GG Popović

Nikola Popović has guided sea kayaks through the bay for thirty years, reading tides and the wind that falls off the mountains along a coast he calls the most beautiful office in Europe. A former sprint canoeist, he kept the racer's start and the waterman's judgement, and he uses the second one everywhere except here. The anchor goes for the hit. Any hit, anywhere, however deep and however safe the alternative, and he will tell you afterwards which hit it was and how far it was worth going for. He lost a whole season of guiding money at a cash table in the town when he was thirty-five, took two years off the game entirely, and now plays for money only in the winter and only small. Warm, proud of his fjord and unrepentant about everything except that, he holds that a kayak and a position both go where the paddler commits them, and that caution past a certain point is only drift.