The Bay Area. That’s where we live, and that body of water, the San Francisco Bay, defines us by where we live in relation to it–East Bay, South Bay, the sunny side of the bay, or through the tunnel. Some say you don’t live in the Bay Area unless you can see the bay, others contend that as long as you have a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station nearby, you’re in. San Franciscans would gladly disown all but those who live between San Francisco State University and the Golden Gate Bridge, I suspect. It’s a big bay, and there are many communities perched around it claiming it as their own.

I love looking at the bay. It changes constantly, reflecting the sky in blue or gray or orange, sometimes choppy and sometimes glassy, always alive with activity. The ocean just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge sends cooling fog over the hills and through the gate. It never gets old, it never fades into the background. It owns this area.

When someone is talking about being here, they often refer to their location as “in the bay.” Not literally in the water, but in the area defined by this body of water that is home to Angel and Alcatraz and Treasure/Yerba Buena Islands, is spanned by six bridges, and is host to cruise ships, sail boats, whales, sharks, kayakers, dolphins, Dungeness crabs, tour boats, ferries, and container ships, to name a few.

I’ve lived most of my time here on the edges of the bay: throwing a ball in for my dog to fetch, walking out on the pier, sharing a sunset drink at a bayside bar, walking on the Bay Trail, or simply enjoying the scent of the sea from a distance. The Target parking lot always has a brisk, salty breeze that reminds me how close the water is.

Recently, I actually got in the bay. Really in it–hair wet, salt in my mouth, all the way in the bay.

After a guided kayaking adventure in the Monterey Bay over the summer, I decided I wanted to do it more often. Kayaking is a relatively easy entry to water sports; there’s not much set-up or clean-up, and you don’t have to be at the peak of conditioning to enjoy it.

In order to feel safe kayaking without a guide in the future, I signed my husband and I up for a class at the Berkeley Marina. I thought later that a little less thorough introduction to the sport would have been sufficient, but since we signed up and paid, we went ahead with it. I had an idea that there might be some instruction about what to do if you became separated from your kayak, but I tucked the thought away, not really wanting to engage with that possibility.

Our instructor was kind and easy-going, talking us through the basics on land, helping us find the right wetsuits and personal flotation devices, and giving us straps to keep our sunglasses on. I really should have headed for the hills then.

We lugged our kayaks to the pier, got in to the wobbly vessels without incident, and headed out to paddle around the marina. I was just getting comfortable when our leader called us to circle up and he told us how to get back into our kayaks if we capsized when we were with a partner. Fine. Then he said we would all do it. My stomach began to churn. I knew there was no way I could haul myself out of the water into a rocking boat with my weak arms.

The moment of truth came. I had to do it. The instructor seemed confident that I could. I took a breath, rocked to the left, my mind screaming, “Really?!? You’re doing this?!?” and next thing I knew I was sputtering in the cold water, flipping my kayak, and following the steps with my partner to return to my seat in the boat. Somehow, I did it. Relief.

We got out of the water for lunch, and I was feeling pretty good. I had done the thing I dreaded. There was one more thing I dreaded more, but I was trying not to think about it. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I didn’t bolt then. I’m sure everyone would have understood.

Back in the water, we paddled around some more. We circled up, and this time learned how to put what looked like an inflatable pool toy on the end of our paddle to use in a “self rescue” if we capsized alone. I promised the instructor that I would never kayak alone. I confessed that this time, there really was no way my tired arms would get me out of the water and into a rocking kayak. He laughed. “You can do it–visualize it,” he said. My husband had taken the plunge first, and called out encouragement to me.

Once again, against every instinct, I rocked my kayak hard and held my breath, kicked out of the seat, came to the surface and flipped my boat over. This time, I paused for a moment, caught my breath, dipped my head back in the water to get my hair out of my face, and started the self-rescue procedure.

It involves throwing a leg over the paddle, which is floating in the water on one end and on top of the kayak on the other end, heaving up onto the kayak, and carefully spinning around to slide your legs into the boat, then somehow balancing while you get your bottom into the seat. I got to the spinning part once, lost my balance and went into the water again and had to start over. The second time, somehow, I did it.

The sense of relief was complete this time. It was over.

To finish up the class, we paddled out of the marina in into the open bay. Once outside the calm of the marina, the chop and swell of the bay felt wild. “Roll with it!” our instructor told us. “Stay loose!” I was working hard to relax and not tense up.

It was amazing, it was thrilling, it was hard. I was on the edge of panic but trying to push it down. I was terrified I’d capsize. My husband looked at ease and confident; he assured me that we wouldn’t flip in the waves. The instructor paddled up beside me with encouraging words.

We paddled under the Berkeley Pier and around a rocky outcropping into more protected water and made for the dock. My arms and legs were screaming for a break. My hips felt broken. After pulling up to it and tossing my paddle up, I rolled onto the dock and collapsed onto my back. We made it.

There were 10 of us in the class. We started out as polite strangers, but by the end of the day, I felt a bond with them. We had rooted for each other. They were witness to perhaps my worst hair day ever (I literally gasped when I got home and saw myself in the mirror). We had all taken the plunge together and lived to tell.

I can only hope that if I ever have to rescue myself in a real capsize situation, adrenaline will somehow carry the day.