In 2009 Rob Lyon joined the Coastal Team Challenge, an eight-day, 82 mile kayak trek with an international team of disabled war vets from the US and Canada.

 

It looked like a pirate’s camp. The boats were anchored in the bay. Swag was hauled off onto the beach and up a steep slope. A natural earth berm, set under deep old-growth fir and cedar, that looked back across Rosario Strait toward the beach we had launched from earlier, was a perfect spot for camp. Dry bags and beach chairs, wheelchairs, stoves and tents. We stashed a keg on the gravel beach and filled mugs of beer while smoke from a snapping, chest high fire rose into a darkening sky. The forest camp resounded with hearty greetings between friends and crew.

Cause for the beach revel was a first night’s liaison between our CTC team and some local islanders, friends of Colin and mine who had been hired to haul supplies from their home islands for an opening night party. Under the aegis of World T.E.A.M. Sports, the event was billed the Coastal Team Challenge, an eight-day kayak trek with an international team of disabled war vets from the US and Canada. We were running a couple of months ahead of the 2009 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, our destination, a beach in downtown Vancouver. We began at another, quieter, US beach 82 miles, as the kayak paddles, distant.

My buddies, who could easily pass for pirates, had traveled in skiffs, sailboats and kayaks around wind swept points in open seas to a protected half moon bay on the outside of James Island and hauled ashore the makings for a feast: coolers of fresh silver salmon, a couple dozen big Dungeness crab and a mess of big, bright orange spot shrimp.

I didn’t know everyone in camp, but figured I would over the next few days. Guys were sitting around in beach chairs and on the coolers talking. One guy on the team was Paul Franklin, Master Corporal in the Canadian Army, who lost two legs from a suicide bomb in Afghanistan and, yet, was always ready with a smile. Paul was a motivational speaker, and after watching him for the week I could see why; the guy is radiant. That night he told me, “Sometimes when you’re in my position you could get the feeling there are things you shouldn’t or can’t do. An adventure like this gives me freedom.”

Most of these guys were buff from the waist up, the wheelchair athletes, especially, and they had the strength to make the long hour days we had allocated. The hardest thing for double amputees and the paraplegics, like Robert Vogel and Josh Sharpe, was getting a good anchor for the paddling stroke and a solid balance in the boat. Instead of a stable three-legged tripod that abled-body paddlers draw from in the cockpit, these guys had just one, their ass.

Jeff Henson, a retired demolition expert in the US Army and very nearly blind, was not so much the hard-bitten jock, as a man who loves people and simple adventure. He too, had friendly written all over him. I chatted with him about the blue cats and channel cats he fished for at home in the south.

“Man,” I told him, “I sure wish we had some of that action here in the northwest. I love catfish.”
“Yeah, well, I’d trade you for some steelhead.”
We laughed at that.

I caught up with Colin in the kitchen as we broke down and raccoon-proofed the camp. Just about everyone was sawing logs
“Shades of last year,” eh?” I said.
“Absolutely.”

Colin and I had worked with Lon and WTS the year before. We made a beta trip to the outside of Vancouver Island to see how viable it might be to create a monster event whereby a team of disabled athletes paddled in relay around the big island. We had some of the adventure junkies along on that trip here with us again: Lon Dolber, who pretty much leads the field portion of the organization, his son James, journalist Bob Vogel, Brett Rickard, Rich Antunovich and Josh Sharpe.

We’d ridden right into the dragon’s grille on that trip. Storms with hurricane-force winds pinned us on a beach at the Brook’s Peninsula, about as far from civilization as a guy can get on the BC coast. As it turned out, we had paddling weather sufficient to paddle out and to paddle back, but not much in between. The challenge focused on the day-to-day imperatives of living on a beach in wind and rain and wet sand. But that story for another time.

This time, at least, we had relatively protected waters. The next morning, we had a short nine-mile paddle heading due north to a long, sand beach on Cypress Island. Along in Ashley’s Woolworth’s support boat were Steven Wrubleski, my wife’s ex and my best buddy. Steven was our chief cook and all-around gofer.

We came upon tidal rips off the west side of Cypress Island. I was paddling with Lon’s son and a couple of the others. My job was bringing up the rear of the caravan and watching for stragglers.

I looked up and saw a couple of the guys paddling toward the rip. We all had two-way radios and I tried to call them back. Either they couldn’t hear or chose not to, but kept paddling closer to the racing water. At first I was thinking they just wanted to get closer to have a look, then I realized they wanted to play.

From my position outside the race and paddling hard to get close enough to rescue, I watched them ride the whitewater train like otters. One of them even paddled back to run it again! I was impressed. It was funny, I thought, my Mother Hen reaction—dressed in wet suits, wearing PFDs and riding watertight boats with others around, there was little to worry about.

Cypress was a hit. We settled onto a broad sand and pea gravel beach. We could see stars like you wouldn’t believe at night, and entertained ourselves fishing and hiking up to the Eagle Bluff for an awesome view of the archipelago. Ironically, I had lived in these islands for 30 years, yet always paddled elsewhere—until now. It was a treat to be here.

We headed north the following morning. Paddling is often tidal dependent in the islands and if you time it wrong you can spend a lot of energy going nowhere fast. The currents were complex and powerful and I doubted anyone knew them as well as Colin.

Still, we were bucking a strong counter current as we approached Clarke Island and the eight miles from Cypress belied the difficulty.

After dinner, five of us were hiking a trail out along the exposed west side that encompassed the entire island; we hiked along the beach below steep cliffs. By the time we reached the bottom of the island the tide was getting close to closing us off the beach. We had to make a decision whether to run the remaining distance to the trailhead at the end of the island or climb to higher ground. Some of us continued south; Brett Rikard and Jim Henson decided to try and climb the cliff. They found a crack they could climb up and we watched them scoot onto their bellies onto the trail at cliff’s edge before we turned and jogged the half a mile to find a red and yellow fishing buoy hanging from the broken branch of a weathered Doug fir at the island’s end. It indicated the trailhead back to camp.

When we arrived, we were surprised to find Brett and Jim still absent. An hour later, we were ready to send a search team when they walked out of the surrounding salal wearing shit eating grins and looking a little worse for the wear.

Their story:
“Well, the other guys decided to risk wet feet on the rising tide, but Jeff and I chose the high path over the island and found a place we could just make it up.”

“Jeff was in the lead when he slipped off the trail and grabbed a sapling to hold onto. He was unable to pull himself up. So I took off my fake leg, laid down on the trail, and held it out, and he was able to grab hold and climb to safety. Then we got lost on a couple of trails that dead-ended in the brush and it was hard to find the trail again in the dark.”

Someone asked why Henson was in the lead in the first place.
Brett chuckled: “I forgot he was blind.”

From Clark, the route left the islands and we camped at night on the mainland, first at Birch Bay, then Lighthouse Marine Park, before crossing the border to Point Roberts, and from there to our ultimate destination: Jericho Beach, downtown Vancouver.

We’d been grinding out 15-mile days in our slow lane SoT boats, but the team was holding up fine. Small issues can loom large for paraplegics. In addition to Ashley’s support skiff, we had a sailboat that served as a secondary support boat. Josh and Bob had a hard time sitting in a kayak for sustained periods of time and would take turns getting a bit of rest for the tush on the sailboat, all the while the team continued north.

We hit the mud flats off the shallow BC shoreline near the Canadian border at high-noon on the seventh day. It was a low ebb tide and we spread out to search for the bathtub-deep channels through the enormous flats. Finally, we gave it up, got out to take a piss, get muddy and wait for the returning water. It was a long haul ahead to the Border Station, and two members decided to bail, opting to cab it to the next campsite once we arrived late that afternoon.

We made it to the camp at Point Roberts, Iona Beach. Wind and seas had kicked up. There was a strong current to deal with as we hugged the shore and then off Iona there were breakers. Colin and I set up to spot the guys surfing in—an exciting (and nerve racking) show to watch, but all ended well.

It felt like a pre-victory celebration that night as we met the film crew for the Public Relations department of the Canadian Army. The place was hopping. I enjoyed witnessing the interviews led by the film crew. Steven threw out another great buffet spread and great conversation accompanied dinner once again.

Between filming interviews, I grabbed the most eligible candidates and the golf discs I’d brought along. We each grabbed a beer and wandered around the huge grounds of the park, playing a call shot game. I always appreciate a down moment this near the end of a trip. Tomorrow we’d have a legitimate victory dinner and more press hoopla, topped with a night spent in a fancy hotel at the marina. But this night was dedicated to unwinding and getting to know everyone better. This stage of a tough trip, with just the kicker to go, people are typically ebullient and garrulous. I could see the natural pairings of people around the park. It wasn’t so US and Canadian, or abled and disabled, either, but more a natural mix of personalities.

I went back to camp and sat down with Paul Franklin. We were talking about the long paddling days and he said, “Knowing I’m fit enough to complete this challenge is great. My favorite part was surfing the one-meter-high breakers just off the beach here, especially after that 15-mile open water crossing of the Straight of Georgia.”

Karin McCoy was sitting on the other side of Paul. Karin was the only female on the trip and an aviation technician and sergeant in the Canadian Air Force. Karin lost her right leg below the knee to cancer in 2003. “I expected the trip would be physically challenging,” she said, “but what I didn’t expect was meeting people that went straight to my heart. Sharing the challenge and the laughs and the difficulties made us become really close.”

She leaned forward, looked at me and smiled, “You know,” she said, “my favorite part of the trip was times like this, the evening chit-chat around the fire and hearing different people’s stories of survival and determination.”

Lon Dolber had walked over. I’d learned over the course of a couple of these challenges with Lon that the guy was born looking up, always seeing the upside of things. He and Rich Antunovich are both people-people. Rich works with inner city kids in New York as a counselor. He reminds me of Vin Diesel. He’s the kind of guy rough kids can respect—tough as nails and completely present with a heart of gold. He’s like Lon’s right hand man and best bud. They’ve participated in most of the major challenge events that WTS has set up: triathlon-type races down river canyons and peak ascents, bike rides, and, now, kayak events.

“We started out the first evening not knowing anybody,” Lon said. “And over the trip we became friends. With the paddling, being tired, and pulling together as a team in an adventure, our egos drop. Talks in the evening around the campfires are interesting, sharing different backgrounds and ideas, you know, without arguments.”

Franklin raised his can of beer: “I’ll toast to that!”