I went on a little adventure with my friend (Agh). We had been planning a trip up Indian Arm in a double kayak for months. We got up early in the morning - packed our tents/sleeping bags and delicious camping food (feeding my obsession with salty snacks). We drove to Deep Cove and pulled out in our "Passat" after stowing away all our goods. It took us 3 hours to get to a secluded campsite (reachable only by boat/kayak) beside Granite Falls.
It was beautiful -- we could hear the waterfall from a half hour away and kept thinking there was an airport nearby because it was so loud (whoosh). The falls were a major attraction for speed boats and all throughout the afternoon, boats were zooming in and out. We were both exhausted by the time we got there and Agh decided to take a nap. 2 hours later, I woke her up to eat dinner. I had already traipsed around the area and by this time I was lying on the beach reading a book.
After dinner, we climbed the rocks up to the falls (that's me, the speck of blue walking on the rocks).
After falling asleep for about 10 minutes on the rocks, we made our way to the beach and lit a little fire. And finally the moment I had been waiting for -- the tarot cards came out. I made Agh bring her tarot cards...I had never had a reading before and wanted to see what gifts were in my future. I was thinking "tarot? what fun!".
It was more foretelling and ominous than fun. Shockingly accurate actually.
In my relationship, i was foretold to "not make any major decisions until this period of confusion ends". Hmmm...you mean like marriage? Well, I guess i'm going to ignore that one. In regards to my career, my professional outlook brought a smile to my face. So, the reading ended on a good note.
It started to get really dark and we were chatting around the fire, feeling totally at ease. We were the only ones at the campsite...aside from a boat parked at the dock on the other side of the falls. We didn't see anybody get in or out of the boat...nor could we see anyone at the falls. It was a bit weird but we chose to ignore it.
A few minutes later, we saw a spotlight shining on us from far off in the distance. Then the spotlight turned off. We could hear the boat coming straight for us...yet the boat had no lights on and by this time it was pitch black. Isn't that against the law or something? I could hear some guy yelling on the boat but I couldn't make out what he was saying. My stomach dropped when I finally heard "______(inaudible) WANTS YOU TO PUT THAT THING OUT".
I jumped up and ran down to fill our little bucket with water and poured it over the fire. I kept running back and forth to the water and DRENCHED the fire until there was no chance of a living flame.
We watched the boat go around the campsite to the other side and park at the dock where the unmanned boat was. The guy was STILL yelling...then lights were turned on on the other boat but it was hard for us to see anything. The falls were so loud that we couldn't hear anything either...but we watched the shuffling around on the dock. The guy didn't seem to be walking towards our campsite (this would require him to cross the falls) so we felt a bit better.
We got into the tent -- after watching the two boats intently as we brushed our teeth in the dark. As I said, I felt a little better but still felt like I had a lump in my throat.
I couldn't tell if there was more than one person...it just seemed like this one guy who was yelling and scurrying about. Then all of a sudden, all the lights went out on both boats and we saw someone walking through the forest with a flashlight towards the falls. YIKES is all I can say.
I did my best to stay calm. I prayed my hail mary's in my head (even though I only go to church once a year)..."Santa Maria madre de dios, que todo salga bien". My mom would always say this when I was growing up...and everything always turned out fine, so what the heck, I gave it a shot...over and over again.
The lights came back on the boats and I breathed again.
The rest of the night was just as frightening though -- one of the boat dudes started playing HEAVY METAL music on his stereo and hooting and hollering. And this went on for hours.
Agh was sketching out and at one point, tapped my hand lightly and said "there's a light shining on our tent". And all we thought to bring for protection (against bears) was a whistle.
To make a long story short, i'm still alive. Had a sleepless night...went pee numerous times, but the heavy metal boat dudes never bothered us. We woke up the next morning to heavy rain...and had to paddle against the wind. Drenched and cranky, we arrived back at Deep Cove 4.5 hours later.
It felt so good to be alive that when I got home, I gave Leonard a HUGE hug and held on for so long. Screw the confusion thing, i'm living life to the fullest from now on. How cheezy, I know.
And from now on, i'll remember to bring bear spray. It's always good to have protection. That's the moral of this story. Oh and don't build illegal fires, you can not only cause a forest fire, but also bring on bad omens!
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