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Ed McDonald Male COLUMBIA, SC United States: Share

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Relationship Status:: Single

About Me:: Semi-retired, working on some properties. Have enjoyed biking, camping, backwater kayaking, photography, travel, writing, etc. Lots of interests, including SC's lowcountry, WNC's mountains, New England's Falls, and so on.

What boats do you paddle?: Magellan

Paddle brands:: Werner

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At 1:19am on May 11, 2008, Darcy Wardrop said…: i was quite impressed with it ,and will share it with friends

At 5:34pm on May 10, 2008, Darcy Wardrop said…: nice bit of typing

At 12:53pm on March 10, 2008, Ed McDonald said…: Store Creek was glassy smooth; --An almost seamless melding was taking place and it was difficult to tell where sky ended and water began, even where the Spartina became its own reflection. We simultaneously, wordlessly, stopped paddling and reversed our crafts to face the sunset and absorb the fleeting moment…even Skeeter sat up on the deck to help see what was going on…Drifting backwards, our momentum slowed to the tide’s pace, our faces now barely warmed by the sun’s quickening descent. We watched as the brightly edged clouds noticeably assumed deeper and darker personalities… Ever more rapidly, the sun seemed impatient to disappear, perhaps embarrassed with its all-too-brief show of a seductive mood and wanting to draw its curtain to make way for the evening’s appearance… Only a sliver of brightness remained as we took a breath and picked up our paddles…
A firm push to a rudder’s pedal and a few strong strokes later, we resume.

The tiny craft that holds me moves efficiently even though it makes slow apparent progress running with the tide. The feeling becomes one of paddling in the midst of a delicately colored sphere… A slight increase in the intensity of the little ‘V’ spreading from the bow being somewhat more defined is one of the few indications of movement as it changes with each alternating pull of the double-edged paddle.
Thankfully, each stroke of the paddle knifes the kayak incrementally closer to the weathered dock representing home. It is good to anticipate its reward of some rest for the arms and a change of contours for the backside. …The incongruous picture of a refrigerator door’s opening flashes through my mind… That’s my name on that colder beer in the meat keeper… The screened porch and the cicadas in the pines will be especially welcome tonight. Maybe the Whip-Poor-Wills will see fit to join in.

Skeeter snaps his head to the right as a movement catches my eye as well… I looked up to see another eye brightly peering back at me. It was nested in two brilliant stripes... one a bright yellow and the other a startling reddish orange. Both made even brighter by the stark contrasting blackness of the remainder of their owners... There were two of them...very large...perhaps five feet tip-to-tip…Black Skimmers... magnificent in design and creation. Perfectly suited to glide without effort through the air with the lower tip of their bills inserted in the shallows along the creek's edge. It’s pretty incredible unless you have seen it.
Occasionally one would spear a small fish and a glint of silver would flash and disappear with no apparent change in attitude or altitude of our private aerial artists. Their aquatic ballet darted in perfect unison into and down a shallow side of an estuary as we paddled by, emerging a few seconds later, and passing once more. This was repeated until they eventually outdistanced us and disappeared from view around the creek's bend in front of the Big House.

What a blessing to experience and what a peace you can physically feel such things bringing to a heart.

...Yes, the beach is nice and has its special gifts to offer, …but there nevertheless is a something that suffers in some comparisons… perhaps it’s a certain intimacy with elements held in our core existence… something that’s also contained in the vibrant rhythms, emerging life, and wondrous synchronizations of the marshlands of our lowcountry backwaters. A something that can bring a renewal and perspective to one's own life and its living. I have not yet experienced such a symphony as this to a comparable degree in any other environment.

If your timing is right, an early evening’s excursion in one’s kayak is capable of bonding an accepting person in an unparalleled relationship with creation, as well as the integral passings that embrace the nature of these places ‘where the wild things are…’

I guess sipping some fabulous vintage from a veranda high in the Alps would be OK, and I wouldn’t turn it down, … But if you ever want to feel as though you are truly being carried in God’s hand for a spell…
Come… ---I can show you where it happens…