Kayaking and its dirt bag image

This article seen in Adventure Kayak Summer/Fall 2014 issue

 WATERLINES: Why the kayaker dirtbag image is hurting our sport by Neil Schulman, co-founder of Confluence Environmental Center

Ouch. Indeed calling myself a "kayak bum" does not help our image. Also, I should care a whole lot more about clean water and recreational policy than I do. 

My son asked me the other day if I am haunted by the fact that I may leave no mark on the world when I am dead. No, I am not haunted by that possibility or in fact any other. My tiny life is very comparable to the life of a worker bee or an ant; this does not make me sad. Sometimes I feel like all I can do is "no harm." Maybe I can not make the world a better place, but I sure as hell can leave no scars; a kind of a "leave no trace" ethic. 

And here's one last thought about kayaking and its dirt bag image, bear with me here... Nigel Foster tells many funny stories in his book of short stories, Encounters From A Kayak. But there is one that has stayed with me more than the others. Nigel talks about paddling near Stockholm and waving to the sailboaters going past. He realized the sailboaters were not waving back or even acknowledging his existence at all. Eventually one of the Swede paddlers with him explained that the sailboaters consider kayakers to be the "cockroaches of the sea." Ah, so our dirtbag image extends beyond the North American continent.

I do not like being compared to a cockroach. No. Not one bit. And yet somehow I compared myself to a bee and that doe not bother me at all. Ah, bees and ants work for a common good. Cockroaches do not have a hive structure nor seem to have a common goal nor care. Maybe my son is right. Maybe I do want to leave a mark. Maybe leaving the world a tiny bit better is a goal worthy of my attention after all.

Our blue world needs attention. Maybe this is what the Blue Mind has been telling me all along.