Plots.

There’s a line from the F1-racing movie Rush, where the protagonist*, James Hunt says – ‘I’ve always been one for showing up on the day(unprepared) and playing chicken with everyone else.’ It does seem to have an appeal to it. And people who know me might nod their heads silently knowing that I’ve been known to shoot and ask questions later. But expeditions are different. Expeditions are about planning, and accounting for the unaccountable. What are you going to do when a rogue wave hits you? What happens when your phone dies? What do you eat on a beach you’re stranded on?

Everyday a dry bag goes into my kayak with dry clothes secure in cling wrap, food supplies, water, a swiss army knife, ID, an ATM card(only useless thing in this list at the moment), some spare cash and my spectacles. I’ve always got an excess supply of water, bailers for water coming onboard, sponges, and everything is secured on / in the kayak at cast off. Everyday that dry bag leaves the kayak unused is a great day.

Leaving Bombay Shanj mapped out places we would halt / sync up. Safe to say that 50% of the time we haven’t found the spot we set out of find. It’s got a Columbus feel to it, complete with locals who don’t know what to make of it all.

Our good friends at Meraki have been trying to get to us for the last 2 weeks and with our constantly changing timelines, we are having a tough time coordinating where they can meet us 2 days from now let alone 1 week ahead.

The changing landscape brings different weather patterns and no day’s paddling is the same. Winds pick up or change directions and the water gets choppier as we progress down south. It’s made it difficult to estimate when we complete a leg. Despite it all, we aren’t lagging behind too much.

Landing in Rajpara the other day was quite a scene. I’d navigated some very dubious waters. A fisherman’s boat turned back around and came out to check on my small craft. I unkowningly got caught in a eddy and everything was choppy around me. As I jostled with the waves, the fishing boat came out and asked me if I needed a tug. I declined the kind offer but not before noting that I was in some deep water. After they pointed me in the right direction, I got back on my charted course (To my relief I’d plotted the exact course that they put me on). And I entered Rajpara still having clocked my best time. We’d marked a point called Bajrag Tea House. And as I stood outside it scanning the shore for a golden car with a girl on a cycle to go with, I realized I’d beaten them to it. On land people started pouring in and following my progress. I went left, and they went left. I took a right and the kids started running the other way. I called ahead and found that the team was 10 kms off. That’s another 30 minutes and I couldn’t just stand here when I had such a warm welcome party on land waiting. So I skirted past the fishing boats, waved at a bunch of people, and popped my skirt. Effortless landing and I pulled up my kayak onto land. I was hit by a large crowd of small people. Kids flocked to the kayak. Again and giving credit to the people no one tried to touch it or sit on it or do anything remotely malicious. The elders soon appeared in drones, and I was hit with a barrage of questions. Where is the motor? What do you eat? What, Dwarka? Like Krishna’s Dwarka?

The people continue to be nice, and I was offered water (Which I declined. An incident with the water and my stomach at Navadra had convinced me off of it) but I accepted Bajrag’s tea. I mean, it’s a Google Landmark. A very nice gentleman took me to it, and sat me on a wooden bench which I presume is a bed, and I was given a saucer full of tea. Nobody bothers with cups this side, and a steaming saucer later, I pleaded a little cold in the tea house. Part true, part excuse to check on my kayak, I returned to find the stern two feet in the air attached to the village drunk. I was quick off my heels and ran down to ask him to drop it. Which he promptly did. He flapped his arms around and said something which I registered as – I want to take it out into the water and turn it upside down. I remarked how preposterous the idea sounded to which he flapped his arms and repeated said lines. Things were starting to boil over when he came over to touch something else, something I didn’t feel particularly comfortable with and he backed off. The third time he came around to the kayak, I got between him and the kayak. We had a bit of a stand off and we were seconds away from a brawl when an elderly man in white came running down and whacked him repeatedly on his head till he slunk back. A couple of other drunks followed suit and came down to see the vessel, but now that a precedent had been set, nothing much ensued.

The kids foamed about my watch or my phone though both of which aren’t something to write home about, but given the packaging of the product and it’s coming right out of the sea, they became things to talk about. I underplayed my watch’s price and even at it’s modest rate of INR 5,000 it’s stories ran through town.

People came and went, and by the time I saw the car on the outskirts of the town, I was rested, hydrated and had stretched enough to call it a day. The village was a departure from what you’d call a tropical fishing paradise the way that an ulcer is a departure from a warm fuzzy feeling. Having arrived at the banks, Nitin and I carried the kayak through a road littered with pigs and their natural habitat. The air was rank with dead / dying / decayed fish and we wanted to put as many miles between us as possible. In reflection, it explains why Shanjali chose a Vegetarian Gujarat Thali on our return to Diu.

But the 45 minutes of waiting, explains the chasm between our land and sea journeys. Often it is the other way around, and being a girl with a fancy bike in these areas can’t be overtly pleasant. One would choose an ulcer in my opinion.

Which brings us back to plotting. Not the Brutus and Mark Anthony kind, but the charting of our routes. Everyday, after the rest / documentation and dinner is done, we pull out our laptops / phones / internet source of the day(Docomo is a no-no here) and we plot the next day’s route. We figure how far it is by water, and sync it to my watch. A couple of backup beaches are plotted out and we painstakingly comb Google maps, Suunto’s maps and Navionics to find ourselves rocks, waves, islands and beaches. A beach in Gujarat doesn’t necessarily mean sand. In fact, in our experience, 90% of them are lined with rocks and to find an escape route / entry point often comes down to being on the ground. Plotting, thus, is not a whispered word in a ear like it was in Cassius’ time. Though an Assistant Commandant at Pipavav played his part and his words of –‘I would stay 2.5 Kms out because there are a lot of eddies’  brought his parting words with Brutus back –

“I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.” –Cassisus to Brutus. Act I. Scene II. Julius Caesar.

So we plot.