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Still Paddling Her Own Canoe
The northeast side of Hawaii’s Molokai
Island is rugged, pleated country. Like a
moist green hem, the coastline gathers up,
zigzag fashion, wrinkling cliff against valley
and land against water, to form an arc of
lonely, fantastic and, for many Hawaiians,
sacred promontories. A paddler’s paradise
on many days, but not this one. Rain pours
from dark clouds, big seas froth against
rock—white on black. Beyond sheer 3000
foot cliffs, a six foot swath of plastic tosses
in the troughs, loses itself in the spray of a
twelve foot wave, and rises haphazardly
with the next crest. The object is a kayak:
a small inflatable, open hold stuffed with
a few essential pieces of gear and one 47
year-old woman, digging into the waves as
if her life depends on each stroke which,
in fact, it may. The year is 1967 and the
woman is Audrey Sutherland, paddling her
first ‘canoe’.
Thirty-six years later, high in the
wheelhouse of a 62 foot commercial fishing
boat turned kayak mothership, binoculars
scanning another enticingly convoluted
shoreline—southeast Alaska’s Baranof
Island—Sutherland tells the Home Shore’s
Captain Jim Kyle that her perilous 1967
Audrey in her inflatable kayak.
paddle wasn’t her first Moloka’i voyage. On
two other occasions she had opted to swim
the 20 miles, towing a semi-waterproof
pack.
ODYSSEY KAYAKING
Elizabeth Short
Sutherland, longtime Hawaii resident
and author of Paddling My Own Canoe
and Paddling Hawaii, is an icon of solo
wilderness kayaking. Between 1980 and
2002, in a variety of inflatable kayaks
(chosen for their portability, light weight,
low cost, and unmatched buoyancy), she
paddled nearly 7,800 solo miles of British
Columbia and Southeast Alaska coastline,
patching up dilapidated cabins for fun
and shelter along the way. Her longest
trip lasted 87 days and covered 887 miles,
from Skagway, Alaska to West Thurlow
Island, BC.
Tana Dasilva, the Home Shore’s cook
and paddling guide, was thrilled when she
heard Sutherland would be their guest. “I
read her book a long time ago and have
given it to other people. When I heard she
was going to be on board, I thought, ‘Oh my
God, one of my heroes!’ Audrey believes
that growing older isn’t a reason to stop
kayaking. That’s an inspiration to me.”
Kyle was pleased, too, but also surprised
when Sutherland booked the charter. “Why
after nearly 8,000 miles of solo kayaking
did you call a mothership?” he asked.
Sutherland’s reason was simple. “I was
curious to know if this would work, so I
could do a combination a little more safely,
with someone very strong to pull me out of
the water,” she said. “I was interested in the
concept of the mothership and in seeing
more country than I could in a kayak.”
© Photo Chris Jacksa
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14 www.WaveLengthMagazine.com June/July 2004