The hairs on my bare forearms stand up in anticipation as I set out from shore in a tandem sea kayak with my newly minted teen son. We are lucky to have a perfectly still morning to explore Newman Sound, one of the long fingers of Bonavista Bay on the eastern coast of Newfoundland that reaches into Terra Nova National Park to tickle its shores. The ocean surface is a flat-water sheet of emerald glass. We develop a nice rhythm gliding across the mirror, as each pull of our paddles makes great headway in zero wind. The only sound is the occasional dripping of water across our hands into the sea as we alternate from side to side.
We are hoping to make it past The Narrows to Minchin’s Cove for lunch and then return, a 12 km trip in total. The still water provides excellent visibility, so we drift occasionally without paddling in shallow areas along the shore to see orange and purple starfish, sea urchins and rocks of all shapes and sizes. We easily clear The Narrows in about an hour and then head out across the open ocean. Jamie hopes to see a whale and I tell him we just might.
Without warning, he pulls his paddle over his head and yells, “Mom, there’s nowhere to go!” Hundreds of jellyfish in all sizes undulate in the water: some at the surface, brushing past our kayak, others pulse at deeper depths. We are completely surrounded. I am alarmed and lift my paddle out too, trying to figure out what to do while fear pumps adrenaline around my body. I do not want to endure the fiery rash of a jellyfish sting again. Several years earlier, I was stung by a loose stringer that drifted past unseen while diving in the Caribbean. The burn mark on my arm had taken a year to disappear.
Here we see huge rusty red lion’s mane jellyfish, with bell diameters ranging in size from dinner plates to car tires. Tentacles float willy-nilly at the surface or twinkle in the sunlight bands leading down as far as the eye can see. Translucent white moon jellies, the size of baseballs pulse by, revealing four white circles in their alien centres, nature’s failed attempt at Venn diagrams. The moon jellies do not have long tentacles, just little propeller ones close to their bodies. Some moon jellies are tangled in the red manes’ tentacles, slow meals for the commanding species.
Jamie freaks, “I can’t paddle anywhere, there are too many!” He bangs his paddle across the bow of the boat to see if loud noise will scare it away. I sweep my paddle close to a red mane jelly, to see if it will sense our presence and move away. Nothing works. The last thing we want to do is flip a tentacle up onto a bare arm or hand. While not lethal, we know the sting would leave us itching and moaning for hours. We have to keep going, so I agree to be the sole engine. Jamie takes up the role of spotter, with paddle and arms held close to his body for insurance. At 13, he is a curious paradox: he won’t permit hugs anymore, but he is glad to embrace a backup plan when the going gets tough.
In the dead calm sea, it is easy to propel the tandem by myself, so I paddle gingerly, watching every entry to avoid the stringers. I try to get Jamie to focus on the interesting part of this encounter to get his mind off the danger. We talk about why the jellies are here in such large numbers: is it a sign of global warming, and they are closer to the surface than usual in their quest to find plankton? Has the whale population dropped so low that the jellyfish population has increased unchecked? As we glide by, Jamie calms down and notes that they are really quite beautiful and peaceful; drifting along as if listening to some primordial command that only they understand.
We finally pull into Minchin’s Cove and land the kayak to take a lunch break. It feels wonderful to get out and stretch upright after being bent at the waist for 3 hours. We sink into sticky peanut butter and honey sandwiches as we tramp around to explore the remains of an old logging camp in the clearing. Deer flies smell our wet skin and target our arms for their own chunks of lunch: we laugh about how funny we look trying to eat and swat flies at the same time. The wind picks up and brings fresh green scents of the surrounding boreal forest to compete with notes of briny ocean.
Jamie notes that the sky is clouding over and that the wind is turning up whitecaps that we will have to paddle against on our return trip. The ocean is now milky grey, hiding secrets under opaque waves. We load back into the kayak and luckily Jamie doesn’t ask to have a turn at stern: we need my expertise to steer with the foot paddles while paddling to maintain direction against the waves. Jamie cannot see any jellyfish at the surface, so I tell him they must have descended deeper to avoid the churn. This seems to be the case, and I am grateful, because his strength is necessary to paddle against the waves to make any headway.
We drive against the wind and waves all the way back to the Marine Interpretation Centre, burning up every last lunch calorie. Exhausted but exhilarated, we haul the kayak onto the beach and unload our gear. Jamie takes a well deserved stretch, grins widely and says, “It was so cool to see the jellies!” We are on an interesting journey through time as mother and son: sometimes the balance shifts, but the truth is we need each other.
