less than a mile from the bridge, they have entered a different world. A world filled with ospreys, egrets, great blue heron, green heron, tri-colored heron, kingfishers, and gulls. A world where the muddy banks of the canals are crowded with biblical numbers of nickel sized crabs. A place where mud that has recently been underwater on the high tide is pungent with rotting vegetation and scraps of fish left behind by the wading birds and otters. A watery world where entire schools of shiny fingernail sized fish riffle up out of water and burst ahead and left and right of the kayak. A world where dragonflies shoot and dart like hummingbirds, inspecting the kayak, then dismissing it and flying away.
A world so quiet that she can hear each ripple of the water against the kayak.
A world where even though they are less than a mile from the takeout they are completely lost, having only the sun as a reference. Where she wonders whether they will get so lost that they will end up portaging the kayak across the muddy grasslands back to the Intracoastal, losing their shoes in the sucking mud.
She dips her paddle to probe the depth of the water. It is less than twelve inches deep back here in the canals. Occasionally her paddle sinks into the mud that sits below the black water and then emerges coated with gelatinous stinking muck that reeks of primordial decay. They pull past a little point at the intersection of two canals and surprise a great blue heron that squawks twice, takes flight, and lifts itself away from the kayak with powerful flapping wings whose whooshes can be heard until it is thirty or forty yards away.
She looks at her watch, realizes they have been out for two hours, and realizes that they should head back. He agrees.
They find the bridge and angle towards the passage to the take out on the other side. In the middle of the Intracoastal, with the wind at their back, they boat their paddles and drift for a few minutes, letting the wind work for them. She drinks in the million winks and facets of early morning sunlight flicking off the tiny ripples on the water. She has rarely felt this peace, especially when there has been a man nearby.
They pull for the takeout and as they open the little reach down to the takeout she notices a trap staked on the bank, hidden in the long grass.
“ Wait,” she says.
They paddle back to bring the trap closer, so she can get a closer look.
“ For muskrats,” he says. “Or maybe otters.”
The trap diminishes the perfection of the morning by the tiniest amount. But the difference for her between perfection and near perfection is not one percent, it is an infinity.
Joe
It is my 50 th birthday. I am waiting in the shadow of the lighthouse because it’s already warm. I am waiting for Shannon and I am waiting for the surf instructor. Shannon pulls up and exits her car.
She is wearing black board shorts that are two sizes two large and a red Lycra rash guard that is one size too small, even for her. Once again she has taken my breath away. This tiny woman, who must shop in the early teen section of whatever store she shops in, has stopped me dead in my tracks with her beauty, with her fitness, with her figure, and with the sensuality that unknowingly drips from her. Will Thursday ever arrive?
“ Ready for this?” she asks.
“ Yes,” I manage. I am very close to saying something naughty, a flirtatious comment about her outfit, about how she looks, but am interrupted by the arrival of our surf instructor.
He called each of us an hour ago and told us where to meet him, apparently after picking which beach and which break would be the best for us this morning. He has chosen well, even to my untrained surfer eye. Low waves roll directly at the shore and break gently with a lovely shape and curl from right to left. Boogie boarders are riding these waves for twenty seconds, washing all the way up to the beach.
Further out, over the sand bar, on the “outside” as
A world so quiet that she can hear each ripple of the water against the kayak.
A world where even though they are less than a mile from the takeout they are completely lost, having only the sun as a reference. Where she wonders whether they will get so lost that they will end up portaging the kayak across the muddy grasslands back to the Intracoastal, losing their shoes in the sucking mud.
She dips her paddle to probe the depth of the water. It is less than twelve inches deep back here in the canals. Occasionally her paddle sinks into the mud that sits below the black water and then emerges coated with gelatinous stinking muck that reeks of primordial decay. They pull past a little point at the intersection of two canals and surprise a great blue heron that squawks twice, takes flight, and lifts itself away from the kayak with powerful flapping wings whose whooshes can be heard until it is thirty or forty yards away.
She looks at her watch, realizes they have been out for two hours, and realizes that they should head back. He agrees.
They find the bridge and angle towards the passage to the take out on the other side. In the middle of the Intracoastal, with the wind at their back, they boat their paddles and drift for a few minutes, letting the wind work for them. She drinks in the million winks and facets of early morning sunlight flicking off the tiny ripples on the water. She has rarely felt this peace, especially when there has been a man nearby.
They pull for the takeout and as they open the little reach down to the takeout she notices a trap staked on the bank, hidden in the long grass.
“ Wait,” she says.
They paddle back to bring the trap closer, so she can get a closer look.
“ For muskrats,” he says. “Or maybe otters.”
The trap diminishes the perfection of the morning by the tiniest amount. But the difference for her between perfection and near perfection is not one percent, it is an infinity.
Joe
It is my 50 th birthday. I am waiting in the shadow of the lighthouse because it’s already warm. I am waiting for Shannon and I am waiting for the surf instructor. Shannon pulls up and exits her car.
She is wearing black board shorts that are two sizes two large and a red Lycra rash guard that is one size too small, even for her. Once again she has taken my breath away. This tiny woman, who must shop in the early teen section of whatever store she shops in, has stopped me dead in my tracks with her beauty, with her fitness, with her figure, and with the sensuality that unknowingly drips from her. Will Thursday ever arrive?
“ Ready for this?” she asks.
“ Yes,” I manage. I am very close to saying something naughty, a flirtatious comment about her outfit, about how she looks, but am interrupted by the arrival of our surf instructor.
He called each of us an hour ago and told us where to meet him, apparently after picking which beach and which break would be the best for us this morning. He has chosen well, even to my untrained surfer eye. Low waves roll directly at the shore and break gently with a lovely shape and curl from right to left. Boogie boarders are riding these waves for twenty seconds, washing all the way up to the beach.
Further out, over the sand bar, on the “outside” as
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