On the Water

     I had lashed our kayaks down just before the hurricaine last month, so I hadn't had a chance to get out on the water for over a month. Yesterday's holiday and blessed reprise of summer-like weather gave me an opening to bring my boat out and I decided to take advantage of it.

     When we're at home, deciding to kayak is a semi-big deal. I have to haul equipment out of the basement, install the rack on my car, lift the kayak onto the rack and tie that down for the car trip to the water. The kayak is almost eighteen feet long and is an awkward sixty pounds whose weight is tricky to manage because it can shift all too easily in the loading, travel and unloading. Murphy's Law fully applies and usually kicks in.

     Putting the kayak rack securely on to the car is one of those groaner chores that I can try to skimp on, but end up inevitably paying the price for if I do skimp. Fine finger-eye coordination and hand strength combined do not make my skill-set list, so getting the Thule rack fit to receive my boat tests my patience and my ability to defer gratification, neither of which qualities I have in any abundance.

     Suffice it to say, I managed to load up the kayak and make the fifteen minute journey to the Scallop Pond waterways in the woods and wetlands along Peconic Bay. Stepping out of the car, I was immediately struck by the sunshine and warmth, the clear and fragrant air, and the medium strong colors of early fall -- the green grasses going sere and golden, a few russet leaves and the diamond sparkles on the water.

     I reversed the loading process and managed to get the boat down off my car roof without hurting me or the kayak, no easy feat. I put on my spray skirt and PFD (personal flotation device) and stuck my cell phone in a waterproof holder I hung around my neck, got into the boat and pushed off.

     Sometimes I am so stressed and hungry for a workout that I paddle hard without interruption for a half hour or more. Not this day. I kept stopping and gliding, listening, looking, smelling and feeling the air around me as the sun warmed up the morning. I listened to birds and insects constantly sound their various signature noises. I watched the even ripple lines my boat carved as I paddled forward. I smelled the salt tang in the air and the marsh aroma, redolent with life. I saw lots of birds and crabs and fish, big and small. A flock of wild turkeys patrolled the marshlands, aware of me but not unduly agitated by the glide of my boat thirty feet from their foray in the grass. Several times during the two hour paddle, beautiful small bright yellow moths buzzed my head. And six cormorants set up a picket line on separate navigation buoys, carefully following my progress and ready to blast away if I came too close.

     I was tired at the end of the two hour paddle (and grateful I could do that much after my illness earlier this year), so I got careless in reloading the boat onto the top of the car. Predictably, with the iron laws of gravity and Murphy combining in perfect coherence, I almost lost the boat off the car driving on the highway. So I had to stop and resecure the kayak with a great deal of effort and some extra twine fore and aft. Home safe, I reversed the process of earlier in the day and put everything away. Whew.

     The lessons and gifts of the day are many. Time spent in readying things for safe transport is time well spent -- shortcuts can be costly. Beautiful early fall days are fleeting and need to be grabbed and experienced before they give way to gray, cold winter days. Colors and movement and aromas on a day like I had on the water are occasions for prayers of gratitude, of course, but also opportunities to just be aware and take it all in. To be one being in such a wide canvas of creatures feels like a blessing, and that mends the frayed ends of my over-stressed nerves. It was a good day to be alive.