Tomorrow, I am leaving Lafayette around noon, and heading up to Martha’s Vineyard for the break. This is something I have done every year for as long as I can remember, because it is the time of the year for the annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, a nearly monthlong event that people come from all over the world to take part in. Thousands of people stay up late and wake up early in the hopes of catching the biggest fish in four different categories, whether it be off of the shore or on a boat.

The Derby also plays an integral role in the scientific community alongside its role as a major sporting goods event for the region. Numbers of each fish caught (striped bass, bonito, false albacore, and bluefish) are reported to biologists, marine scientists, and the general public at large to help determine the health of a species, and whether or not it needs to be regulated more. As a matter of fact, the derby restricted fishermen from catching striped bass for a period because of concerns that the population was being overfished and was in poor health, allowing for striped bass to make a strong showing in the region once more.

I love the derby because it is good fun accompanied with a good purpose. All fish caught are donated to senior living centers around the island so that the meat is never wasted, and portions of the entry fees and bonus days go to island scholarships and other funds. I feel like it is a good example of citizen scientists, because by merely catching fish and weighing them in, you are actually helping determine the health of the species year after year, leading to legislation, fishing practices, and knowledge-gathering.

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this yet, but last Saturday I had the glorious opportunity to return home. Not home as in New Hampshire, but home as in the sea. Each September, the Lafayette swim team (and this year the divers!) pile in cars in the wee hours of the morning and head to Belmar, New Jersey for a charity swim benefitting brain cancer research. It is important to us to support the swim team that puts on the event, but it is also a fun-filled retreat of sorts for our little tribe.

Anyway, so the “race” is a mile long ocean swim and it is absolute madness. In an attempt to coordinate the insanity, the race directors have competitors enter the water in “flights” but this just results in a frenzy of those in later flights literally trampling those who leave first. It is a thrashing, crashing, splashing, clawing brawl of bodies. It takes from 20-30 minutes but it feels like an instant because the entire event is a campaign for survival.

I love it.

It dawned on me this year that amidst this chaos, I felt supremely content. Swimming has always been an important part of my life, and so has the ocean, but only a few years ago did swimming (in an athletic sense more than a splashing-around-in-the-waves sense) become a passion for me. It is so vastly different from pool swimming, or even lake swimming. It is colder, obviously saltier, and so much more threatening. It is beautiful.

Usually when I go for a longer swim in the ocean, it is with the lifeguards I have worked with for many summers. We all enter at the same time and battle our way through the waves before we get just past the break and chart our own courses. It is far more independent than the ocean swim we participated in on Saturday. To enter the mindset in a hypothetically present tense:

I am entirely at the mercy of the single most powerful entity on this earth. I am intimately aware of my fragility and yet astounded by the willingness of the sea to cradle and rock me with each set of waves that rumbles toward shore.

This kind of experience is something I hope never to take for granted. Amidst the hundreds of flailing, violent, churning bodies a few days ago, I almost lost track of this feeling. But after a moment or two, I could surrender to the Atlantic, the beautiful Atlantic, and it didn’t matter how many scrappy boys scratched my legs or grabbed my feet, I was home.

Knoebels is a free admission amusement park in Pennsylvania, located nearby much of my family. During my most recent visit, I thought more about an aspect of the park’s history which I had not previously given much thought: the floods. I was reminded of this in class during a discussion about how we, as humans, are not always at the top of the food chain or in control of natural occurrences. We may be totally at the mercy of natural forces, one of which being the incredible force of water.

Dillard’s Flood piece discusses the flood at Tinker Creek caused by Hurricane Agnes, the very storm which first caused floods at Knoebels in 1972. Dillard describes the flood by saying, “Tinker Creek is out of its four-foot banks, way out, and it’s still coming. The high creek doesn’t look like our creek. Our creek splashed transparently over a jumble of rocks; the high creek obliterates everything in flat opacity.” The sheer force of the flooding water overwhelms the creek as the narrator knows it and completely transforms it into a whole different creature. This Hurricane Agnes caused floodwaters to rise and meet 24 out of 25 total rides in the park. Despite this, the park reopened only 9 days later. The area was transformed, like at Tinker Creek, by the sweeping waters.

Knoebels faced additional floods in 1976, 1996, 2004, 2006, and 2011. There are markers around the park to indicate the levels to which the water rose during a particular flood. Signs cover various trees and the side of a covered bridge, showing how much of the park would have been submerged on these occasions. I actually remember the impacts of the 2011 flood, which replaced the 1972 flood as being considered the worst to hit the area. The force of the rushing waters left the workers and attractions powerless, as they swept across this happy place, spreading further and reaching areas never before affected. The small stage for daily shows, where my cousin performed, was carried across the park. The covered bridge was largely submerged. As in 1972, the dedication of the community and staff allowed the park to reopen only 10 days later. It is always shocking to see the high water marks while walking around the park today, knowing how forceful and intense the waters were during the floods. And yet, the park has continued to operate successfully with minimal setbacks.

On Thursday, my biology class went back to the Sullivan Park wetland and had the opportunity to get down and dirty in it. Let me say that it is a very different experience to be looking in at the wetland from behind the fence than when you are right in the thick of things. My first task was to get into the wetland. This was much more difficult than I anticipated – the cattails and undergrowth were deceivingly thick. I found that in order to move at all we had to crush some of the plants. That action in itself felt very wrong. Here is a small preserved piece of wetland and what was my right to be invading its space and leaving a trail of broken stems behind me?

The wetland quickly had its revenge on me as I tried to make my way out of the heavily planted area. I headed towards the fountain and suddenly found myself up to my waist in water. I was wearing waist high waders but it was definitely a surprise to find out that I needed every last inch of them to keep me dry. It was an odd experience to feel the water surrounding me, feeling the pressure of the water for the entire wetland press against my legs but to not be getting wet. I could feel the water swilling around me as it took me in its stride as just another obstacle to move around in its journey through the wetland.

There was a strange sense of calm when I finally made my way into the center of the wetland. Even though my classmates were less than 10 feet away from me and I could hear them very distinctly, the plants were so thick that I could not see them at all. It was a very real experience to feel so alone while knowing that others were so close. Had it not been for them, I could have been miles away from any human or any part of civilization for all I knew. I was lucky to be allowed to go to a place where so many others get so close to but can’t quite experience themselves.

Kayaking down the Delaware awakened a part of me that I didn’t realize was missing and although the word childlike can sometimes have a negative connotation, the trip made me feel childlike. It seems almost ironic now that the radio station we listened to on our way down to the ramp played songs that I listened to when I was young. that I skipped rocks for the first time since I was in middle school.
Throughout the trip Aaron and I tried to break away from the group as much as possible and explore the things that caught our eye. We would zigzag across the river to go from one shore to the other while also trying to catch the rapids in the middle.
It was nice, because the Delaware is a protected river, that there were stretches of the river where the outside world was invisible but a there were reminders along the way, especially coming around a bend and seeing a huge concrete bridge hundreds of feet above us. Passing under the bridges reminded me of a book I am reading called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Throughout the book Pirsig constantly talks about the value of taking a less traveled road. He commends them for being relaxing and enjoyable, especially the ones that have nothing but nature on either side. I shared Pirsigs disgust for highways and freeways, and preferred the water roadway that we learned the Delaware was historically used for.
At the end of the trip it was nice to drive back on the road along the river and to become a part of the cycle of noise; providing the sounds of traffic for everyone else who was enjoying the river just as I was only minutes before.

When I was looking at the weather for this weekend and I saw that it was not going to be perfect sunny skies and mild weather, I was a bit disappointed. I already do not enjoy kayaking as an activity and adding on bad weather to that heap made the less than excited for the trip. The day came with a tease of sunshine until the very moment when we unloaded the boats and got onto the water. The unpromising gray skies followed us throughout the day. After lunch, when we began paddling again, it began to rain. The idea of rain was so unpleasant but once I actually began to feel the liquid gathering on my skin, my perspective changed.

A few nights previously there had been a torrential downpour that I was caught in as I made my way across campus. It was late and there weren’t many people around. At first I was dismayed to find myself completely soaked but then I realized that there was nothing I could about that. There’s a quote that says, “Life isn’t about hiding from the storm, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” In a post late-night library daze, I grabbed my friend and together we ran through the streets, jumping in puddles and letting ourselves be surrounded by the water. In that moment, I felt so alive. Bringing this back to our paddle, I felt a similar sort of electricity as my skin became damp with the precipitation. I think the water has some energy and having it not only flowing swiftly beneath me but also fall from the sky above me, I was surrounded by it. I felt rejuvenated, even though I was physically and mentally exhausted from the week. The water made me feel alive.