Around Baikal 2003

Day 48

Day 48 -- July 18, 2003
One night during our layover in Ust Barguzin, our host Sergey, called me aside for a man to man chat. With a grave look on his face, he asked me how we had prepared to deal with "hooligans." I chuckled softly; as much at his choice of words as anything. But, Sergey clearly didn't think it was funny.

I folded my hands and bowed my head -- meaning that our only defense was to pray for safety. Sergey was not impressed. He led me into his house and to a tall wooden cabinet which I was sure held a collection of guns. There was no way was I about to go cruising with my wife around back country Russia, packing a freekin' pistol in my kayak, and had steeled myself to refuse the offer.

Sergey pulled open a long drawer, reached in and took out what looked like a giant policeman's flashlight. The kind that runs on 8 D cell batteries. It was pretty beat up, had some electrical tape wrapped around it's base and, where the bulb would usually be, there was, instead, a pair of thick metal prongs.

I had no idea what I was looking at. Sergey motioned for me to stand back. I gulped. He held the thing at arms length and thumbed the switch. There was nothing to see at first -- just a disturbing buzz, growing steadily louder like the device was collecting energy. I held my breath. Suddenly, a crooked, wiggly moose of blue electricity shot out from the prongs; cracking and popping like a toaster oven dropped in a bathtub.

I stared, entranced, and when I finally turned my eyes to Sergey, his face had a look fiendish and wild. After a few seconds, he released the switch and the blue spike of spark and fire disappeared.

"Oh yeah!" I cried, feeling quite fiendish myself, and, already pitying the drunken slob who I would light up like a Roman candle if he tried something funny. I grabbed for his "zapper."

Sergey thought better of it though, and quickly stuffed the thing back in the drawer. He dug around for a few moments then finally withdrew a cell phone. "Of course," I thought sarcastically, "when the hooligans have us surrounded and the end is near I'll just make a phone call." Noticing my waning excitement, Sergey clarified, "nyet cell phone."

He took the device from its leather case and quickly hit the "send" button. This time a tiny blue worm of static crawled around the antenna.

It would certainly be an unpleasant surprise to someone who thought they were ordering take-out. But, next to the lethal lance of lightening just demonstrated, it didn't exactly inspire a flood of confidence.

Sergey handed me the gizmo, then quickly led me outside. I probably wouldn't have accepted the gift, generous though it was, if not for a piece of information we've carried since Ir Kust. A piece of information, concerning a point, hundreds of miles beyond Sergey's place, in Ust Barguzin.

A point we encountered today, in fact... (to be continued)

Location: about 75 miles south of Vero Baikal

Day 48 Continued -- July 18, 2003
...We could not have hoped for a more perfect day. Even our yellow and blue kayaks, hunter's orange splash jackets, and mangled life vests, could not penetrate the freakishly thick fog. The stormy seas were a blessing as well, absorbing the sounds of our approach. Even hugging the shore, we would be invisible.

"Baby, wake up," I urged mercilessly, at 5 a.m. Brandon opened one eye, careful not to wake the other and waited for an explanation for the rude awakening. I uttered 3 words. Three words that we both knew when spoken, were the final say. They were our war cry, our starting line cheer, our get up and make it happen, raise your fists in the air and shout; "IT IS TIME!" I said, with a seriousness of a general to his troops.

Hearing these words Brandon rose from his sleeping bag and sprung into action. With the pulse of Baikal as our camouflage, we were on the water, paddling south, less than an hour later.

With fog as thick as soup, navigation proved to be an impossible fete. We could hardly see the shore to our right, and all other terrain was devoured by the immense fog. Brandon watched the compass helping track small points and bays. I carefully studied the map, estimated our pace and established an ETA of 8:15 a.m.

At 8:08 I called Brandon to my side with a whistle. I pointed to the faint outline of a mountain to the West, and, explained in a whisper "at the base of a mountain is a river, next to the river lives the "bogeyman." No sooner had the words crossed my lips than a roofline rose eerily out of the fog.

My left foot slammed down on my rudder control and I paddled out to sea as if a band of burglarizing, bogeymen had already given chase. When my skin stopped prickling with images of a gun pointed at my back, I steered closer to shore. But, it was hours before we stepped with shaking legs onto solid ground.

We whispered quietly, our congratulations. Then, courage and adrenaline took over and we looked to the sky and shouted, "Thank you Burkhan!"

Location: North 54 degrees 00' 40.3" East 108 degrees 13' 51.3

Read more about the journey in the introduction.