The maiden voyage of the Bellamasue—my $299 Pelican kayak—was a quiet success. I’d finally gotten the roof rack, the cradles, the cotter pins, and the straps to work. I slid it into the water at Tidewater Boathouse near high tide and paddled slowly out toward the channel marker. I felt the old muscles in my shoulders wake up as I feathered my strokes. Everything worked. The kayak tracked, it felt right.
Getting it up and down from the car turned out to be easier than I expected. Carrying it from the parking lot to the dock was hard, but manageable. 78 year olds are weaker than we used to be and 10 feet of 40 pounds lugging a distance is pushing it for me now. I wore my wide Mexican gardener’s hat and a neck bandana from Tepoztlán, for sun, sweat, and maybe blowing my nose. Water people don’t look cool but we look like we belong.
A woman at the water on a stand-up at first seemed standoffish, but then a tentative greeting and we had common ground, She’d gone up the creek and seen a big crab, grasses, and other signs of wildness hiding in plain sight. Had I ever done that? she asked. And we swapped quiet stories of urban waterway magic. Junky from the road, beautiful from the water. For a moment we shared an understanding.
Later, I parked in front of a small tiendita in East Oakland to pick up pozole ingredients. The Bellamasue was still on top of the car. The girls at the butcher counter were Salvadorean, the clerk Honduran. They saw the kayak, maybe the hat, definitely the güero. But the moment I asked for pork neck bones and maíz para pozole in decent Spanish, the whole vibe changed. Now I was the local oddball—not a stranger, just another Oakland type. We all belong in one way or another, East Oakland near the Estuary. There’s almost nothing that doesn't fit in Oakland, there's space for all us and things we haven’t seen seen before, like güeros in big sun hats with kayaks outside who speak Spanish.
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