‘I dip both hands into the brassy water, cool and warm at once. Now the paddle slips and slides in my grasp, so that I laugh out loud.’
By Carolyn Foote Edelmann Special Writer
As I begin to kayak from Princeton Turning Basin Park, traffic along the Alexander Road Bridge thunders above my head. I catch that faint whiff of tar under its rafters, the sign that I am on my way anew. The absence of swallows is autumn’s first sign. On the bank of the Delaware & Raritan Canal, goldenthread runs profligate weavings, weighting the sturdy sedum. Purple loosestrife is already fading, although pink marsh mallow springs like Disney ballerinas. Over in deep shadow, cardinal flower lives up to its vivid name. This flower acts on the sense of sight like firecrackers on hearing.
First on the water, I am breaking the mirror of morning. Ripple reflections chase each other up and down new leaning trunks. Painted turtles on invisible logs gleam like patent leather. I’m at the place where cardinals call in summer; next at yellowthroat’s domain. B/B — before birding – I might not have noticed that autumn is also announced by bird silence.
Even the single goose overhead does not call. He’s grown new flight feathers, which used to trigger southward migration. Hush may be the canal’s greatest gift.
Ah, but there is a greater: A dark angular bird flushes noiselessly, coasting across my prow — that epitome of shyness, the green heron. Its gold stripes glow in the underbrush. This close, this trusting, it is hard to believe that green herons are among New Jersey’s 73 threatened and endangered species. I see them often enough, however — from towpath and canal — to conclude that green herons and certain other rarities are not endangered here. If I were kayaking north, I could well meet eagles, Carnegie’s loving swans, the circling osprey.
One of my favorite canal games is threading tree tunnels. I “put on the brakes,” glide to a stop beneath the swamp maple’s pendulous canopy. Its scarlet stems prefigure its imminent transformation, as chlorophyll departs. I remain hidden, simply dappled and blessed by swaying branches. Lines from a love poem I’d written to the canal seven years ago float through my mind and heart: “ … beside you two great loves began, and one was cruelly severed.” Here, tree-sheltered, it is impossible to believe in cruelty.
I dip both hands into the brassy water, cool and warm at once. Now the paddle slips and slides in my grasp, so that I laugh out loud. A man and woman canoe past, he singing like a gondolier, inviting me to smile. It’s always amusing balancing the paddle so I can sip fluids, train binoculars upon some swift winged form. Resuming my voyage in still waters, the perfect paddle stroke resembles skimming whipped egg whites to clarify a broth. When the stroke is light enough, the kayak stays perfectly straight. There is no sound except the brushing of canal water against its doughty prow.
A blue dragonfly tries to decide whether to hitch a ride. Moving on, absolutely alone, I am parting clouds, cleaving Monet canvases.
A downed tree moves into view. Last week, duckweed patterns revealed the way through this impediment. I am startled and a little miffed to run aground, or is it “a- trunk”? They may have lowered the canal after recent rains. On my right, two painted turtles plop into the canal at my bumped approach. The grouchy snapper to my left stares me down, seeming to relish my decision to proceed no farther.
Reversing, all clouds have been deleted. Locusts begin their raspy heralding of the new season. Fine with me: Autumn is my favorite time, kayaking through leaves like coins flung on dark waters.
I face too many other craft now, although it is not yet noon. Paddle thunks and weaving trajectories betray the first timer. I attempt to coach two others. They’ve said “Yes” to my “Please go over there,” having no idea how. I ask if they can simply stop, which they do finally manage. I suggest that Indians were experts at soundless paddling. “That’s how they snuck up on their enemies.” “Try to be Indians,” I dare, as they move upstream lumpily, trying.
I think back to the friend who besought me to learn kayaking with her —a sport she had relished in the Caribbean, although her husband had not. We attempted it in Griggstown, one rushed after-work afternoon in the year 2000.
Griggstown is the site of the parent company of Princeton Canoe and Kayak. Because of the Griggstown lock, we could only go in one direction. Because of our inexperience, also very slowly. Yet, as many whom I’ve since coached remark, “It’s amazing — one minute, you’re not a kayaker, and the next, you are!” The shortest learning curve of my life, actually. Upon our learning day, dense woods framing the canal were all blue and jungle-like — the way it gets around here in steamy August. I treasure a Biff Hines watercolor of a kayak in the Griggstown canal, exactly capturing the Amazon-River-effect of our maiden kayak journey.
Hours of such bliss have come my way since then. Most have been along our tranquil canal. On Barnegat Bay, with birding naturalists of Island Beach State Park, we were led to my first sight of black skimmers lying down — not standing, not sitting — on the nearly invisible Sedge Islands. Several peak kayak journeys wound through the Hamilton/Trenton/Bordentown Marsh, accompanied by wood ducks, bluebirds, osprey, red- tails, once the bald eagle.
So far, my favorite kayak setting —shared with that same catalytic friend — has been the Pine Barrens’ Wading River. Shallow and sinuous, its currents and stone-spills taught us, laughingly, how to stop, to back up. Our entire route was leafy and dappled. Picnickers waved and called out from the banks. The current carried us merrily toward the takeout point. All we really had to do was steer. Two hours were too few.
This morning’s reverie is interrupted by a new flash of green heron — winged shadow disappearing into same. As I move too swiftly toward journey’s end, the elusive bird leaps from its hiding place, over and over. Now the yellow eyes are level with mine — his far more determined. Air displaced by his wings ruffles my hair. His dapper yellow stripes flash like summer lightning, as he arrows in the direction of Lawrenceville. I am tempted to follow.
Too soon, I spy the white slats of the Alexander Bridge. Sun flares against metal as reverberations thunder through both air and water. I pity every wheeled conveyance.
I plunge the right paddle generating that final turn, back into the womb of the turning basin. Overhead, the Dinky hoots through treetops, zooming toward Princeton. “Civilization.” Yes, everything I kayak to escape.
To contact Princeton Canoe and Kayak, call 609-452-2403 or visit www.canoenj.com. Open weekends from 10 a.m. until sundown through Nov. 4 — weather permitting, and check for closing hours as light leaves. The rental fee is $15.

