He's Making a Splash

By Rick Horowitz

AVON, NC -- The water is like glass. Everybody says so -- as smooth and as calm as glass.

Not on the ocean side of the island. On the ocean side of the island, the water is like water -- like ocean water. It does all the normal ocean things: It throbs, it churns, it crashes against the sand. Somebody can get hurt out there. He's not interested in getting hurt; he's on vacation.

On the other side, on the other hand -- on the sound side of the island, the water is perfectly peaceful. Smooth as glass. Everybody says so.

And he believes them. Which is why he's got a kayak tied to the roof of his car.

He's been leaning toward the sound side for a while now. "We ought to check out the sound side," he says every summer as they lug their belongings up the beach-house steps, and then, as they're packing to go home, he says it again: "Next year, we really should check out the sound side." It's practically a tradition.

This is next year. But this time, it's different: This time he really means it. At least he thinks he really means it, which is why, on the very last day of his vacation, after the requisite number of dithers and delays, he's actually dragging a rented kayak off the roof of his car and over to the water. The smooth, calm, peaceful sound water. He's looking for adventure. Boring, risk-free adventure.

The thing about vacationing at the ocean is...the ocean. It's beautiful. Hypnotic. It's also totally soothing -- assuming you can ignore all the warnings about stinging jellyfish, and sudden riptides that can sweep you out to sea, and waves strong enough to break a person's neck. And then there's that movie...

Each year he finds another reason to stay a little bit closer to shore (if not onshore altogether), to compare his meager swimming skills with the force of the Atlantic. He knows when he's in over his head -- who needs it?

That's the other reason the sound side is so appealing: You can go hundreds of yards offshore, everybody says, and the water is still only waist deep; if trouble comes -- not that there's ever any trouble, not on the sound side -- you can just walk back out. Which is why he's climbing into the kayak with something close to confidence, and pushing off from shore to his housemates' cheers.

For about 12 seconds. Which is all the time it takes for the waves to grab the kayak, turn it sideways and pitch him overboard.

Waves? What waves? The water is as smooth as glass, everybody says. Everybody's been misinformed. Today, at least, the water is as smooth as rumble strips. That's what happens when you have 15-mile-an-hour winds. That's what happens when you have 25-mile-an-hour gusts. Just his luck: He's picked the one day in his entire vacation when the water isn't anything like glass.

But it's his only shot at it. No problem: He'll walk the kayak back to shallower water and try again. Problem: He can't walk the kayak back to shallower water. He can't touch bottom. He's not even close to hundreds of yards offshore, and already he can't touch bottom. Everybody's been misinformed -- again.

He's got the kayak in one hand, the paddle in the other. These are the only two hands he has -- he'd rather use them to try to swim to safety, but they're otherwise occupied -- and the waves are shoving him in directions he doesn't care to go.

He refuses to panic. In another minute or two, he may feel differently about that, but for now, he refuses to panic. And there's no need to panic; his sudden shift from captain to flotsam has caught the attention of one of the housemates, who helps tow him back where he belongs.

A little of this goes a long way, but there's no quit in him, no sir. He's been itching to check out the sound side for years, and he's been talking about this kayaking thing for days. So it's back aboard, into the wind, into the waves.

Into the water. This time, it takes about five seconds.

He can take a hint. Everybody says so.

8/19/97