I spent today making preparations for the Bass Strait crossing, shopping for food, padding out the kayak for greater comfort (after1000k, I figured I deserved another layer of foam) and buying an upgraded EPIRB. The EPIRB I had gives off a signal which allows emergency services to locate you within a 20km radius. The new one allows location within 5km, and also sends exact GPS co-ordinates. That way, if for any reason the signal fails, they know where you were and what direction you were moving. Now I've got two. One for me and one for the kayak
ABC's "Drive" called today to try get some insight on Andrew McAuley, what may have gone wrong, and what inspires people to take on challenges like these. As I was waiting I heard the interview with the search and rescue co-ordinator in NZ. He was saying that the light was fading, and that they were calling off the search. It was so terribly sad, and I was really shaken speaking afterwards.
This cuts to the very core of what it means to be alive.
I tried to explain what makes people like us tick. I can't presume that Andrew is exactly the same as me, but I imagine we must have things in common. I think we all have a voice inside that guides us to our highest purpose, that gives us our sense of place in this world. For me, and I presume for Andrew, that voice is strong. Without it I would feel adrift in a world full of possibilties but devoid of direction. Call it dreams, passion, inner truth, highest potential, call it destiny if you will.
Following that inner truth has given me an incredibly rich life, and the few times that I haven't listened to that inner voice, it has led to misery. I have learnt to follow it.
Of course that doesn't mean following every whim. The inner voice provides the substance, but the intellect must provide the form. Instinct can tell you to do something, but it must also be justifyable ethically and intellectually.
Everyone, in the quiet sanctum of their core, must work out their own path. For me, the equation looks like this;
I have spent 15 years outdoor adventuring, relying on my survival instincts, learning from experience, mine and others. I started this trip in Sydney knowing that it would involved a a gradual "upping of the ante" - a transition from the populated, sheltered East Coast to less inhabited wilder South exposed coast. I knew that by the time I reached the Strait I would have encountered all sorts of weather (and indeed I have) and be in tune with the ocean, the kayak and my own capabilities. I have taken all the safety precautions possible. This is not to say that nothing can go wrong, the ocean is too great a force. It is to say that the risks are calculated and the back-up plans are in place.
I feel that I have been given uch, achieved much, and that I have a lot to give back. While I don't have kids of my own, I feel passionately that we must preserve the environment for all our kids, that we must begin to live with, rather than off, nature, and that this can be done in ways which enhance, rather than detract, from our quality of life.
Gunns proposed pulp mill will affect thousands of people; lives lost to lung disease and logging truck accidents, livelihoods lost due to air and water pollution, wildlife and forests and climate change all negatively impacted.
Therefore, this adventure represents a small personal risk for a large potential societal gain .
And so I feel both guided, and compelled, to act. I feel that i can't simply stand by and watch it happen, watch greed and short-termism take precedence over the common good. Not again. Not when we know how much damage has already been done. Not where there are alternatives that will be better for everybody, including Gunns, if only they look.
I also hope that this thinking, this striving for economically and environmentally positive alternatives , will create a ripple that will spread, to other issues, other problems, other solutions.
So for me, the risks, though real, are justifyable. After all, this is what weare meant to do. We work out what we believe in and we stand up for it.
The alternative is a life of fear, of regrets, of "what ifs"
I believe that no matter how long it's been since we listened to our inner voice, no matter how we have filled our lives with noisy distractions hoping to drown it out, no matter how hard we have tried to deny its very existence, that voice will never die. It will always be there. It is what makes us what we are.
And that is why I'll be leaving Port Welshpool tomorrow for Refuge Cove, then across the Bass Strait.
Your donations and support would be sincerely appreciated
Also, check out http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/fellow-kayaker-says-hell-go-on/2007/02/12/1171128857989.html for an article, voice recording and video footage taken today