Long-time club member and my good friend Edmund (Ed) Rhinelander passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on December 16, 2024 on the eve of the club Christmas party. The shocking news of his death spread quickly through the club as he was well loved and admired by many. Ed and I joined the club around the same time, back near the turn of the century (I feel ancient phrasing it that way). His welcoming and generous nature drew people to him. He could walk up to a stranger on the beach and within minutes they’d be talking like they were old friends. We became friends immediately. In addition to kayaking we shared common backgrounds in fishing, camping, beer drinking, football and growing up local.
We were also both ardent members of the do-it-yourself club, reluctant to pay others for something we could do ourselves. An electrician by profession, Ed was a Jack of all trades, but not a master of none. He was a master of many. He constantly surprised me with the ability to do so many things and do them well. Unlike my DIY skills that rely heavily on YouTube, Ed’s skills came from life experience. Befriending and learning from other craftsmen, he practiced until he got it right and those skills became second nature.
One memorable project that he undertook began when he inherited a used Hobie Mirage Drive, the pedaling system for Hobie fishing kayaks. He didn’t own a Hobie kayak and already had more kayaks than he could use so he decided to mount it in a fiberglass Cuda that he had previously modified for sailing. He studied the Hobies to understand what made them work and then he took a saw to his Cuda. It took him longer than he planned and several iterations to the drive mounting, but he finished it. I went with him on its maiden voyage and it worked beautifully! Rock solid pedaling and smooth steering.
One of the few areas where Ed lacked skills was in the digital realm. I don’t think it’s because he wasn’t capable, but he probably tried computers back when they crashed frequently and software wasn’t user-friendly. He didn’t have the patience for that so he left it for others to do. That might be one of the reasons he married Lois because she was proficient with email. He stuck with a simple flip-phone until he was forced to get a smartphone for foreign travel with post-COVID tracking requirements. I was pleasantly surprised when I received my first text from him. He seemed quite proud. And then he discovered emojis!
If asked to choose one person you’d want to be stranded with on a desert island you couldn’t go wrong picking Ed. Sure, he wasn’t much to look at in a swimsuit, but you would survive and probably live pretty comfortably. One of Ed’s favorite TV shows was “Survivor”. I don’t watch reality shows so I never watched an episode with him, but I assume that he constantly critiqued the participants the same way that he yelled advice to the coaches of the football games on TV (I’ve seen that).
Through his network of friends and contacts he often learned about a cache of used material or equipment that was about to be thrown away. No landfill for those items, he would give them a second life. He also had an eye for spotting discarded “treasures” along the side of the road, much to Lois’s chagrin. He was upcycling before it became fashionable.
The most obvious example of this is the steep hillside garden behind their house that he terraced by creating retaining walls out of used tires. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t get a structural engineer’s stamp of approval, but I would put money down that the retaining walls last at least as long as the house. Ed spent a good part of his retirement working in that garden and it’s the last thing that he worked on. He had come back to the house after working up on the hill in the morning. Lois found him sitting on a folding chair on the front deck looking like he was asleep with one shoe off and the other half off. Attempts to revive him by Lois and Glenn and later the EMS were unsuccessful.
Like many of us, Ed hoped that he would die before losing the ability to take care of himself and that his death would be quick and painless. He got his wish, but he left us too soon and we didn’t get to say goodbye. Ed had planned to grow old with Lois in the home that they built together. Preparing for the day when they had reduced mobility, they built a wheelchair ramp on the side of the house and installed a front door wide enough for a large wheelchair. Ed’s best friend commented, ironically, that Ed’s only ride on the ramp was on the gurney to the mortuary’s van.
Those of us that paddled with Ed, especially the ones that went on kayak expeditions with him, undoubtedly gained some wisdom from him that made us better kayakers, fishermen, campers, cooks or people. We grieve along with Lois, Kelly, James and the rest of his family. We didn’t get to say goodbye, but he left us with many cherished memories. Aloha my friend. A hui hou.