When we round the square stone cliffs, we lose sight of the shore. I drop to my knees on the paddleboard so I can look more closely at the water. Dozens of sea stars, sea slugs, and a handful of nudibranchs line the chunky submerged rocks, clinging to the only shallows in an otherwise dark and deep cove. The water is quite clear but the bottom drops out so precipitously from the edge of the cliffs that the light disappears into a purple swirl, hiding anything that creeps below.
The plastic paddle board feels clunky and out of place among these ancient creatures. Even my own body is an intrepid visitor. The only way to be here is by floating, my shadow the only part of myself permitted to stroke their spiny, primordial bodies.
A dark bunch of clouds drifts over the sun and a sprinkle of rain splashes across our faces.
“I think we should head back,” J says, looking toward the way we came. The cove is suddenly dipped into a daytime darkness only the Pacific Northwest can summon. Small waves slap the shore. We’ve only been on the water for half an hour, but I sense his unease as he balances the board over the rippling water.
“Just one more cove,” I say. So we swing the boards around another rocky point into a similar cove walled off by the same angular cliffs that seem to grow straight up from the ocean floor. The rain dimples the water, making it more difficult to examine the creatures clinging to the cliffs.
Two fist-sized jellyfish suddenly emerge from the dark water like ghosts or apparitions, propelling their parachute-like bodies with slow pulsations just a few inches below the surface of the water. I crouch even lower on the board, suddenly very aware of my exposed bare feet and the ease with which I could tip into the water. My limbs tingle as the paddleboard quietly slides over them.
I am afraid of jellyfish. They are haunting creatures. No brain, no heart, no lungs, no blood, but nonetheless dangerous and in some cases, even deadly. The most threatening can be nearly invisible, some no larger than a thumbnail. Some, scientists think, can live forever. They have been drifting through our oceans for 500 million years, containing, I believe, some form of simple wisdom. Still, I fear their stinging tentacles anytime I wade into the ocean.
Despite knowing that we are paddling through a calm, well-protected inlet on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, the ocean beneath us feels terrifyingly vast. The water is calm, but we can’t be spotted from shore in this cove and I can sense J is growing more uneasy as he picks up the pace around the rocks.
“Okay,” I say to J after several more jellyfish drift up from the depths and slide beneath me. “We can turn back now.”
J paddles away faster than I can keep up and only slows when we’re safely out of the rocky coves. As if our moods could influence the weather, the clouds suddenly blow through and the sun emerges, setting the inlet water so still a single paddle stroke launches us dozens of feet ahead. We drift over this sandier shoreline where we can easily see the ocean floor just a few feet down, teeming with scuttling life.
“The ocean is a little spooky, isn’t it?” I say to J when I finally catch up.
“It’s pretty scary,” he says without any hint of shame in his voice, though I can see awe muddled with the fear glistening in his eyes. I look back at the cliffs to see the Pacific madrones dangling over the ocean, their branches slick and glossy like flayed limbs.
Along the shore, two women dig for clams, despite an abundance of signs recommending against it due to local pollution. Every hour or so the silence of the inlet is broken by the roar of seaplanes taking off and landing on the long, smooth surface of the water.
Beneath our boards, the sea stars don’t seem to notice the commotion going on above. Neither it seems do the crabs, or sea slugs, or flathead fish who shuffle along the sandy bottom. Occasional jellyfish continue to float near the surface, only once sending goosebumps down my neck when one the size of a basketball slides beneath my board, feet of tentacles trailing.
“I wonder,” J says as we make our way back to the put-in, “If it’s possible to paddleboard from Squamish to Vancouver Island.” And with that, the fear of this sweet ocean is not eliminated, but worshipped. The depths made sacred. We are quickly roused for the next adventure before the salt has even dried on our boards.