Don’t catch a wave (page 3)
Like a fish out of water, a veteran surfer picks up a paddle and ventures onto Nova Scotia’s kayak coast
By Lesley Choyce with photography by Dan Doucette
The final leg is arduous work, paddling against incoming
chop and a full-faced sea wind. I have one aching wrist and I’m
breathing hard, but perseverance pays off and eventually we are
back to where we began. As we tuck into the shoreline, dark
clouds move in from the sea and my brain begins to slip back
to charting my list of landlubber responsibilities.
As I help Costanzo load the kayaks onto the roof racks, I’m
already thinking of other inlets, other summer days. I’ve
enjoyed the meditative quality of sea kayaking, but I miss
the adrenalin rush of catching a head-high Atlantic wave on my
surfboard. But I imagine that with a little more skill and confidence,
I could lash a surfboard onto the deck of a sea kayak — or just tow it behind — and explore ever-more-remote headlands,
beaches and point breaks where no one has ever surfed before.
It could be the perfect combination, the perfect solution
to avoiding the ever-more-crowded popular surf spots here or
anywhere else.
Nove Scotia writer Lesley Choyce lives in a 200-year-old farmhouse
on Lawrencetown Beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Photographer Dan Doucette is based in Lower Sackville, N.S.
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May 2010 issue
