Atop a Kayak, “Getting Away” Needn’t Entail a Distant Journey
It doesn’t happen nearly as often as we might prefer, but once in a great while (maybe there was a blue moon up there), even if only a few times during the unpredictable month, Upper Galveston Bay can be a beautiful place in the middle of January.
There is something about viewing the water and shores from the seat of a kayak that creates a perspective all its own … one that, until you have grabbed a paddle and gone for it you cannot fully appreciate.
Matter of fact, you can’t even begin.
I’ve been kayaking in earnest for a little over ten years. That said, I remain a rank and unvarnished rookie compared to guys like Paul Messing, who along with good friend Danny Marshall ferried me out on the bay yesterday morning to shoot a cover photo for the April issue of Texas Co-Op Power Magazine and a story that I wrote about the pastime of paddling. Every time I experience it, kayaking continues to amaze me.
A kayak is the ultimate waterborne transport for body and spirit. Yeah, the exercise is great. It’s quiet as it gets, so much so that you clearly hear subtle sounds that you would otherwise almost never notice. It’s tough, after all, to distinguish the sound of splashing finger mullet above the growling din of a 225-horse outboard.
Mostly, though, kayaking is good for your head. Everyone has a preferred means of chilling out. For some it’s a gym, for others a brisk walk. For me it is, and will remain, a placid morning on the flats when the wind is holding its breath and the water is sliding beneath me like a huge and endless cloud of saturated vapor.
Many thanks to Marshall and Messing for getting me out of the house.
Where Messing slid his 16-foot Wilderness Systems kayak into the bay, the spot where this photo was taken, is all of three miles from my front door. For the solitude and solace it provided it might as well have been the furthermost slopes of the Rockies.
Don’t let cabin fever get you. Relief is much, much closer than most of us realize. I was out of the office for all of two hours, and nonetheless came back with the benefit of a remote and indescribable getaway.
Because in its own right, it was.
See you out on the water …
Larry
Howdy. I am 
