My beloved Washington Canoe Club, a DC historic landmark, recently interviewed me for a member profile. Thanks to Liz Pennisi for the writing.

FRIGID POTOMAC, A CHEATER'S WAY TO WILDERNESS

On Ed Rackley's first long-distance sea kayaking adventure, a five-year-old saved his life. A relative novice, he'd gotten bored of paddling on Washington, D.C.'s rivers, so in November 2010 headed to the Outer Banks, by boat. "I didn't know how to roll, to deal with a tail wind or even surf my boat," he recalls. "But I felt you've got to do it to learn it." His naïveté caught up with him as he was trying to cross over to the intracoastal waterway right where the James, Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet off Newport News, Virginia. There the water was a turbulent mixing bowl much worse than the Potomac and Anacostia junction on a windy Fourth of July afternoon.

Read the rest here.

photo @ Archie Jan Bloch