We ease the kayaks into the brackish water, gray and brown, opaque and slow-moving. The river pulls at itself in gentle rips as we slip beneath the low bridge, where shadows stretch long across the current. Beyond it, the marsh opens up. Wide, unguarded, and breathing in rhythm with the tide. I keep to the edge, tracing the irregular line where land meets water. The bank is alive with fiddler crabs scatter at our presence, vanishing into small dark holes like sparks into ash. The colors out here are shifting. Each day the marsh becomes more green, the memory of winter’s dull [...]

It’s the start of summer, but the air feels more like March, cold, damp, and gray. We pull the kayaks over the salt hay, the straw pale and brittle from winter’s long occupation. The water lies still. Moorings are vacant, the summer boats yet to arrive. We ease into the river with little effort, its quiet current opening before us, drawing us toward Little Pleasant Bay. At the mouth of the river, a few dead cedars stand in the marsh—bleached and bare, their trunks worn to silver. They seem misplaced, as if grown in defiance of the salt and tide. Now they serve [...]