Water Words: “Travels With a Kayak”

 

a Carolina Paddler Book Report

Travels With a Kayak

By Whit Deschner

The Eddie Tern Press  1997

252 pages

Report by Alton Chewning

-It doesn’t take much reading of Travels With a Kayak, to realize Whit Deschner is a young kid costumed in an adult’s body.  Look at the cover photos.  A Tibetan monk and an Australian rancher holding kayak paddles. A dozen riders and six kayaks parked around a stalled jeep. Two people trying to stuff a twelve-foot kayak into a two-seater plane. The quote on the preface page, “The first liar never stands a chance-an American proverb.”  Yes, all these clues hint at a person not quite appropriately burdened with adulthood and common sense.  But a funny guy.  A seriously funny guy.  Think Joe Berry.  Yeah, that kind of serious.

Deschner (and it is Whit, not Wit) got his start in adventure travel accompanying big-water legend, Walt Blackadar, on a New Zealand trip.  Most sensible people would write about how great a paddler Blackadar was and what adventures they had. Deschner starts by mocking Walt’s fancy kayak, a Lettman, and his big-bladed paddle, an Iliad, which “roughly measured out to the surface area of Kansas.” Where most people see travel as strange and exotic, Whit sees the absurdity.  When others see perilous runs, Whit sees good opportunities to laugh at the swimmers.  And always to joke about the local folks and customs.  He’ll talk to anyone and usually gets the locals to participate in one of his jokes on fellow paddlers, or themselves.

Deschner’s zany exploits somehow caught the attention of Britian’s Canoeist magazine where, “to the total bewilderment of its readers-and detriment of its subscriptions- many of these pieces first appeared.”  Deschner certainly covers some ground.  There are chapters on travels to New Zealand, Japan, Nepal, Turkey, Britain, Pakistan, the Everglades and more.

His girlfriend and fellow paddler, Carol Haslett, was a frequent companion as were a host of English paddlers, people with nicknames like Green Slime and Diesel Dave.  One friend, Greystoke, aka Dan Dixon, hails from the Nantahala Outdoor Center (although Whit spells it Natahala.)

I showed my two-year grandson, Mateo, some of the pictures from the book, starting with one of Greystoke carrying out an unforgettable sea rescue.  Mateo was wide-eyed and puzzled.

Then he saw another photo of an unfortunate kayak-railroad accident.

Then I showed him a photo of a crew of kayakers catching a truck ride.  My grandson likes trucks and had not seen one like this before.

Mateo was baffled by the protruding heads.  Puzzlement gave way to cackles of laughter.  I told this to Deschner and he said he could not ask for a better reception.   Kindred spirits sharing a good laugh.

Deschner’s humor is not just visual.  He likes puns, “necessity is the unwed mother of improvisation.”   He throws a rock at a seabird and Carol shouts, “What are you doing? ” Whit responds, “Leaving no tern unstoned.”

And acronyms:  NOC = Nantahala Outdoor Center or Not Our Country or Not Our Car or Not Our Conundrum or Not Our Cayaks.

Random observations: “…this particular river contained very few sheep stomachs.  Missing a roll left nothing to grab.”

And madhatter conversations.  This from an expedition planning meeting in Kathmandu, designed to hash out details for the imminent trip:

“Ok!  Who spelled porridge?”

“Why?”

“It’s spelt p-o-r-i-d-g-e.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“No, there are two r’s…”

“OK! That takes care of food.  What about a first-aid kit?”

“I gotta prayer wheel!”

“Hey, they sell some great codeine here at the Chemist’s.”

“What about rapids? How hard is this river we’re running?”

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“America’s the land of opportunities.  Nepal’s the land of options.”

Deschner is always on the lookout for good photo ops.  So is pal, Carol.  They have many good river shots of people paddling outrageous rapids, sometimes bow first, but they have lots of fun improvising snapshots too.  Like pulling an ender.

Or Deschner paddling in a Louisiana bayou.  Hint: Deschner does not have long hair or a beard.

Whit is not afraid of adventures.  He’s paddled some bizarre waterways.  Whit lives in Oregon and when nearby Mt. St. Helens popped its top, Whit was on a fishing boat off Alaska- his day job.  He hurries back to meet friends and paddle the Toutle, a drainage of St. Helens area.  “Bet that Toutle’s one hell a run right now.”  He was right.  It was hellish.

The Toutle is a Class IV river in a rural region.  After the eruption it was a viaduct for cement slurry.  “Pulling the blade felt more like shoveling dirt than pulling water.  The sand in the water vibrated through the shaft.”  “Because of the sediment, the river no longer dropped and pooled; there was just big slop and little slop, and the gradient was constant. The sediment made reading difficult, for there was no telling what debris lay hidden below the surface, like choker cables or a bridge’s rebar or Camp Baker’s cutlery.”

For Deschner the difficulty is part of the fun and the odder and more unexpected the calamities, the better.  Maybe not in the moment, but upon reflection.  In Nepal, the paddlers contract disaa logia, the basic symptoms beginning in the lower digestive tract.  “Rendering a weak stool which is immediately followed by a strong squat.  Here, even the most holistic person quickly loses faith as they sprint behind the nearest bush. Fortunately, chemical warfare is cheap at local pharmacies-like the anti-giardia Tiniba, a toxin so lethal it kills small rodents within fifty feet of the user.”

In New Zealand, while preparing for a multi-day trip on the Motu river, Whit reads about the sudden flooding that can raise the river from 40 cfs to 6000 cfs overnight, about twenty-five feet in the gorges.  The guidebook points out something more troubling, “Moru eels deserve special attention-many as thick as a man’s leg and they seem to be exceedingly hungry.  It is not advisable to be in the water after dark as they have been known to attack humans in this time.“

Drescher has written other books such as Does the Wet Suit You?  Confessions of a Kayak Bum, a short story collection, The Early Word Gets the Burn, an adventure novel about Alaskan fishermen, Burning the Iceberg and a book of poetry, A Burning Desire.  These books are available at WhitDeschner.com