sunrise - salt marsh

There was already good light in the sky at 6 am when we launched from Morse Park landing—Kimberly, her 15 year-old son, and his friend, from Virginia—as shrimp popped in the shallows on an outgoing tide. We wound through the marsh creeks, where green herons fished from the pluff mud banks and schools of menhaden shot out of the water. A low-lying cloudbank prevented the great big orange sun from coming up perfectly over the horizon, but the dawn light was still beautiful, and we paddled across the Westin Flats, scraping a few oysters but finding our way through the channel by the PVC pipes. We rounded Parsonage Creek and came home along the docks, having earned our breakfast. They were familiar with marsh life having spent lots of time on the Chesapeake Bay, and I was grateful and impressed that two 15 year-old boys would rise in the dark to paddle. This was my first sunrise paddle of the season, and I am reminded, here as I write this, that sunrise paddles are the best way to begin a day.