Most people don’t realize how noisy their refrigerator is. Or how much of their leisure time they spend on the Internet, watching the television, or on the phone.

When we get home we don’t have those distractions so we can relax and enjoy being in the house, listening to the birds sing and the trees blowing in the wind. For years, we lived in a 12- by 12-foot wooden cabin—144 square feet, which Leon says was his true dream house! So we don’t have much room for possessions. We only have what we need which means four plates, four bowls, four knives and so on.

We do have hundreds of books because we love to read. We’ll often spend two hours a day with a good book. We love sea kayak expedi- tions because of how close we feel to nature and the way we live is an extension of that lifestyle.

We run a kayaking store and school on Orcas Island, Washington, so in the office we have electricity, but at home, candles provide our light, a woodstove provides our warmth, we have a well for our water, and a composting toilet with a fantastic view of our pond and the forest.

Shawna is an artist so her linoleum block prints decorate the house and she’s made a beautiful glass tile mosaic around the woodstove.

We’ve built a new house so that Shawna’s 82-year-old mother and sister, who has Down Syndrome, could come live with us. We couldn’t expect them to live like we do so they have electricity in their portion of the house, called the “power pod,” while the shared portion of the house (kitchen, dining room, living room and our upstairs bedroom) is still off the grid and as simple as possible. While we built the house we lived in the upstairs of our barn where we store our kayaks. That was really cozy and also off the grid.

Through our past lives as biologists and our kayak expeditions we have come to appreciate how beautiful and fragile the planet and our lives are. It is because of this that we try to live a life that is rich in experiences, simple in what we need, and has as little impact as possible—so that we can continue to have opportunities spending time in a diverse, beautiful and untamed wilderness.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine as part of a feature on kayak dream homes. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Lapses in judgement. We all have them. Even guides.

Most of us have encountered the arrogant guide. Barking orders, muttering insults under his breath and strutting around like a marionette pulled by a manic puppeteer.

With clipped words and patronizing voice he badgers the clients, “This is how we do it. Not like that, like this. Look at mine—right… yours—wrong.” This to a gaggle of surgeons and military personnel, as if holding a paddle correctly is the most life and death challenge they will ever face. As if this morning kayak trip is a grave endeavour on par with perform- ing triple bypass surgery or launching a clandestine raid into enemy territory.

Instead of a relaxing holiday from their over-worked, over-stressed lives the dumbstruck clients are treated to a militaristic drill of every minutia involved in the great pursuit of sea kayaking. The tour is nearly over by the time the group dips their first paddle strokes into the placid waters.

But can you blame us guides? We have some of the coolest, most envied jobs on the planet. It’s no surprise that our heads may swell just a little atop our block-letter-printed “GUIDE” spraydecks. Our judgement about who the clients are, why they’re here and what they want may be off ever so slightly.

Certainly we’ve all witnessed the reckless guide—even the most levelheaded of us may have been one on occasion. Throwing gainers off waterfalls five days into a 14-day wilderness trip. Stepping on the gas pedal in a rapidly ending passing lane while towing a trailer full of boats on the shuttle home. Showing off our très cool to a group of middle-aged clients as if mistaking them for a pack of our Jackass-watching, lewd joke-cracking friends. 

As last summer’s eco-tour bookings declined alongside the economic slowdown, paddling guides across the country traded in their paddles, pancake flippers and natural history guidebooks for hammers, chainsaws and computers in an effort to put food on the table.

Although day tours did not decline appreciably, big-ticket, multi-day expedition bookings were down significantly across the board, with some large companies’ bookings down as much as 50 per cent from recent years.

This decline left many guides out of work and has forced them to take extreme measures: many of them had to find real jobs. This hardship had a significant impact on the lifestyles of these notoriously peripatetic individuals.

“I have been working for BC Ferries and for the Coast Guard,” said one displaced sea kayak guide.

“This keeps me on the water at least. But I miss the spontaneity and wilderness aspects of sea kayak guiding. On the other hand, I actually sleep in my own bed, see my family on a regular basis and have some money in the bank now.”

Other guides found themselves work in the construction trade, while some turned to other outside work as educators or forestry workers—but even those industries felt the pressure of the so-called recession.

Some guides, temporarily forced from the last wild reaches of the coastal world, resorted to the depths of homebound depravity, taking up computer-based work such as, well, writing. 

The old barnstorming pilots of the 1920s called it “the patch.” Cruising sailors call it their home waters. We kayakers have patches too. Often it’s an overlooked section of water, a creek, river, lake or bay that is only a short drive away and provides an opportunity for the little-recognized joy of the impulse paddle.

The pages of glossy travel magazines, heavy with all-inclusive resort advertising, lure and distract us with stories of far off lands and challenging paddling. Yet for most of us there is an adventure just around the corner.

I am one of the lucky ones. My waters are across the street. A tough couple days at work or too much time spent working on the joys of home ownership and I can have a hull in the water in 10 minutes. My impulse spot is our neighbourhood lake, 55 acres small.

In my ancient Aquaterra touring boat and my wife Charity’s pretty new Dagger, or our Old Town canoe with Iggy the adventure dog aboard, it takes us an hour to paddle and coast along the meandering shoreline.

Every time we slide a hull in the water we’re in for something different. We check on Carlos, the cormorant that winters on the lake and stands on the dam’s spillway ruffling his wings in the afternoon breeze. In the summer we count turtles and watch the little blue herons that sit on empty docks and scan the tannin- stained water for their dinner. Petite finches flit overhead, executing ragged aileron rolls and bouncing across the surface like skipping stones. There are neighborhood legends of ‘gators in the lake. Rumour has it they creep in from the Escambia River, but after three years we haven’t been lucky enough to see one, though I guess luck depends on your point of view.

Charles Mackay wrote in The Dionysia that “Water is the mother of the vine, The nurse and fountain of fecundity, The adorner and refresher of the world.” It doesn’t matter what your boat is—canoe, kayak or inflatable duckie—there is probably some water near you. Everyone, at one time or another, needs a little refreshing. And who doesn’t want more fecundity in their lives? I’m sure I need more of it.

Adventure doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to be distant. A true boater never forgets the patch, and the joy of the impulse paddle. When you get right down to it, Water Rat in The Wind in the Willows was right— there really isn’t anything “half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

BJ Armstrong is a U.S. Navy Search and Rescue pilot, a long-time kayaker and sailor, and a novice fly-fisherman from Norfolk, Virginia. 

This article first appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.