On the way out we passed a swift moving freighter. In calm waters there were no other winds or currents to dissipate its wave action, and we were suddenly hurling full speed toward a set of six to eight foot rollers. We flew off the top of the first, airborne, as I pulled back quickly on the throttle. We slowed and rode out the rest, diving into the deep troughs and staring skyward as we flew over the crests.
We rounded the point, and into the bay, floating over wave sets with significantly longer periods than one sees further upriver. The Grady White was anchored near the shore. The sun was high in the sky beating down on our increasingly brown bodies. The wind turbines stood like silent sentinels watching the shores. The air smelled fresh and clean, like laundry dried on the line.
Kerry loves this place, and if I could pick a place that makes her most happy, I believe it would be this one. She smiles in pure joy, swimming along the sandy bottom, counting the ripples in the sand, feeling them with her fingers. I laid lazily in the bow of our boat gently floating up and down and drifting off into a peaceful afternoon nap as she begged me off to do a dolphin race with her. It was an afternoon wrought with the spirit of childhood, making up silly games like jumping off the bottom, up and out of the water and back down again as many times as possible before we got dizzy. She climbed and jumped from my shoulders repeatedly laughing all the while, and I challenged her to a swim underneath our boat which lay in shallow water. We swam down pushing our chests into the sand and emerged on the other side. She climbed on the boat, and in one last trick of the day she jumped from the bow.
Her spirit connects with this bay, and it was obvious for me to see in a way so strong that it offered understanding.
I was glad we visited.
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