Monday morning

David and I went kayaking Saturday night down on the shore. We put in around 7:30 p.m. at Mystic, paddled around the Seaport a little while and then headed out under the draw bridge. David suggested we turn and go out under the swinging railroad bridge (which is usually the way we come back). It was a quiet night - not a lot of boats (despite it being a really lovely late afternoon-early evening, hot but beautiful). The estuary was full of small beautiful smokey pink jellyfish. The full moon was just over the horizon as we left, and as we paddled out, rose higher and higher. When we came to the shore where the Osprey nest is placed, there were 2 juvenile ospreys in it (and another one in a tree nearby), calling out in the fading light. We kept paddling, going up a little waterway toward what looked like a dead end, but proved to have an opening so we circled a little island and came out going west back toward Mason's Island. By then it was really dark, moon about 45 degrees above us in the south east, sun fully set in the west, the water smooth and still and dark, like ink. A few boats coming in toward shore, but not many. We came in toward Ender's Island (where I had my weekend "retreat") and could hear a big party at the Mason Island Yacht Club. Odd to hear the "cocktail chatter" from the dark still water. We passed under the bridge that joins Mason and Ender's Islands, and then had the long paddle back around Mason's Island back to the harbor. We passed through really shallow water where the small silver fish were swarming. Our paddling stirred them up and some leaped out of the water, but none landed in my boat. We were quite late getting back. Just as we passed under the Mystic draw bridge, a party of drunken kayakers sitting dangerously in the channel there broke up and raced back to the launch area, passing us. So we had to wait while they hauled 8-10 kayaks out of the water. By the time we had put our boats on the car and gotten on the road, it was midnight. An hour and a little more to get home. The latest I've been up in a long time.

That made Jessie and I late to arrive at the park yesterday - 6:30. Hot hot hot and humid. A quiet walk.

What a difference a day makes. The cold front came through and today the humidity is gone. I think the dew point temperature dropped 20 degrees or more. This morning we got to the park about 5:40, sun barely over the horizon, cool to the point of suggesting fall. I wore a jacket. We didn't see the heron or the muskrat. The Canada geese were lined up on the shore of the large side of the pond. The Mallards spread around. The coolness made it a lovely walk; the air itself felt different and seemed clearer, so that the sky, the trees, everything seemed clearer and crisper. The hard thing to do is to appreciate a morning like this for itself, and not to become invested in it, thinking, ah the dog days of summer have passed on. They haven't. We're supposed to be back in the 90's with humidity mid-week. But for today - the final day of my 4-day weekend - it is beautiful. My friend L and I are going kayaking down on the shore. It should be lovely.

Peace.