Paddling <i> Baidarkas, </i> They’ll Form a Convoy on Expedition

It was illegal 180 years ago and it’s illegal today. Back then, though, the Aleut Eskimos and their masters, the Russians, paid little heed to Spanish dictums forbidding them to poach sea otters in what’s now the Channel Islands. The Aleuts, whose unique baidarka kayaks were virtual extensions of themselves, were a lot harder to catch than were the otters.

“The baidarkas were creatures of the sea,” says Jim Noyes, who will recreate a baidarka expedition Aug. 19-26 from Point Conception through the islands to Oxnard. In a kayak convoy shepherded by a schooner, Noyes, a paraplegic from San Francisco, will pilot a three-hatch baidarka constructed by Canadian historian/craftsman George Dyson.

“The original boats, dating as far back as 5,000 years, were made of whalebone lashed together and covered with sea-lion skin,” Noyes says. “They bent, they flexed. Dyson--the Stradivari of kayaks--builds them now of aluminum tubing and nylon skin, but he lashes the tubing together with nylon twine, making a boat that’s truly in the Aleut spirit.” Modern fiberglass kayaks, Noyes says, “kind of flap as they carve their way through the waves. My baidarka just undulates.”

So, in a sense, does Noyes, who says, “I feel that I’ve grown an incredibly swift and agile craft down around my useless lower half; I’m like a merman, or a centaur.” Assuming the Channel Islands trek succeeds, Noyes next proposes a joint U.S.-Soviet baidarka crossing, in 1989, of the Bering Strait--”an extremely dangerous body of water.” The Soviets already have responded favorably, he says.

Meanwhile, Noyes hopes to recapture the daring of the Aleuts and the spirit of the times. “It’s extraordinary,” he says, “to think that 180 years ago, the L.A. area was already a place of great ethnic diversity: indigenous Chumash Indians, Aleuts, Spanish, Russians, Yankees--all trying to get a table at Spago. . . .”

The Deevers Do It Up at Los Flores

Duane and Candy Deever were married in Reseda in the summer of 1953. After the reception, they and a group of friends drove down to Malibu for a celebratory dinner at the Los Flores Inn, the one that sported the sea lions in a parking-lot tank. Something about the place--the ambiance, the meal--appealed to the Deevers, and on their first anniversary, they returned. And returned. And returned.

In 1963, Duane Deever--then a fireman, now a captain in the Los Angeles County Fire Department--responded to his first major alarm. It was the Los Flores Inn that was ablaze. Despite the firefighters’ best efforts, the structure was severely damaged. “The end of an era,” Deever thought. Enough was salvaged, though, that the building was rebuilt--as the Sea Lion--in time for the Deevers’ 10th anniversary.

Years passed, with Duane and Candy continuing their quiet dinner tradition, part of which was never calling attention to their anniversary. Only once did they weaken. As they left the restaurant on their silver anniversary, mellowed by the occasion, they decided to share their secret with the cashier. The cashier smiled, nodded, made change. As it turned out, she didn’t speak a word of English.

Last week was the Deevers’ 35th. Same time, same place. This time, the management, clued in by son David Deever, made a fuss.

About time. Skoal!

Never Put Off Till Tomorrow . . .

Everyone procrastinates, of course, some of us more than others. Generally it just jams us up at the end of the day. Or the week. Or the decade. For some, though, it’s a serious problem.

“Usually, what we postpone is something entailing fear,” Marie Moore says. “It could even be something pleasant, but in the end, it’s associated with at least some fear.”

Moore, a doctoral candidate, is interning at the California Graduate Institute Counseling Center, which will hold a series of free workshops aimed at overcoming procrastination. Anent fears, she reminds that there are “all kinds: fear of failure, sure, but also fear of success; fear of being separate as well as fear of being attached; unconscious fears that you may not even be aware of.

“As example of fear of success: A person will put off a project because if he does it well, people will expect him to continue to live up to that level and he’ll be inundated by work. . . .”

With insight, suggestion, proven techniques, Moore and the institute propose a free program to help world-class procrastinators kick the habit. First workshop is Aug. 15, 7-10 p.m. at the counseling center, 1100 Glendon Ave., Suite 1119; (213) 208-3120. Not much notice, to be sure, but the fault is ours. We’ve known about the workshop for some time, but we’ve been putting it off. . . .