The Stowaway

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything. I got busy with life in retirement and felt like I didn’t have much blog fodder. The universe, in its inimitable wisdom, saw fit to provide me with material too ripe not to share. As a matter of fact, the universe wasn’t subtle about it. The material, quite literally, landed in my lap. 

Oregano and I love to kayak. Over the years, we have taken the opportunity to do so whenever we travel, but we’ve never been able to go for a paddle near our home. Transporting and storing kayaks has always been the barrier until a friend told us about modular kayaks. These are kayaks that come in pieces that nest inside each other, but can be snapped together to form a 14 foot hard shell kayak. 

Transportation and storage issues solved, we can now explore paddling opportunities nearby with our friends, Matzah and Gefilte. They have experience kayaking in New Jersey and we have had fun exploring local options with them. They introduced us to the beautiful Splitrock Reservoir. The steep sides make it difficult to launch a boat unless your plan is to get in at the top of the hill and sled down through the trees until you hit the water. Thankfully that’s not necessary because there is a floating dock and a chute. You load the kayak into the chute. This keeps it stable and makes it easier to get in. Then you  pull yourself along using the paddle notches until you float onto the water and can paddle away. 

The floating dock and launch chute at Split Rock Reservoir.

On a beautiful summer day, Matzah, Gefilte, Oregano and I had been paddling at Splitrock for a few hours when we started to head back towards the launch site. While exploring one last cove, I felt something wet hit my right hip. We were in a shallow, grassy area of the reservoir.  Sometimes, when there is a lot of seaweed or underwater grass, you can hook a piece on your paddle and it slides down into the boat. Not a big deal…usually. 

I reached down to my hip expecting to feel a piece of stringy, wet grass. Imagine my surprise when what I touched did not feel grasslike at all. In fact, it felt slimy and I thought I felt it wriggle. Surely, I had imagined that it moved on its own. Grass is inanimate. The movement I felt must have been it slipping further into the boat. I reached my hand down again. This time I was sure that whatever I had touched moved of its own accord. This was not a happy discovery. 

I yelled over to Oregano and Matzah, “There’s something in the boat with me!” 

My loving husband’s response, “I’m sure it’s just grass.” 

“Nope! Definitely not grass. Last time I checked, grass doesn’t move by itself,” I replied. 

Matzah suggested, “There are a lot of dragonflies. Maybe it’s just one of them.” While I appreciated his effort, I was convinced a dragonfly would not feel slimy. 

“Do you want me to paddle over to you and try to get whatever it is out of your boat?” Oregano offered. 

“Yes! Hurry!” I didn’t know what the fuck was in the boat with me, but I knew that boat wasn’t big enough for the two of us to peacefully coexist. 

Oregano paddled up alongside me and reached his hand between my hip and the wall of my boat. I could feel his hand and see his face. The expression on his face changed instantly. What started out as a face best described as, “she’s overreacting”, quickly drained to a face of “holy shit, what is that?” He yanked his hand out of my boat. It was empty! 

“What was it? Why is your hand empty? What the Hell did you feel to make you yank your hand back so quickly?” I fired questions at him. Clearly I was doing a poor job of trying to calm the panic that was building. 

“I don’t know, but it is definitely alive! I couldn’t grab it. It moved away,” was his reply as he pushed away from my kayak and started paddling off. 

“Where are you going? There is something alive in the kayak WITH YOUR WIFE!” The panic had clearly set in now. Was it a fish? A snake? The Loch Ness monster’s smaller, American cousin? 

It was clear that Oregano and Matzah were going to be of no use to me at this point. My only option was to get out of the boat as fast as possible. Jumping into the water seemed like a foolish choice, so I planted my feet on the foot pegs. I braced my knees against the side of the cockpit and hovered above the seat to give myself as much real estate as possible between me and the unidentified stowaway. Once in position, I started paddling like I was in a race for an Olympic gold medal.

All I could focus on was the chute on the floating dock. I needed to hit it straight on so that I could pull myself out as quickly as possible. I was coming in hot. 

Gefilte was on the dock having missed all the excitement. He had pulled his kayak out of the chute and was putting down his paddles when he offered, “Wait. Let me help you.” 

“There’s something alive in the boat with me! I need to get out of this thing as fast as I can,”  I said while hauling my boat out of the water using the paddle notches and flinging myself onto the floating dock.

“Really? What’s in the boat with you?” Gefilte asked with great curiosity. 

“I have no idea,” I said, breathless from my efforts. 

Gefilte peeked into the boat that I had abandoned in the chute. “It’s a fish. It’s dead now. It appears you sat on it and squashed it.” 

That was it! I began flailing my arms while pacing around the dock. Fish freak me out! I have an agreement with all living marine life. I don’t swim in natural bodies of water and disturb them and they agree to leave me alone when I float on top of the water in a boat. Clearly, this fish had not gotten the memo. 

Gefilte reached into my kayak and retrieved the flattened fish as Matzah and Oregano took turns pulling up onto the chute on the other side of the dock. 

Gefilte asked me if I wanted to see the stowaway. I did not. Matzah and Oregano did. Boys! 

They all started howling with laughter. 

“What? What kind of fish is it?” I asked, still not looking at Gefilte’s hand.

“I don’t know, so let’s just call it a silver backed ass fish,” Gefilte suggested. They snapped a commemorative photo then provided the dearly departed with a burial at sea. 

“How big was it?” I asked when I eventually calmed down. I wasn’t sure if I was more upset about the fish being in my boat or the idea that I sat on it and killed it. 

“About the size of your pinky,” Oregano snickered. “It was like a minnow or a guppy.”

We were in a 650 acre reservoir. There were 4 of us together. Out of all that space, why did this tiny fish decide my boat was the one to jump into? Sometimes there are questions for which there are no answers. 

The recently deceased stowaway.

When we reached the parking lot to disassemble the boats, I noticed the silver fish scales on my kayak’s seat; the scene of the murder. I tentatively looked at the corresponding spot on my butt. Yep. There were silver scales on my shorts. Ewwwww! 

When we got home, I immediately tossed my scaly shorts in the washer and my body in the shower. As I was scrubbing and scrubbing, an idea came to me.  My kayak didn’t have a name; neither of our boats did. We couldn’t think of names when we got them in May and figured a name would present itself eventually. It had.

The mental image of me sitting on this tiny fish still fresh in my mind, I went onto Etsy to look for someone who could make a name sticker for my boat. 

Oregano saw me. “What are you working on?” he asked. 

“Thanks to today’s events, I’ve come up with a name for my boat,” I replied. 

“Really? What is it?” he asked. 

“The Guppy,” I said, turning the screen to show him the image. 

“That’s perfect! My kayak still doesn’t have a name though,” he said forlornly. 

“I’ve come up with a name for your boat, but I don’t think you’re going to like it,” I replied. 

“Really? You thought of a name?” he seemed excited. 

“Yes. I think we should christen your boat the SS Unchivalrous.” Oregano shook his head and walked away.

The Guppy at Spruce Run Reservoir.