Our journey in an El Nido kayak began with clumsy frustration. But as we learned to paddle in sync, we found more than just a straight path. We found a silent, shared rhythm—a quiet lesson in partnership amidst the towering cliffs of the lagoon.
The tour guide’s instructions were a cheerful chaos of Tagalog and broken English, lost in the humid air of El Nido. Around us, a flotilla of bright orange life vests bobbed in the water, a floating traffic jam at the mouth of the Small Lagoon. Elena, my partner, was already settled in the front of our blue two-person kayak, camera at the ready. My job was the engine. “Just paddle straight,” she said, a simple command that, as we would soon discover, was anything but.
Our first ten minutes were a comedy of errors. My powerful strokes on the right sent us spinning into the path of a German family. Elena’s attempts to correct from the front only made us zig-zag more wildly. I splashed her back with a clumsy paddle dip; she shot me a look that needed no translation. We were two individuals in a single boat, working against each other, our frustration a silent, awkward passenger. We weren’t gliding; we were bickering with paddles.
Breaking away from the main cluster of boats, we found a sliver of open water along the towering limestone cliff. The rock face, scarred by millennia of wind and water, seemed to absorb the noise. It was here, away from the crowd, that I stopped trying to power through and started to listen—not to Elena, but to the water and the weight of the boat.
I started a quiet count in my head. One... two... dip... pull. I focused on the sound of my paddle entering the water, and then, a half-second later, the sound of hers. A rhythm began to form. Dip. Pull. Dip. Pull. The kayak straightened out, gliding forward with a newfound grace. Elena’s shoulders relaxed. She put her camera down. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. We were finally moving together, our separate efforts merging into a single, silent conversation.
Travel with someone long enough, and you learn a new language—one spoken not with words, but with shared glances, patient silences, and the simple rhythm of a paddle in sync.
We paddled deeper into the lagoon, a cathedral of stone and jungle. The water turned from turquoise to a deep, clear emerald. In the quiet spaces between the cliffs, we let the kayak drift, the only sound the drip of water from our paddles. The beauty of the place was overwhelming, but what I remember most is the feeling of that effortless glide, the profound peace of two people having found their tempo. We had arrived not just at a destination, but at a state of perfect, unspoken partnership.
