visualization works

When I go out to do an activity, I believe that I am more successful if I visualize it first, imagining myself doing the activity to a successful outcome. Yesterday, I demonstrated to myself the concrete advantages of this approach.

I decided to kayak around Bainbridge Island. I got my stuff together and started to drive over there. On the way I imagined myself kayaking around the island. I pictured myself in my drysuit with my paddle... paddle? I had to turn around three blocks from my house because I realized that I had forgotten to grab a paddle. Thankfully, I discovered this before I got too far. That is the power of visualization.

I paddled out from Golden Gardens, and looked south to West Point. There was lots of smoke coming out of the smokestack on the lighthouse on West Point, which looked really odd. I thought something was wrong, and when I looked again a minute later, I confirmed it. The lighthouse had moved around the point - it was actually the superstructure of a large tanker ship coming up the channel at me. I stayed in the lee of West Point while it crossed 200 yards in front of me, then continued my crossing to Bainbridge.

Lots of wildlife today. I saw a group of about 8 harlequin ducks in there fall plumage - very beautiful. I also saw something the size of a whale, but which I believed was a large sea lion offshore of me. As I paddled on, I kept looking back, expecting to see it following and harassing me, but it did not resurface. I don't like sea lions.

At the south end of Bainbridge, I looked at my watch and realized that I had taken 2 hours and 45 minutes instead of the 2 hours that I had expected. I wasn't sure why the discrepancy, but decided that it was best to put of the Bainbridge circumnavigation if I was going to be slower than expected. I did not want to recross back to the mainland in the dark, and there were no real bailout points once I started going around the backside of Bainbridge (Kathy was out of town, too). I will do Blake Island instead.

I started to head to Blake, but all of a sudden, a (the?) sea lion appeared 10 yards off my bow in a huff. I immediately turned around and headed for shallow water. Looking back, I saw three sea lions now cavorting where I had been. Were they all following me now? I decided to continue along the shoreline around Bainbridge. However, after another 10 minutes, I changed my mind again and headed towards Blake Island. Expected east winds also added to my concern about being stuck going from Bainbridge back to the mainland late in the day.

I circumnavigated Blake, stopping at the Cascadia Marine Trail site there to check it out. The Cascadia Marine Trail was set up to provide camping for human-powered beachable watercraft (e.g. kayaks) in the Puget Sound, and there area special campsites in a lot of locations to help out all you kayak campers out there. After Blake, I kayaked back to West Seattle, then around Alki point and back towards downtown Seattle.

I wanted to get across to Magnolia, but there was a lot of boat traffic to navigate, as well as a 2 foot chop from the 10-15 knot east winds that had finally arrived. Ferries regularly travel between Seattle/Bainbridge and Seattle/Bremerton. Additionally, not one, but two cargo ships decided to head into the Port of Seattle right when I wanted to cross, so I had to wait until all the boats cleared out. When I made my dash across, I was stopped short by a Coast Guard cutter that was also waiting for the other boats to clear out. I felt like I was playing frogger.

Once I made it to Magnolia, I had an easy cruise along the coast back to Golden Gardens, arriving 7 1/2 hours after I left. I got in a full day's work after all. When I got home, I re-measured the distance around Bainbridge and discovered that it was 11.5 miles down to the south side of Bainbridge rather than 8.5 as I had originally thought, but that the overal distance around Bainbridge (35 miles) was not any longer than I had originally thought, so I would have been on schedule after all if I had done the circumnavigation. Next time. As it was I had a good tour of Puget Sound and got in a long day's kayak on a nice fall day. No complaints here.