The water was a major factor in deciding where I wanted to build my “cabin in the woods” (location, location, location), as it is for many of the people in Tow Town. With the ocean on our doorstep, as they say, ‘when the tide is out, the table is set.’ Food collection is incredibly rich in the intertidal zone. Then there’s the plain joy of getting out and splashing around on it. When a particularly incredible sunset settles on the horizon, I like to throw on a pair of board shorts and paddle out, literally into the sunset. Is it still romantic if I’m all alone? Invariably I get caught up with poking around the kelp beds or scoping out distant land features exposed by a low tide. The trip down Masset Sound on the paddleboards with Mike, into the Inlet and onto the patio at Yakoun River Inn, was an excuse to indulge in that boyhood dream of doing a Huck-Finn style float, seeing some new country from a different vantage point, and looking to see if we couldn’t get into some kind of adventure. Then there’s the gratification of learning. Everything from the simple awareness of how tides work in a particular area to learning how to decipher the symbols on a nautical map, thanks to training from Rescue Ross. Back where I came from, the water was generally just something pretty to look at. It takes on so much more importance and meaning, being in and on it, plying it for sustenance of spirit and body.
Can’t get that song out of my head from the wedding, as performed by Tow Town locals on ukulele, accordion, recorder etc.: “I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow”