Intrepid Kayaker Leads Mellow Ocean Voyages

Dick Rohde saw it as pure adventure, “another notch in the gun.”

Diane Krieger saw it as an opportunity for “serenity, to move along quietly among the wildlife.”

Tom Blackman saw it as a welcome day off from the insurance maze, “a neat way to look at whales.”

The problem was, the whales didn’t show.

Whales had been advertised. As leader of a three-hour kayak expedition, Ed Gillet had said “Come kayak with me!” to see “Whales!” making their southward migration from Alaska to Mexico. Gillet leads kayaking tours every day of the week and almost always sees whales. No foolin’.

Of course, just kayaking five miles out to sea from La Jolla Shores with Gillet as skipper promised enough adventure for seven San Diegans who spend most of their days delivering mail, hawking insurance, shooting pictures or making hats.

You may have heard of Gillet. He’s an orange-haired, whispery guy who rarely gets rattled about anything. He’d have to be unshakeable considering what he has done.

Gillet, 36, has spent much of the last few years shimmying across the ocean in a kayak. He has kayaked the glacial waters of Prince William Sound in Alaska and the Pacific coast of Baja. He has kayaked from the southernmost tip of Chile up the Western coast of South America all the way to the Panama Canal.

Mere Warm-Ups

But those were nothing--mere warm-ups--to Gillet’s version of a walk on the moon.

Last summer he spent 63 days in a kayak paddling from San Diego to Hawaii. He got way behind schedule, alarming his wife, his father and the U.S. Coast Guard, before his family appealed to President Reagan for help. Gillet made it to Maui 23 days late. His hands are pocked and scarred from a combination of sunburn and bleeding brought on by too much paddling.

For 63 nights, how does one sleep in a kayak?

“Fitfully,” Gillet said, not trying to be funny. “You just crawl up inside and try to snooze. You wake up a lot.”

He described the more-than-two-month ordeal as “terrifying and exhilarating . . . On one hand you’re completely dependent on the boat, on your paddling and skill. On the other you’re continually dreading what might happen.

“The scary part was not what did happen but what could have happened. A freighter could run you over. Your boat could break up. You fight a lot of tedium and boredom.”

Gillet is just as attached to a kayak these days. He paddles across the breakers as easily as a seal. Paddles are to him what fins are to fish. He has the added gift of being able to share his aquatic acumen without condescension.

On a recent serene weekday, the seven would-be whale watchers conceded their collective kayak time was frightfully low. Several had never been in a kayak. Gillet wasn’t flustered by the lack of experience; if he was, it didn’t show.

Each person paid $25 for the afternoon trip, which included not only kayaks but also transportation to La Jolla Shores from Gillet’s kayak shop in Point Loma.

Each said the motive was to dabble in adventure, to get away from the weekday grind and maybe--just maybe--to see a whale a few feet away.

Gillet explained that launching (setting off to sea) and landing (surfing into shore) are kayaking’s true tests, much like landing and taking off are the toughest tasks in flying. He boasted that not one of his students had ever turned a kayak over in trying to launch.

No sooner had he uttered that brave pronouncement than the first two weekday warriors flipped right over.

No problem. . . Soon, everyone was under way, drifting out past the smog and the clutter of the shore to search for whales and whatever else might turn up.

Gillet used the time en route to chat about San Diego, the home he adopted in 1975.

Time to Move On

“I don’t really like it anymore,” he said, paddling with the group. “I’d like to move. Santa Fe, N.M., has the most appeal. I like rock-climbing the most. I love kayaking, but something about the mountains moves me in a way the ocean never has. It’s time for something different.”

Krieger, the only woman on the trip, pointed out a covey of seals, apparently headed for a whale-watching post of their own.

Pelicans danced nearby. Seals barked in unison as the big-mouthed birds divebombed the surface.

Gillet clustered the crowd in a circle of boats. For a few quiet moments, watching for whales gave way to an eerie calm, a shared reverence.

No whales.

Only silence.

Water lapping against the boat like playful slaps.

After about an hour, everyone headed back in, whacking through kelp reminiscent of swamps in the Everglades, not far from Miami, where Gillet grew up.

Another pair of weekday warriors flipped on the landing, despite Gillet’s pleas not to “surf--don’t try to surf your boat in! If you do surf, ride with the wave, lean into the wave. Don’t get caught sideways. You’ll topple for sure!”

Topple they did.

Afterward, everyone spoke rhapsodically, landings notwithstanding.

Someone compared it to fishing: It isn’t whether you catch fish, it’s what kind of time you had taking the day off trying to catch fish.

Whale watching-by-kayak captures the same spirit.

“Even though we didn’t see whales, I’d say kayaking is the best way to try,” Krieger said. “You’re not disturbing them in any way.”

“It was so quiet out there,” said Tom Blackman, who works for Barney & Barney insurance brokers. “I remember going by La Jolla Cove and hearing those little kids laughing. Somehow, it seemed magical, a perfect thing to do on a blissful day off. I’d love to do it again.”

“I thought seeing a whale would be the ultimate,” said Burt Repine, a local mailman. “To see the largest mammals in their milieu, without the hindrance of 65 people on a cattle boat would have been great. But I was hardly disappointed.”

Repine had met Gillet before at Ecomarine, Gillet’s Point Loma shop that rents and sells kayaks, rowing shells and canoes. He hopes to accompany Gillet on another kayaking trip, this time off the coast of Ensenada.

“I just like to try new outings,” said Repine’s buddy and fellow mailman Jim Schneider. “I’m a sports fanatic. I’ve tried hang-gliding and rowing, now kayaking. I’m a native San Diegan. I crave the outdoors. I’d say kayaking is the best way to see it. It’s gentle, low-key, unassuming . . . a lot like Ed.”

“I really get off on this kind of stuff,” said Rohde, who also sells for Barney & Barney insurance. “I like things that really stimulate me, challenge me. I’ve tried (cliff) cave-diving in Mexico and sky-diving. I like to risk my life on episodes like these. I thought going five miles out to sea would be a real dance. Was I scared? Of course not! We ought to be more scared of drunks on freeways.”

He had a point.

For a few lingering moments, there were no drunks, no freeways, no “I-can’t-drive-55” cars hurtling through the night.

No sirens, no semis jackknifed on the side of the road.

No telephones, no memos, no messages that just couldn’t wait. There was ocean and sky, sun and surf, sea birds flying above it all and seven people gently rocking on the water.

And somewhere, off in the distance, all to themselves were the whales.

They too were taking a day off.