to never ever go on a jet ski ever again. I repeat: never ever again. The most pressing challenge for my resolution: we were on an island in the Pacific Ocean and our expected mode of transport back to the mainland was via jet ski. Nope, not happening. Time to get creative.

You can imagine my relief to learn that in amongst the throngs of tourists awaiting the ferry home, the ticket booth had a handful of golden tickets remaining. Result!!! I thanked the jet ski people kindly for the lovely exhilarating experience I’d had on the way out and explained that the ferry had graciously assigned me a seat with my name on it. Darren was more than capable of taking our jet ski back single handedly (indeed I’m sure he gave silent thanks to the thought of a lone ride back).

Jet skies all lined up in Two Harbors, ready for the return journey

Bye bye Darren, safe trip back

Warm and dry in my new hoody and the relative comfort of the ferry bar, I raised my beer in a silent toast or two. The first toast, as always, is to health, which includes finding the best CBD for Anxiety and staying well. For without that, you have nothing. And in case you’re in any doubt, health includes surviving the day in one piece. The second is to living the dream: that magical moment with the dolphins is one I’ll never forget. As for Enya: sail away, sail away, sail away…

It started with a brewery. Tioga-Sequoia Brewing Company in Fresno. Well it’s a long way to make it all the way up to Yosemite on a Friday night after work, and we were only nipping up for the weekend. So we stopped at a motel in downtown Fresno, which just happened to be in close proximity to the Tioga-Sequoia. A fire pit in the middle of the table was not only welcoming, some would say essential given the tables were outside and the temperature a bit cooler than we’re used to. Put it this way, the woolly hat didn’t come off.

We had heard some horror stories about the state of the national parks since the government shutdown. ‘Non-essential’ workers in certain government sectors were not working (nor were they being paid), and this includes national parks. Earlier in January, we had read about the 27+ tons of garbage overflowing the rubbish bins in Yosemite, not to mention the health hazards from human waste. At the time of our visit, this weekend marked the longest government shutdown in US history so we weren’t optimistic about what we’d find.

However, it seems the news reports had spurred on certain efforts to address the declining state of affairs. Thanks to skeletal staff re-focusing efforts, local business attention and volunteers mucking in, we were greeted with portaloos stocked with toilet paper and empty bins. Not only that, but the aforementioned horror stories had deterred other potential visitors so we practically had the place to ourselves. Even the deer were wandering along the footpaths without a care in the world.

There’s a certain beauty about Yosemite in winter, the granite walls made all the more impressive by a light dusting of snow highlighting the contours. In the valley, we walked to Yosemite falls, the rainbow at the base reminding us how lucky we were to have sunshine and blue skies when the forecast had been overcast and drizzly.

After overnighting at a motel in the ‘gateway’ town of Mariposa, the scenic drive back into the park took us up the steep, windy road to Tunnel View with sweeping views of the Yosemite valley, backdropped by the iconic Half Dome, El Capitan and Bridal Veil falls.

Up at Badger Pass ski resort, we strapped on our snowshoes and headed off into the wilderness. I’d like to say all was silent apart from the crunch of snow underfoot. Except the crunch of snow under snowshoes is nigh on deafening. No chance of surprising any wildlife with those on. Although we did see a lone coyote, his fluffy winter coat making him appear much larger than our local desert coyotes, sniffing and snuffling his way across a snow-covered meadow on an endless search for food.

Snowshoeing makes for slow but rewarding progress, the pace akin to a meditative pilgrimage. The snow was crisp underfoot, the trail thankfully already broken by previous hikers. After a 2 hour snowshoe workout, we finally made it to our turnaround at Dewey Point, with a view to die for. Yosemite in Winter! ❤️

Our return trip home was also to die for, although not in quite the same way. The rain and snow that had been forecast was merely delayed by a few days, and decided to fall with a vengeance as we drove south. The Santa Clarita Valley (clue is in the name) sits just south of a mountain range that we have to go over on the I5 freeway in order to get home. As we approached the ascent up the Grapevine Pass, the rain turned to sleet, the traffic slowed, and the freeway became a car park. Long story short, the pass was closed and our alternative route involved a 100+ mile detour along an only slightly less treacherous road (overturned lorries aside). Our 4.5 hour journey home became a nearly 8 hour journey home – so much for just nipping up to Yosemite for the weekend!

I’ve been told there’s no such thing as bad weather. Only bad clothes. Which brings me to my topic of the day: Kayaking in the Colorado river in winter. That was my brief. My response: waterproof trousers; windproof jacket on top of substantial North Face fleece; woolly hat; wetsuit diving gloves; wetsuit boots. Darren’s response: shorts and t-shirt. Maybe I over exaggerate, but not far off. I wouldn’t say he was blasé, more just underestimated the conditions.

As it was out of season and also not a weekend, we were lucky enough to have the launch site, right next to the Hoover Dam to ourselves. Spirits were high, bolstered by our early morning coffee, with a sense of anticipation and adventure.

We soon realized that being dropped off before 7am, when the sun has not yet peeked over the canyon walls is bordering on abuse. The damp cold settles into your bones and your extremities as your fingers gradually go numb. The icy water streaks down the paddle with every stroke, drip drip dripping on your legs like Chinese water torture. At least the water was calm, and we were paddling in the same direction as the current, so more a case of gritting your teeth (in a vague attempt to stop them chattering) and making the most of an ‘easy’ paddle to the first rest stop, thankfully in the sun!

From here, the Arizona hot springs were just a short walk upstream (as in walking up/in a stream). The only way to get to the hot springs is either this short hike from the river or a 6 mile round trip hike from the nearest road. Darren did his best to assure me we’d taken the easier option!

I have to say I was a little daunted when faced with a ladder. Not only did it have a waterfall running right through it, it was also rather steep and very slippery. But the hot springs were at the top of the ladder like a carrot on a stick. So up it I went. And oh, was it so worth it!

There’s something really quite liberating about getting your kit off in the great outdoors. Not to mention the most basic of pleasures of soaking in hot water, your body coming back to life as the heat of the water eases your muscles. We were careful not to snort any of the water up our noses (something to do with a flesh eating bacteria).

Back at the beach feeling refreshed and ready for our next paddle, we gazed on the mighty Colorado river in horror. Having dilly dallied a little too long at the hot springs, the wind was now whipping the river up into a frenzy. Nothing for it but to get stuck in. Our clothes had dried in the sun but didn’t stay that way for long. Darren rather ingeniously re-purposed a space blanket (one of those thin slivers of plastic silver sheeting that they give you at the end of a marathon) to cover his bare legs.

The rest of the day was spent alternating between paddling hard, battling with the wind and waves (yes, waves on a river!) and rest/snack stops sheltered by the high canyon walls to recover, stretch out and admire the scenery. One quite cool aspect of kayaking the Colorado is that the river runs along the state border, so depending on which side of the river you pull into, you’re either in Nevada or Arizona.

The final push to our pick-up point was particularly brutal, the forces of nature aligning to test our draining strength. I was exhausted but happy to have finally made it in one piece. That was a tough old 12 mile kayaking trip. But what better recovery… only an hour’s drive from there to a night out in Vegas! 🙂

I’m not really one for superlatives. If you ask me “where’s the best place you’ve ever visited”, “which is your favourite country”, or “where did you have your best ever pizza”… I kind of struggle with that. Top 10 lists I can kind of get away with, (as long as no one’s counting whether there’s really 10 things in the list!). So en route to our recent trip to Olympic National Park, there we were at the checkout making small talk in Wholefoods. During which, said checkout guy proclaimed that Olympic National Park was his “absolute favorite place on the planet”. Bold statement indeed! Not wanting to dull his enthusiasm with a question over how many places on the planet he’d actually visited, we got back in the car, set the satnav for Olympic and dialed up our expectations to “beyond awesome”.  

The weather forecast didn’t offer the best start… rain. But whilst it was kind of a bit overcast, it wasn’t actually technically raining. Expectations exceeded right there! 

Having fitted in a sneaky trail run at Lena Lake on the periphery of the park along the way, we skirted the Hood Canal for 100 miles or so, in all its drizzly splendor. We were staying near Port Angeles in a static caravan or RV (which definitely wasn’t going anywhere), on a spacious greenfield private campsite, fitted out with a wooden deck overlooking the Pacific. Unfortunately, the ocean views were left to our imagination as a dense blanket of fog rolled in.

Darren on the deck when the sun came out the next morning

One of our best ‘wildlife’ spotting opportunities came whilst we were inside the RV.  There was a rather large spider’s web in the corner of the window (notably on the outside of the window).  With a suspiciously small spider on it.  Until suspiciously small spider was joined by a somewhat larger mother of a spider (but judging on the reception the smaller spider was getting, it was evident there were no blood ties here).  Cue a spider fight of immense proportions.  Better than a wildlife documentary, this was enfolding right in front of our eyes!  It was kind of tempting to root for the little guy, but the odds were not good.  A matter of minutes and the little guy was sent packing.

Olympic national park has three distinct areas: 1) the rain forest: instantly cool and damp, it surrounds you with hues of emerald green from the pine carpet underfoot and the huddled ferns all around, to the towering spruce trees draped poetically with moss.  I also learned that the Hoh rainforest is home to the second largest slug in the world – the banana slug which grows up to 9 inches long.  Shame we missed that one! 2) the beaches: Pacific northwest coastline with rugged sea stacks, rocky shores and tidal pools to explore. And 3) the mountains.

Having experienced some of the beaches and rainforest last time we were in the national park a few years ago, we wanted to experience the Olympic mountains on this trip.  The drive to Hurricane Ridge is one of the most scenic drives in the park.  As the road climbed steeply from the thick forest, the switchbacks wound through sub-alpine meadows, leading to spectacular mountain vistas.  It’s almost a bit annoying that people can get to these views without even leaving their car.  However, the 8 mile hike we did to Klahhane Ridge, complete with 2,000+ feet elevation gain, gave us much more time to take in the views.  And we could not have been luckier with the weather – not too hot but endless blue skies and sunshine, the contrails from the passing planes leaving criss cross patterns, leaving you wondering where they were headed.  

The thing I love about ridge walks is being able to see the panorama on both sides – look to your right to see into the heart of the park, with layer upon layer of mountains reminding you of the sheer size of this peninsula.  Look to your left to see the mountains slope down to the ocean, the distant islands just visible across the strait.  With scenery like this, I have to say that Hurricane to Klahhane ridge absolutely secured a place in my top 10 hikes in the world!

I can’t remember the last time I went kayaking. Having nightmare recollections of ‘near-death’ experiences put me off for a while, so it could well be a few years since I’ve ventured near one. Now, at Lake Tahoe, I had the chance to rectify that.

The kayak place on Baldwin Beach rented out double ‘sit on tops’, i.e. you don’t have to don the full kayak skirt and strap yourself in, you just do as it says on the tin. Sit on top. Given the weather, sunny and warm, this was perfectly suited to our needs. In fact, we found that the drops of water drizzling down the paddle, gently splashing our legs was pleasantly cooling in the late morning sun.

The push off from shore was smooth and calm, launching us oh so gradually into the still clear water of Lake Tahoe. After an initial momentary angst, I experienced an almost drug-induced sense of euphoria. My inner sense of kayaking joy – long buried, re-surfaced as we glided along. My paddle dipped and plopped into the water either side, propelling us forward with a rhythmical grace. This was my true calling! I am a kayaker! I was born for kayaking!

Short-lived though it was, that initial exhilaration was memorable. After that came an acknowledgement of the hours to come, the effort, the exertion, driving from the shoulders and the hips.  Darren’s advice: imagine there’s a monkey sat square on right in front of you, so you’re not just pushing back with the paddle in the water but you’re also ‘punching the monkey’ with your other fist, driving the airborne side of the paddle forward. We’d been shown a map before we left, so we had a rough idea of where we were going. The rental guy had ominously mentioned that this is the busiest place for water traffic in the whole of Lake Tahoe, so we might want to continue beyond the map boundary, at which point we would find a cool waterfall.

He wasn’t kidding about the busy bit. Having taken our lives in our hands to traverse Emerald Bay, we continued with Operation Cool Waterfall. Ever the optimist, Darren insisted it was just around the next headland. Proved wrong for the second and again a third time, we found ourselves in ‘Just one more headland’-land. Rounding number four, not a waterfall in sight, let alone a cool one. The adrenaline-fueled energy I had on the way out visibly drained from my body as we faced the long kayak home and exhaustion set in, the palms of my hands sore and inflamed from the abrasion of the paddle.

The increasing grouch level due to the onset of tiredness compounded my new pet hate: power boats. Devils in disguise. Each kayaking trip (in my experience at least) has its challenges. In the past we’ve had storms, we’ve had wind, we’ve had currents, we’ve had traffic. Power boat traffic is something else. If it was up to me, no one would be granted a power boat license without first hand experience of the impact a power boat has on an unpowered craft such as a kayak.

To the innocent bystander, power boats look appealing, they look cool, they look fast. To the kayaker, they look mean, they look disruptive, and they look even faster. Step one: establish eye contact, make sure they’ve seen you in your tiny yet fluorescent kayak, to avoid the risk of being mown down and chopped into tiny pieces, your greatest achievement in life being to feed the fish in death. Step two: when a direct hit is unlikely, disregard your plotted course entirely and instead turn the kayak to face the power boat’s wake so as to avoid being capsized from a wave hitting you on the side. Step three: on approaching the power boat’s wake, forget you’re even in a kayak, ride that mother wave like a champion surfboarder, and punch the monkey like there’s no tomorrow.

With The Kayakers Guide to the Power Boat Galaxy firmly committed to memory, it was all well and good when I was on tip top form, bursting with energy and raring to go at the start of the trip. Not so good after one headland too many! Long story short, Step one: nope, no eye contact. Step two: Look that wave in the face, check. Oh hang on, that’s not a wave, it’s a wall of water akin to a tsunami! Step three: um, not a lot of wave riding going on. I had nothing left in me to power through the likes of that, and with a look of sheer horror on my face, I very quickly lost momentum.  The monkey had won and I resigned myself to being engulfed by the lake.

The remarkable thing about wide, squat, sit on top kayaks is their unmatched stability. Not to mention Darren’s role in paddling like a mad thing, sat right behind me. Point being, we remained joyfully upright, and even though I resembled a drowned rat having taken the brunt of the wave, Darren remained smugly dry. I was duly chastised, not only for my poor paddling skills but also as we then had to rescue my water bottle bobbing in the lake some way away, having not been bungeed down properly. Maybe I’m not so cut out for this kayaking lark after all.

With my motivation as well as my energy on a downward spiral, we limped back to shore. Quite honestly, if you could fall asleep in a kayak, that would have been my moment. The sun was still beating down, so the rays and the the breeze helped me to dry out.  The heat also made me prone to mild hallucinations… in my head I was a majestic iguana basking in the sun’s rays, merely going through the physical motions of tipping my paddle from side to side.

Once on dry land and with subsequent time to reflect, I like to remember the good as well as the bad. Whilst I have been known to create a melodrama out of a crisis, this was not quite on a par with the near death experience level of previous kayak trips. In fact a positive success then! The only real long-lasting downside was the rather unattractive shade of lobster red that our legs turned later in the day. Maybe sit on tops are not so ‘perfectly suited’ to sunny weather after all.