The blades of my paddle slice the smooth skin of the water, first on one side and then on the other: klishhh…kloshhh…klooshhh…kloshhh…The rhythm matches the quiet pace of my breathing as I rock gently from side to side, gliding over the gleaming expanse of sky; the luminous vault overhead mirrored perfectly in the glassy surface.  Tall, snowcapped mountains rise from the perimeter of this broad sea, and also seem to descend into it.  In front of me, to the west, are the peaks of the Alexander Archipelago, the long cluster of islands off the southeast coast of Alaska; behind me are the glacier – hung peaks of the coast range.  The liquid speech of the paddle sounds against the backdrop of a silence so vast it rings in my ears.  The sky arcs over this world like the interior of a huge unstruck bell; the hanging sun is its tongue.

Between my kayak and those western slopes two smaller islands nestle close to one another.  I am paddling towards them.  I don’t know the names of those islands, for I’ve not been in this region before.  A breeze raises a pattern of ripples on the water’s surface, then passes by: the mirror returns.  Klishhh…kloshhh…klishhh…Sometimes another, more rapid rhythm becomes audible as a pair of ducks materializes out of the near distance, flapping just above the water’s surface.  The thudding of their wings against the shallow layer of air swells in volume and then fades as their shapes dissolve back into the distance on the other side of my kayak.

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