Meryl Grandy

A new bow man

The move to the far coast is not far off.  My last days of canoeing on NW waters are becoming more precious than ever.  I have a hundred or so friends to paddle with in not enough time to even get close.


My friend, 'P' comes along today.  It is our first trip together.  She used to row and prefers not to go to the familiarity of the big lake, so I take us back to the Duwamish, to the little sand bar on the inside of the bend, underneath the osprey nest.  It is a beautiful spot that I was surprised to find, a place worth visiting again.

We paddle up the Duwamish, but it is different than my last trip with 'A'.  We find a Ganesh figure (the elephant headed Hindu deity) in the mud on the bank.  We almost pass it and then turn back knowing that there is something wrong in leaving it there.  It is in three pieces, but I re-assemble it well enough and place it on a stump.

At the first fast water, all of the rocks are submerged.  I did not know that the tide came this high.  The rocks were 18 inches exposed last time I was here.

It is a usual good bird trip.  A great blue heron, a green heron, several kingfishers, some sandpipers, some ducks and Canada geese.

We talk a lot.  P tells me how she broke her wrist a couple years back and when she returned to rowing, it was no longer so appealing - the competitive and the teamwork required was too much.  We agree that canoeing is everything that rowing isn't...at least the way we are doing it.

The return goes fast, a third of the time going up stream.  The rocks at the first fast water are a foot out of the water.  Two osprey greet us at the take out.  This fall, I will travel across the continent to the far coast while they fly to a place as far south of the equator as we are north of it.  They will be back next spring.