Time for reflection on water

If you spend much time on the water in a kayak or canoe, sooner or later you’re likely to be transfixed by reflections. Sitting so low in a kayak, reflections dominate your view of calm water from even quite close to where you sit. It’s easier to see beneath the surface by looking straight down but in the wider view, without polarized sunglasses, then reflections rule. All that lies beneath the silvered surface is rendered largely invisible.

Freeways cross over water Seattle

Trees and branches overhanging rivers and canals,  create scenes of pleasing symmetry. There is a similar visual tunnel effect between the two images below despite their very different locations, France and Missool, Raja Ampat.

Reflected plane trees, Kristin Nelson on Canal du Midi France

Arching nipa palms, Misool Indonesia

Some reflections appear more constructed than others. The bold reflected shapes beneath bridges with pillars arches and girders, quiver and gently distort as ripples move between the solid structures. I am left with the impression the solid structure exists beneath me, no matter what the actual depth is, or the real nature of the bottom. (for explanation of the green water color, see my Color of Water blog post)

Illusion of underwater dock construction, Seattle

Neither can I resist an opportunity to pause in the face of semicircular arches that are sucked into visual tubes by reflection. Do the curves really continue beneath the surface? Is this structure a tube, or is that just an illusion? The real bottom may be flat, and just beneath the surface, but it’s difficult to discard the impression that it follows the shape and depth of a tube.

Illusion of tubular tunnel, Kanu-Funsport Leipzig Germany

Reflected, concrete girders under a freeway that offer nesting shelter for pigeons and surfaces for clandestine graffiti scribblers create optical illusions of solid structures just beneath the placid surface, but as soon as the surface is disturbed the structures morph into dizzily shifting curlicue patterns.

Reflected Girders beneath freeway

Girders reflected in wavelets

Closer view of reflected girders in wavelets

The eye sees and the mind attempts to make order of the subtly shifting patterns. Only by taking a snapshot of the reflections does it become easier to see why the patterns are so challenging to follow. Even in a snapshot the crisscrossing wave patterns form such twisted reflections that seen out of context they illustrate a puzzling reality. Serving as Rorschach ink blots, the frozen shapes can conjure all manner of things, but rarely reveal the original object that was reflected. When the image is rapidly moving, what chance do you have of making sense of the shifting tree-ring patterns? 

wavelets create tree-ring style patterns

Ripples in motion

Stainless steel anchors, anchor pockets and scratch plates on ship hulls contrast the warping mirror of water, offering steadier mirrored surfaces. Just as from a flat-water surface an individual facet will reflect simply. However, multifaceted surfaces shatter reflections in a completely different way to water, creating collages of recognizable reflected bits of the surroundings.

Collage of reflections around anchor 

Water does something similar, but the effect is repeated many more times over by the procession of ripples each presenting its own set of constantly changing reflections from its uniquely morphing three-dimensional curves. Small undulations across an otherwise smooth surface cause shifting curvilinear shapes; shapes that are echoed in art including art from Papua.

Surreal abstract patterns of reflection in water

Although bridges and tunnels and docks offer some amazing reflections, there’s little more pleasing to me than cruising across flat water when the sky is blue with a few fluffy clouds. Looking ahead I have the sensation of flying high above the clouds, which shape-shift beside me as the wake from my bow warps the surface. Close beside my craft the reflected clouds seem to fade, and I can see through them into the water, perhaps seeing fingers of watermilfoil reaching up toward me, or fish darting away. And there on the surface itself, all around me suspended above the mirrored sky is another world of objects too light to sink, too heavy to fly. Here are insects that can walk on water. Here are floating plants, the leaves of waterlilies, feathers and twigs.

Cruising above the sky, Labrador (from the book On Polar Tides)

If you've enjoyed this blog post, find more of my creations on Nigel Foster YouTube channel, and on nigel foster vimeo. You can find my books on my store. I'm also available for presentations and special kayak instruction.

Reflection of canoeist, ceramicist  Kristin Nelson shattered by ripples 

The kayaks glimpsed in this post are by Nigel Foster (Point65 DoubleShot and Whisky 16 and Seaward  Kayaks Legend) 

Bacchanalian Baja

Kayaking without reason



This was a kayaking excursion but as with most good kayaking adventures... it's not just about the paddling. This tale also involves a burro in disguise... (no, that's not REALLY a zebra!)... and a critical volume of tequila (nobody knows exactly how much)


And in the good tradition of Aqua-Adventures adventures... (There HAVE been others... adventures... well, traditions too...) there was more to it behind first glance. Following festivities at a local bar/restaurant on March 31st (maybe I'll elaborate on those later...) had strayed beyond midnight, one person (I'll call her Jen to protect her identity) hatched the grand plan to open a zoo in a vehicle belonging to the Johnson kayak reps. This plan meant capturing wild animals from the plains of Mexico, and transporting them down the hill to the campground... starting with... yes, a zebra! It was dark... we didn't see the sign!

I have to say that I was amazed by the courage of AC-DC style rock singer Phil Hadley of England... who had earlier jolted the whole bar-full of youngsters onto the dance-floor with his inflammatory frontmanship... as he bent over to check out both ends of the zebra in the dark to figure out firstly which end was the front, and secondly whether the animal was male or female... I've always had a healthy respect for teeth and hooves... and the rest of the arsenal, so to speak. Brave man!


The zebra was tethered by a long rope... but didn't seem to want to move an inch from where she (Phil decided) stood. (Video clip by Russell Farrow... but don't tell Claudia)

It was then... in the silence of the wide plains of Mexico... quite close to the silent village... above the silent bay... that the zebra began to bray! The deafening foghorn of a sound echoed around the valley.

Two things then happened. First, almost every one of the brave hunters standing around the zebra sprinted off into the dark, followed by the sound of tumbling and crashing as they discovered the edge of the tall dusty bank down to the road. Second, the two remaining with the braying zebra (myself included) ran out breath through laughing so hard we became almost totally helpless.





Next day some of the group remained in disguise, just in case they could be identified...



Under the circumstances, if (Jen) had managed to borrow the burro, she could have ended up in a Mexican jail... which was exactly what happened to one of the two Johnson reps on the way back across the border, after the next, and our last, morning of paddling in Baja. (Jen), back at San Diego, received the phone call. Their vehicle had been impounded, one of them detained, perhaps indefinitely, leaving the other stranded at the border without transport. As (Jen) wrote down the details on her note-pad in dismay during the five minute phone call, she repeated out loud no less than three times for the dazed rep at the other end... yes... the date? Again? Yes... April first.

Oh and the other video clip? (Jen) kindly lent me her Point65 Whisky16 for the week... but with the repeated plea "PLEASE don't damage it". Of course, I love rock-hopping and playing in rough water... and I love the challenge of doing it without contacting rock... unlike someone else in her other fiberglass boat... how does the song go? "We don't tip-toe through the tidepools"? Well... of course what the eye doesn't see...

(There are more Baja 2009 images on my web-site nigelkayaks.com)