When learning proper technique for the forward stroke, it’s helpful to break it down into separate phases. The reality is that the stroke is one fluid motion, where each phase blends subtly into the next, but by focusing on one at a time, we can emphasize key elements that lead to a more efficient stroke.

By 7:29pm, as I lifted my board from the silky black water, the newly-risen moon shone hazy against the dark eastern sky, low enough to the horizon that one could imagine drops of water still falling earthward after its emergence from the ocean. 

The sun had set nearly a half hour before, but as I turned my gaze from the water, I saw that the western horizon still retained more than a hint of the brilliant streaks of orange and red the sun had splashed across the sky as it settled below the Danvers River for the night.  

As we paddled, we watched with one eye fixed on the incoming swells on our left, and another on the large, sharp edged rocks that lined the shore on our right. Ahead of us, the coast swept outward slightly, intercepting our path, while a group of submerged rocks on our right gave warning to remain on an inland course with each wave that tripped and then exploded on the tiny island.

There is no body of water too small, too unnoticed, or too unnamed, to be unworthy of discovery. Paddling a body of water allows it to be explored in a way that brings life and importance to it.

As humans, we find comfort in connecting with others, and for me, there's no better way to connect than sharing an experience that so few people ever get to have. On every trip we run, whether everyone knows each other already or are just strangers meeting for the first time, this connection happens almost instantly.

Life is full of trips that bring us back to our starting point. Every year the Earth orbits the sun, traveling through hundreds of millions of miles only to arrive back at its starting point 365 days later (if we ignore the greater movements of the cosmos, but it’s all relative ;) ). Every day, the Earth rotates on its axis, spinning us through sunrises and sunsets and tides and storms, only to do it all over again tomorrow. Each morning we leave the house, and god willing, come back home to the same place later that day. But each journey affects a change in us. Each year brings new hopes and dreams, each morning a different sunrise. Every time we come back home, we do so a bit older, we hope a bit wiser, and a bit more capable of being the spouse, mother, brother or daughter that we long to be.

Fall is my favorite time to paddle. Maybe that's not true. Maybe the start of each season brings out these feelings, and perhaps in three months I'll be writing again about how Winter is my favorite time to paddle, but it really feels like Fall is my season. Fall feels like the gift of time, a present for the present, when our minds can find comfort in "Now".

And if you have been watching the news lately, then you also know that our country is deeply divided. …And that's why this eclipse comes at an important time. For a few hours on Monday afternoon, tens of millions of Americans will turn their eyes to the skies ….. Watching the eclipse from the water, from the ocean that quite literally unites all continents on Earth, in sight of the horizon where the sky and sea unite, seems, for me, the most appropriate to view the eclipse. 

As I float, the number of times I instinctually reach to check my absent phone for emails or notifications drops off, and I feel lighter. I marvel at how heavy a phone seems in contrast, not in the weight of the metal and glass, but in the thousands of intangible lines that chain us to the rest of the world. I wonder about how much a person needs when on the water. Compared to the guy in the skiff, I needed far less, but compared to the cormorant, far more.

I'm fairly certain that NASA launched the first moon landing with less technology than we use to plan paddle trips.

The rising sun holds the promise of a new start, a fresh beginning, a chance to live today better than yesterday. Being on the water releases us, if momentarily, from the pressures and deadlines that anchor us on land. We sat on our boards and kayaks, each with our own thoughts, but all grateful for the chance to come together and celebrate the new day.

Finding myself upside down in the kayak with my head pointing toward the muddy river bottom was shocking enough. The cold ocean water pouring into my ruptured neck gasket and flooding my (still) too thin wetsuit added a surprising new twist on suffering.

Islands are more often than not the destination for my paddling, when there is a destination. The larger islands are exciting in their own right, but as they gain in size, they diminish in their islandness, and so it is the small ones that I prefer:

Islands of floating sea ice, far too small to call icebergs, and large enough only to hold myself, one hand steady on the bow, as they float down river and out to open water, where they'll eventually melt back into the sea. These ephemeral islands, on whose fleeting structure I am the only person that has ever and will ever set foot, are my favorite.