My best friend Jenny and I met in grad school. After we graduated, we did the requisite “doing Europe” trip together and later we both got good in tech. She bought a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in kind of a boring neighborhood; OK it was Kirkland. But it was close to our offices and when the house next door came up for sale I dropped a full price offer sight unseen. It was next door to Jenny and that’s all I needed to know. It was so cool, we had dual house parties, hot tub parties and just had so much fun.

I worked on some early AI stuff, and she worked for a web company that would set up a web page for companies and use their algorithms to pump up their site to the top of the search. She was really good at meeting people and chatting them up and getting them as clients. She would go to some client and take a bunch of pictures and write some copy and the nerds in her office turned it into a web page.

Sometime she take me along and have me stand in front of whatever stuff they were hawking and act like I was interested in it. She would get us various freebies, trips, passes and cool stuff. All I had to do was stand there in front of their crap as she snapped a bunch of pictures.

Me and Jenny worked out at the same gym and there was this dude Saul that worked out there who had this business where he would teach people Sea Kayaking, Wind Surfing, Paddle boarding, Scuba diving and coordinate all kinds of cool excursions.

He drove this big truck with a trailer behind it that held Kayaks, paddle boards and had compartments with all the related gear. The trailer had the name of his company on the side which was a dopey name “See the Sea with Saul”, I think Jenny was trying to help him come up with something better I suggested Saul’s Sea-speditions, Jenny thought that was hilarious. He never changed it.

She recruited him as a client and took a bunch of pictures of him standing in front of his rig and of him giving lessons to people. He would go to places on Lake Washington and people who had signed up for lessons would meet him there and he would give them training in the calm lake waters on how to Kayak, paddle board, wind surf and all those types of things. She had a ton of pictures and wanted to have me in some pictures with Saul pretending to teach me to kayak or paddle boarding. I joked how technically makes me a model.

Jenny set him up with a really nice web page complete with a way for people to sign up online and pay for it online, web promotion, the whole package. The promotion package would hype his page up on the search engines, in other words, for a price, she could magically make his web page “surf” to the top of the search lists.

As a result, his business really took off and he was able to get another truck and trailer and even hired another guy to help him with his business, a junior partner. His business was really growing and doing really well. He was very appreciative and told Jenny if she ever wanted free lessons, he would be happy to provide that. Jenny was always getting free stuff like that from clients, deals and nights out, all kinds of perks and she would often invite me along to the various soirees. I guess it was sort of my pay off for being her “Model”.

She told me about it and said she was sure she could get us both free lessons. I said sure it seemed like it would be fun to do. Sea kayaking sounded like a fun thing and said sure let’s go for it.

Jenny set it up with Saul, and he said that he would give us private lessons with him and his new guy Dave who he had hired and just the two of us would be the students as a trial run. I was thinking wow, that is pretty cool but also seemed like maybe a little bit of a setup, very convenient, two guys, two gals. It seemed like the new guy was in training on how to do kayaking training, so our free lessons were also helping train the new guy.

The appointed day came for the first lesson, we went down to the place on the lake and the two of them showed up with the big rig. Saul and his new guy Dave were going to be my instructors and Saul was going to be Jenny’s instructor.

Usually, they have about ten students with just one instructor, so we were definitely getting the royal treatment, one on one instruction. I thought it was partly that Saul was super appreciative that Jenny had helped him with his business, but it also seemed like he might have been interested in her as well. Maybe he had ulterior motives.

With all the one-on-one attention we were both catching on fast. We had one more session on the lake and then Saul suggested that we should go up to the San Juan islands and give it a try in the real sea. I love the San Juan islands, if you have not seen them believe me, they are just unbelievably beautiful. Of course, we were both all in on the idea.

Saul had sandy hair, slightly balding and receding hairline not unusual for a guy that age. He was an attractive guy; he had a tan all the time from his job probably. And he was becoming successful in his business so I thought it wouldn’t be horrible for her. I think the Dave guy’s job was to just keep me occupied so Saul could cultivate a relationship with Jenny, wing man duty I suppose. He was a nice guy but a bit younger than me and there was no chemistry there at all, I like intelligent guys and Dave did not exactly fit into that category, a nice guy, and not bad company.

The plan was that we were going to drive up to Orcas Island in Saul’s big rig and stay at this place called Deer Harbor, it’s this really cool place that has cabins and is set on a pretty inlet. Very picturesque, Jenny had arranged two cabins, one for me and her and one for Saul and Dave.  She got us a deal because she apparently had she had done a web page for them too, and also Saul had done a lot of business with them for expeditions and tours, so we got cabins right on the water with nice views.

We drove up to Anacortes in Saul’s rig and got onto the ferry which took us to Orcas Island. We got off in a town called Eastsound and then drove up to Deer Harbor. We checked in and got settled. There was a nice café where we had dinner and then sat out on their deck having drinks and talking. The plan was to get up early and Kayak around and the hope was that we might spot an Orca or two if we were really lucky. Jenny said if not the nerds back at the office could photoshop some in for us.

When we retired to our cabin me and Jenny smoked some weed, apparently Jenny thought that Saul was not a weed guy, so right away I thought that was probably a deal breaker for her. But she was smart enough to not mention to him she was into herb because that might spoil the trip and we might not get the royal treatment we were getting.

We also talked about if we were going to fuck these two dudes and which one of us would fuck which one of them. We both agreed that if we saw actual Orcas, we would fuck them and we would either flip a coin or Roh-shambo for it or whatever but, the deal was, fuck them if we got the real deal live orcas, or leave them high and dry if no orcas. Me and Jenny always made a fun game out of fucking and honestly, why not.

But it did seem like Saul and Dave were pretty straight and not into weed so we were sort of thinking whatever, if we get pics of Orcas we give them good fucks. Who knows, maybe they wouldn’t care either. Who cares. Whatever, me and Jenny toked out which really helped me sleep because I was nervous about going out on the real sea after only two lessons, but, hey, I was with two expert instructors so, you gotta figure you are in pretty good hands right?

We got up early and met Saul and Dave down at the café and had pancakes for breakfast. Saul said we should fuel up because we would be paddling a lot today and we would stop on the beach of a small island he knew about where we would break for lunch. He said they had a lunch packed for us, but it would not be a lot of food because of limited space on the kayaks, so we needed to get a lot of carbs in our bodies now. 

The trip was going to be a couple of hours of paddling around, then break for lunch at some island then paddle back directly for maybe an hour or so. The whole thing was supposed to be about four- or five-hours total. A pretty long day but we would not be paddling the whole time and he said we would be taking it pretty easy because we were novices. We were in those double kayaks; Saul and Jenny in one that had our provisions and me and Dave in the other.

Things went pretty much as planned, we launched from the dock at Deer Harbor and that inlet was really calm which was a nice way to start out. It was just as calm as Lake Washington, which can also get pretty rough at times but of course we had trained on calm days.  It was a calm day in the San Juans, really perfect weather.

We would be paddling out to the open water and then to this tiny island. The mythology about the San Juans is that there are 900 islands at low tide and 200 at high tide, I don’t know of that is completely true, but it definitely seemed possible because there are a lot of little islands with nothing on them and don’t have a name.  Saul said that the one we were stopping at is an Island that didn’t have a name because it was too small.

After a while, both Jenny and I noticed some dark clouds in the distance, then Saul and Dave said we should try to make it to the island before the squall hits, we would be safe there. I was thinking, wait, what? You mean we are not safe out here? I looked over at Jenny and she looked worried. Dave and Saul started to look a little worried too. I didn’t want to say anything, but then I said, maybe we should try to paddle as fast as we can? Dave and Saul said, yes, that’s probably a good idea, follow us.

We started cranking hard, it was difficult for us to keep up. The whole time you could see dark menacing clouds coming straight for us. We could see the little island and I was thinking OK, cool, we’re going to make it. But it started getting windy which made it harder to paddle fast and we just couldn’t quite get there fast enough with the head wind, it seemed like suddenly we were barely moving at all. Then the squall hit us hard, the waves were just so overpowering. First me and Dave flipped over, then Jenny and Saul flipped over several times, we were getting really exhausted, falling in, getting the kayak upright and getting back in over and over.

We all flipped over so many times we lost count. The last time our kayak flipped, Saul had to jump into the water to help us because we were so exhausted. The wind started to blow one of the kayaks with the provisions farther away from us, Saul said, forget it, he and Dave got in one kayak and said grab this line and we will paddle you to shore, and we’ll go back and get the other kayak later.

We had life vests and wet suits on, so we just floated and held on to the rope while they pulled us to shore. We were all totally exhausted, drenched and shivering cold, the Puget Sound is not warm water, even with wet suits we were freezing.  The bad thing is that the kayak with the provisions, food and water, the one that had the gear, the portable grill and everything, that stuff was gone.

Saul said there was no way he could find our Kayak now; it was nowhere to be seen. He said he would paddle back to Orcas Island and get us help. Dave would stay there to take care of us.  Saul gave us his only bottle of water and off he went off.

Dave said he was going to get a fire going, he had this Swiss army knife that had a flint for starting a fire. He said he could use it to get some of the driftwood going using whatever wood we could find. We helped him gather as much wood as we could, the exertion helped warm us up. Once we got the fire going and the storm finally passed, we started warming up and calming down. But we had no food and just a half bottle of water.

Then I asked a scary question, what if Saul doesn’t make it to Orcas. Dave said, well, they had checked in with the Harbor master at Deer Harbor and with this squall that came through, if we don’t come back at the time Saul told him, he was sure the harbor master would call the coast guard to come look for us. But I think Saul was worried because you guys were so cold, he wanted to call for help as soon as possible because he was worried, we might get hypothermia.

My phone was lost with all the flipping over, but there was no cell coverage out there anyway, and even if there was, it probably would have been too wet to work.

While Dave was rummaging around on this tiny little rock of an island Jenny whispers to me “I think the fire is also a signal fire” and then she kind of makes this face as if to say, Yikes!  It started to really hit us what deep doo-doo we were in. Something that Dave probably already knew all too well but was trying to keep us calm and not panic us. But he sure was focused on getting that fire going. He also said to look around if there was anything maybe we could use to boil water in and use maybe a piece of plastic to catch the steam and condense it. I was thinking, dude, how long are we going to be here, and it seems like we would run out of wood to burn eventually. I was starting to get really scared and I could tell Jenny was too.

Meanwhile poor Saul is paddling his ass off trying to get to Orcas Island in raging swells on the water, which was super dangerous even for a very experienced instructor. Even though the storm had passed for us, it was following him and keeping up with him as it moved east, so he was padding in it the whole entire way back to Orcas Island. The good thing for him is that he had the wind at his back but still, it was a pretty heroic effort on his part.

He finally got to the closest shore of Orcas Island. It was this little hamlet of just a few vacation homes that are only occasionally inhabited. Of course, no one was home at any of these cottages. He was running frantically from one to the other yelling for help and pounding on the doors like a crazy person.

At one house he pounded on the door, no one answered, he tried the doorknob, it was locked, so he lifted the welcome mat, nothing, then he saw a flowerpot next to the door, he picked it up and was just about to throw it through the window when he saw the key was under it. So, he unlocked the door and went in and yelling, is anyone home, help, I need help, I need to use your phone, it’s an emergency!

There was no answer, so he went in, found the phone, and called 911. He explained to the operator what had happened and to please send the coast guard out to rescue us, we had a kayaking accident and some of the people might be going into hypothermia. They told him to stay put, the coast guard would meet him at the beach head there so he could show them where we were.

He hung up and stuck his head under the faucet and gulped down water like a mad man. Between that frantic paddle across the channel and his adrenalin pumping, he was near dehydration. He went down to the beach head where he left the Kayak and waited. The Coast Guard boat appeared quickly because they were already out looking for us.

They pulled Saul and the Kayak aboard and he pointed to them which direction to go. They could see the smoke from the signal fire, he explained he had left his partner there to make the signal fire.

When the Coast Guard pulled up, we were all so relieved, they tossed us some water and pulled the nose of the boat up on a sandy shore of the island and they immediately started checking us out for hyperthermia and dehydration, we all checked out fine. We told them we are good, and that Saul is a hero. 

On the way back, they spotted the other kayak adrift, the Coast Guard guys were super nice they went and got it for us. I asked to speak to the captain, they took me up to the bridge and I thanked her personally. They took us back to Deer Harbor and even helped unload the kayaks onto Saul’s rig. We thanked them, they were super nice, we told them they are all heroes.

The captain, she was super cool, that was her ship and there was no question about that! I liked her, she seemed like a good leader. She told me that the harbor master at Deer Harbor had called them before Saul had because he was worried that we were out there when the squall came through, so they probably would have found us anyway because of the fire, but definitely faster because of Saul.

I also talked to her about boats and said I was thinking about getting something a little bit bigger than a kayak and she laughed but told me about the power squadron training and gave me information on how to learn more about boats. That was so cool. The coast guard, man, they are amazing heroes for sure!”

When we got back to Deer Harbor, we were all totally exhausted and went back to our cabins to get showers and get cleaned up. We were all going to meet at the café later for some dinner. Jenny and I showered and got ready. We were starving and still chugging water.

Jenny and I walked over to Saul and Dave’s cabin to meet up with them and go to dinner we talked about the deal we made earlier, no live orcas no fuckie, but we sort of felt like both those guys were kind of heroes and tried hard to save us so maybe we should fuck them anyway.

As we walked up we could see they were sitting out on their front deck of the cabin and we could smell it way before we got there, we both started cracking up laughing, oh yeah, ganja. When we walked up, they acted all nervous and we started laughing and saying are you guys were holding out on us. They said they thought we were the strait-laced ones. We all got a big laugh out of that when we told them we thought the same thing about them. We all got baked and went to dinner, food never tasted so good! It could have been the shittiest food every but honestly that diner at Deer Harbor had five star food. Pretty sure. Go check it out and tell us later.

After dinner we went back to Saul and Dave’s cabin and it was kind of funny, I had thought Saul was into Jenny, but somehow, it seemed like Jenny was digging on Dave, maybe the whole survival thing. And Saul, started looking pretty good to me, maybe the hero thing. One thing led to another. Maybe it was the weed and the excitement of the day, but I did Saul in one room and Jenny did Dave in the other room. We fucked their brains out, shit why not, who cares goddam it.

The next morning, we met Saul and Dave down by the dock, Saul was yelling to come quick, we ran down and there was a pod of Orcas in the inlet. Apparently, they use this inlet as a hunting ground, they will herd the fish, usually Salmon, into this small inlet and as it narrows toward the end near where the dock is, they will have themselves a big ole feast on all the fish they heard in there. It was amazing to watch, Jenny filmed it and took a lot of pictures as we watched in amazement. Saul threw the kayaks in the water and he and I paddled out there and Jenny and Dave in the other one with her snapping pictures like crazy. There was one really cool on with two orca flopping out of the water with me and Saul holding up our paddles, it was on the front of his web page forever. It was so cool.

You could almost sense that they are very intelligent creatures. It seemed like they were very coordinated and planned it out. Amazing. Saul said that it’s called Carousel feeding, it is a cooperative hunting method, we were extremely lucky to see them in action!

The ride back to Seattle was pretty quiet, I think we were all beat. When we got back, we thanked them for an awesome time of our lives. Saul said he still felt bad, and if you guys ever need anything just let me know, I owe you. I didn’t think so, I thought he was a hero.

None of us ended up dating or anything, I think we all knew it was one of those one time things. But from then on, we always called that little island Saul’s Island. Eventually I did get a big boat and whenever we would go to the San Juans, we would always make a point of cruising by it and recall that time we almost died sea kayaking.

We all stayed buddies, Saul and Dave would come to our big blow out parties me and Jenny had at our houses. Saul ended up with this cool chick Elaine who we all thought was super cool, we never said anything about the fucking them that time up in Orcas Island.

Eventually we did take Saul up on that offer if we ever needed anything; a yeah or so later, me, my girlfriend Gillian, Jenny and her boyfriend Lenny took Scuba lessons from Saul. The next chapter in the saga, that time we almost got eaten by sharks while diving the great barrier reef!