Alaska Diaries - Friend's Nightmare becomes my Beautiful reality!

So we had planned to end our trip by Kayaking next to the Aialik Glacier. It was a full day trip with a water taxi ride of 2.5 hrs one way, about 4 hours of Kayaking and then 2 hours back to Seward. We started at 7:30 AM from Seward, and were back at 6:30 PM in the evening.

From the shore where we started kayaking

Well, I don't know what makes me pick up some of these activities, considering that I don't know swimming, neither have I kayaked ever in my life. So to try this for the first time in an open ocean, was let's put it as Stupid. Hey, but it is me, and most of the times logic does not work well with me. And precisely the reason that my parents hear about it from me only after I get through it safely, to relieve them of the burden of being worried for me the whole time.

Anyway, so I was paired with Jacob, a college grad who was alone on this Kayaking tour. My friend and his wife were on another Kayak, and our guide Ryan on his Kayak. We started kayaking by the shore on the left till the glacier, while the other kayaking groups were going to head through the middle of the bay area till the glacier; and then each one of crossing over to the other path; making a loop; and not getting in each other's way.

While kayaking by the shore, almost an hour into kayaking, we were almost close to the Glacier, when we spotted a black bear, getting out of the water onto the shore, picking berries on its way. Ryan, the Guide is pretty fascinated by the bears, so were we. We kayaked pretty close to the shore; let's say Ryan and my kayak were just around 200-250 meters away from the shore. My friend and his wife, they stayed far off behind us, and did not close in. Apparently, they were trying to stop me as well from getting closer, if only I paid any attention :D

Anyway, I asked Jacob "You think we can Kayak further close to the shore".

Jacob asked Ryan "You think we can kayak faster than the bear if the bear swam towards us"

Hahaha - I had got my answer in his question :D

Ryan replied "Of course we can"

Aialik Glacier view

But we stayed where we were 200 meters away, looking at the bear through binoculars that Ryan had handed over to us. It was walking towards us picking the berries (or whatever) from the shrubs, but I kept telling myself, "well it just got out of the cold water, I don't think he or she will get into water again to attack us" Well, in times of fear try whatever makes you stronger right :D

So all good, we stayed there for about 15 mins or so, and then started kayaking towards the glacier. Had a mesmerizing experience of kayaking in rain, Glacier Calving, that thundering sound, the rainbow over hills, those small floating pieces of ice on water as you come up close to the glacier. And of course the wildlife like Whales, Otters, Puffins, Bears, Sea gulls, Starfish, Sea lions. It definitely is a much different experience than seeing glacier from the flight or hiking it or ice climbing it; and I must admit, by far the best experience of all elements of nature one can have.

Here is the video from Kayak Adventures Worldwide, the group we signed up with for the Kayaking day tour; pretty much sums up everything I was lucky enough to see and experience. I am yet to scan my Gopro videos, and given my schedule, I don't think I can get to them until Christmas holidays :) I have the video of the Bear closing in, will upload it when I get a chance.

https://youtu.be/HyhGfAYSJPc

On the way back, in the water taxi, my friend starts the conversation "We kept calling you, to stop you from going so close to that bear. You weren't listening."

I was like "Well, what happened? I dint find it so intimidating, and even if I did, I was here to experience every bit of it."

And then they shared their story. Couple of months back my friend had a nightmare; this was when we had not even planned this trip yet. He woke up middle of the night quite shaken by the nightmare. He said, he saw that he, his wife and some third person , he dint know who, were boating next to a hill. And they see this huge bear coming down the hill towards them. They start boating as fast as they could, but the bear was catching up on them pretty fast. And that's when he woke up.

I was gaping at them with my mouth kinda open in amazement. They were like "When we saw you kayaking so close to the shore, we just had the nightmare replay in our mind over and over again. That's why we were so scared to kayak closer, and then we could see that the third person was you, and you were going so close, we were really worried"

Hmmm. I din't know what to say. I don't know, if I knew of this before, would it have changed anything (considering how lost I get in nature at times). But nevertheless, for me it was a beautiful experience to see the bear so up close, open in the nature, doing its thing and me out there completely vulnerable.

So a nightmare, turned out to be an improvised beautiful experience for me. Might have been a real deal, if the bear really chased us down :D But hey, there are a lot of might haves and could haves in life right. What's strange is how close that dream came to reality; was a nightmare for him but of course a beautiful dream come true for me.

-Sarita
Dated - 26th August 2017

Comments

Ahamasmi Yodha - My First Tattoo

I finally did it. It isn’t a great achievement to show off, but for me it’s one more item on my bucket list getting fulfilled. So I am very happy about it. What did I do? Oh like I said nothing great – I just got my FIRST Tattoo :) My first Tattoo Artist I had done a lot of research on it since last couple of months. I wanted to get it done on my birthday, but it somehow dint work out. For all the first timers, I wanted to list out my personal experience, just in case it helps :) First of all, I felt it will be very helpful if you have some friends who would have got it done already. But I dint have that privilege. So I went through lot of blogs and articles in About.com, Wikihow, YahooAnswers etc… Well Google, the new lord of knowledge :) has all that you need to know. So, in summary, what I got from all these sites were First decide on what you want to get tattooed and where. Go over it again and again, since it is permanent, you will have to live ...

Dear Dost

Dear Dost, I know you are dealing with a lot in life. A lot has happened in the past that has changed you. A lot is happening right now, that is forcing you to change. A lot of decisions you have to make that's exploding your brains. You are multi tasking like some superhero. You have issues at home, in the family, in your personal life, that you are juggling with. You have professional problems that you are dealing with. A lot - that's what's happening to you right now. When I met you, I saw "a lot" has changed in you. I have changed too, and so have you. But what I could not ask you was - are you still you? I remembered Gulzar's words, written back in 1995 (atleast that's what the source says, I had listened to Jagjit Singh singing this, and it had registered in me since then). din kuchh aise guzārtā hai koī jaise ehsāñ utārtā hai koī dil meñ kuchh yuuñ sambhāltā huuñ ġham jaise zevar sambhāltā hai koī aaina ...

Celebrating the Bridge for Friends!

Just like any other bridge, this one plays a role of connecting you and me. Some are brand new, very inviting, clean and pure, presenting to be strong, yet to get exposed to the harsh reality of life. Some have weathered in many seasons, with few bars of railings missing, few broken planks, yet they stand strong, like huge metal bridges. Some are reinforced with fresh materials every few years, so we stay connected strong and safe for entire lifetime. Some are beyond repair, standing there rusty and broken. Not because it's impossible to fix the gap, but just waiting for equal support from the other side to mend it. Some were meant to serve one another just once. The need to cross that bridge never arose again, doesn't mean we don't remember how important that bridge was in our journey. To new and old, deep and shallow, strong and weak, connected and broken friendships, I am grateful to have known you one way or another. Happy Friendships Day! 🍻

Alaska Diaries - Innocence is Fearless

Innocence is fearless. Innocence is free from consciousness of how it gets perceived. Innocence just acts, reacts at free will. On the Denali National park bus, there was a 6 year old boy, Matt. While driving in the park, there were couple of folks riding the bike, and the guide made a comment " We call them Meals on the Wheels! " ; we all giggled, smiled for 2 secs ; like we did on most of his jokes; and got back to the normal serious self. After almost a minute or two, this kid started laughing out loud. And he told his mom " Oh.. Now I got the joke. Oh that's so Funny. Hahaha.. Meals on the Wheels!! " and he was laughing his heart out. He was the only one in the bus laughing but that dint stop him from doing so. For a full 8-10 mins, he went on and on , reminding himself of that phrase and laughing. I laughed for 4-5 mins with him just because of the way of his laughter; I couldn't control. This happened in the morning; but now on the way...

Home is a house without loved ones!

Home is a house without loved ones! It was September 24th 2005 when I left my home and since then till now I have been to home like some far away relative staying out of town, visiting our family once or twice in a year during diwali or New Year or some ones wedding. A guest in my own home! I joined this software industry on 26th September 2005 in Mysore, then I travelled to Pune in 2006 for a year and then to Bangalore in 2007 for one more year and then to London in 2008 for roughly a year and now in USA-2009. In all these 4 years, I have been busy. Busy getting adjusted to life outside home, for the one who has never stayed out of home, in even a hostel before – to handle this freedom yes definitely thrilling J, seeing new places, making new friends, keeping in touch with old ones. Professional career, half yearly appraisal fights, CRRs, freaking and idiotic managers, some stupid colleagues, some shrewd ones, and some of your own frequency. All this while, I did not really miss my ho...

My Favorite Read - 6 - The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev (and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer)

So, now that I want to get into some serious mountaineering activities, I started with reading books on mountains. When you check for top few books on mountains the one that comes up is " Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer " followed by “ The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev" ; both based on the 1996 Everest disaster which was made quite controversial. I started with "Into Thin Air' and while I was reading, I was continuously in conflict with Jon's views. Mind you, my memory is pretty weak when it comes to remembering details of any story - whether its books or movies. I had watched few documentaries and the Everest movie based on this topic; but that was a while ago. when I started reading this book 2 weeks back, I had no background; you can say I was totally new to this story. And yet, it was difficult for me to understand some of Jon's accusations or feelings. But nevertheless, Jon's style of writing was amazing; he knew how to keep reader's...

Love, Loss and Father's Day

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now, but somehow words fail me. I started writing, and stopped at the first two sentences, erasing and rephrasing, re-iterating the process every time I attempted to write this. 8 months later, today on Father’s day, I think I finally am able to put words into meaningful sentences. It’s weird how most of the times, I just need an inspiration, an idea or a feeling to write pages together without any effort; and then there are times, when my mind is cluttered with so many thoughts ,eager to be put on paper that I find it hard to form a single straight sentence. But I feel like writing today, so here it goes. My best friend lost her mom to a health incident few months back. When I spoke to her she asked me how did I handle it when my dad passed away few years back. I could not explain it to her then, I just said you will learn to live through it. That was when I first tried to write this blog. Even after so many years, ...

बेज़ुबान परछाई..

अपनी परछाई से पूछते रहे हम आखिर कब खो दिया हमने खुद को तुम तो साथ ही चलते हो हमेशा फिर क्यों इत्तला नहीं किया हमे दुनिया से मुतास्सिर हुए है इतने कि बेरंग सी हो गयी है ज़िन्दगी लोगों की झूठी उम्मीदों पे खरा उतरते उतरते खुद से ही दूर होते चले गए हम अगर ये ज़िन्दगी मेरी है और ये मौत भी तो भला क्यों मैं मर मर के जियूं दुनिया कि तसल्ली के लिए क्यूँ उस राह पे चलूँ जहाँ परछाई भी मेरा साथ छोड़ दे ना होते तुम बेज़ुबान इस कदर तो शायद ना होते हम गुमराह इस क़दर मेरे परछाई चलो फिर से साथ मेरे मेरी आवाज़ बनकर, मेरी पेहचान बनकर || -सरिता Dated - 8th July 2015

SriLanka Backpacking Itinerary - 14 days - One Country - Many Experiences

Finally, I tried to put together the itinerary of the 14 days backpacking trip in SriLanka I did with a friend in December 2019. Some general notes - For accommodation, we used Hostelworld.com ; Booking.com ; Airbnb.ca On an average $7 - $15 USD we get good accommodation in hostel/airbnb. Coconut water - 80 LKR (because I drank a lot of it :)) TukTuk - always suggest you check with locals on what's the average price, so you can negotiate with the drivers better. Bus & train - most preferred mode of transportation, cheap, depending on the time of the day there are chance of it being crowded, but hey - if you want to get the sense of the place and people, go for it. In the expenses I have not included accommodation or food or rides within city. Used Splitwise app to track my daily expenses. Carry USD in cash. local banks do give good exchange rate if you don't convert everything in Colombo airport. People bank of China did not charge ...

World of Truths!

I have had different encounters in life, learnt different lessons, seen different people, dealt with different situations. I remember those days when I used to converse with my dad on how things and people were back in his days, and it has gradually changed with time. Changes are inevitable correct? People adapt with time, things change, time travels and world revolves around it. So it's all good. Change is good. But few instances in recent past has made me wonder, how much of all these changes have impacted human values. Basic values like Truth and Honesty. Those were the days when a man gives his word, he sticks to it till his last breath. There were no stamp paper, no documents to hold him accountable to what he says. It was just the words that were told by him and heard by the listener. And today, truth is changing its color every second. Chanakya says " A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first ." ...

When Silence Speaks...

Search This Blog