Low Tide!
- nwriversphotograph
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
The other day, my wife Stephanie and I were reminiscing on our favorite vacations and travels together. And while it is a long list filled with so many wonderful adventures – we realized all of our favorites had two things in common, time on the water and travel by boat!
Water and boats (a loose definition): rafts, kayaks, sail and motorboats, zodiacs for photography, the Alaskan Ferry, even inner tubes on Virginia’s Shenandoah River.
Kayaking in Baja, Mexico, down the rivers of Costa Rica, and in British Columbia’s (BC’s) Broken and Bunsby Isles. Sailing among the Saronic islands of Greece and motoring in Fiji on the 140-foot Tui Tai, diving and snorkeling near the Ringgold Islands and Rainbow Reef. Sailing deep within BC’s Fiordland Conservancy and the amazing mountains and cliffs encompassing Kynoch and Mussel Inlets, and last year, time on the Afterglow II exploring the bays, streams, and tiny coves of the Great Bear Rainforest. For me, a lifetime spent on whitewater rivers from the Kennebec and Penobscot in Maine to the Ohanapecosh and Wenatchee in Washington State (and almost everything in between). Easy to see that water and boats have highlighted our lives!
Early examples of just how deeply water and boats have impacted our lives: Our first river trip on Pennsylvania’s Youghiogheny River inspired me to pursue a life focused on river conservation. A week before the expected arrival of our daughter, Stephanie and I found ourselves with thousands of others sitting on the banks of Maryland’s Savage River for the 1989 Canoe Slalom World Championships.
Admittedly, these examples are all high tide, high energy adventures… so how does this translate to low tide? To this article?
Well, tides like life, are a cycle. Impossible to have one without the other. Mixed with these high energy examples are the times we have spent wandering among quiet tidepools, idyllic camping on the Northern California coast, sitting calmly along the shore of a lake, a river, the ocean... watching the sun rise, and set, over mountain ranges and ocean blues. Recollections on life’s travels… early times, together, contrasted with more recent changes in the cycle of age and health. Older, maybe wiser (?), but still driven by the things we love and happy that water and boats continue to inspire us to the next adventure.
Last week, I left the house early to visit one of my favorite local photography destinations, the Skagit River Delta. When I arrived it was to a familiar landscape with the sun just beginning to shine over the Cascade Mountains, the fog just starting to dissipate, and a warm morning glow moving across the fields, irrigation ditches, and shorelands. But when I arrived at water’s edge, it was a totally different view.
I come down here a lot. But as I stood there I realized it had been a long, long time since I had been here at low tide. Shallow and flowing water had been replaced by mudflats and eelgrass as far as you could see. In the early light, the mud brown was interspersed with darker shadows that changed and flickered as the sun traveled higher in the sky. Bird tracks leading every which way with stark backlighting as dunlin, yellowlegs and sandpipers searched for food. Low tide, the enemy of coastal kayaking if you don’t check your charts, had transformed the Delta into a totally new, equally mesmerizing, environment.
Just when you think you understand an area, its moods, wildlife, and cycles, when you have seen it all… nature gives you a glimpse of more. Of light and shadow. Browns vs. blues and greens. Just as beautiful, just different. The other side of the cycle of water and another side to explore, to relish, and to lose yourself in.
Boats and water, high tide or low, high energy or peaceful currents, ebb, and flow… all a part of the cycle of our lives. Can’t wait to see what is next!
