Color for Christmas

It started by accident some years ago while living on Anderson Island. Santa had brought me some rescue gear that I was anxious to try out, so while Theresa and the kids sorted through manuals and installed batteries, I slipped away for a few hours on the water. It was such a peaceful and tranquil way to balance the chaos and confusion of the morning that I’ve continued to go for a Christmas Day paddle ever since.

You can just about find any type of weather here in the Pacific NW during the winter, but this Christmas Day brought our typical overcast with threat of rain as I drove to my local put-in at Chambers Creek. As I readied boat and gear, a passerby wished me a Merry Christmas, then asked if I had any idea what the partial skeleton down the beach might be. Curiosity peeked; I set down my paddle and walked where the lady had pointed. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a fairly intact skeleton of….something. By the width of the hip bones, I’d guess it was a Harbor Seal, but it could have easily been any mammal on the beach. The grey dark sky suddenly grew a bit more grey and it seemed just that much colder.

Paddling under the train trestle, I turned north toward some of my favorite ‘beach combing’ beaches. It was absolutely still on the water, not a breath of wind, noise or traffic. All I was aware of was the rhythmic pulse of my paddle.

I decided to do a few rolls just to stay in practice, but with the ambient temperature in the mid 30’s, I quickly got an ice cream headache and headed to the beach for some hot coffee from my thermos. I sat huddled amongst the logs on the beach savory the warmth of my coffee when I noticed the first touch of a breeze on my cheek. As the breeze started to build I started to chill so I decided to walk the high water line to see if anything interesting had washed up since my last visited.

While walking I noticed how everything, from the beach, to the trees, to the horizon looked bleach out…devoid of all color but some tone of grey. Finding nothing of interested I reversed direction to head toward my boat when I was struck just how colorful it was; much like the tree ornaments hanging back home. Just seeing the bright orange and yellow of my boat reminded me just how fortunate I was on this Christmas day bringing a smile to my face.
And as if that wasn’t enough, as I slipped in my cockpit and turned the bow towards home it started to snow. A colorful and white Christmas on the water…how magic.