El Residente
18 Adventures “Near” the High Seas by Christine Monteith
Paddling the Rio Coto
D
uring these “dry dock” days, while I recover from a medical issue and all I can do is listen to the distant crash of surf, I’m searching for new avenues to enjoy my favorite of the four elements, water. In my mind, the next best thing to being in it is to float on it. I have always gravitated to open water. The family story goes that at the age of two, my dad unhooked me from the Jolly Jumper attached to a tree near our cottage, whereupon I marched down the path, out onto the dock, and without hesitation, jumped into the river. My whole body dipped underneath the surface, as the water was about four feet deep, then my head buoyed up and I paddled about contentedly. To this day the sensation of cool liquid sliding over my skin with the subtlety of silk is delicious. The buoyancy, as I dip and dive beneath the surface where I try to
remain weightless and motionless, allows me to hang in space. I’ll probably never travel in outer space and that is the closest experience to zero gravity that ever I’ll have.
I’ve always lived near large bodies of water: Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Swan River (Perth), Hudson River (Manhattan), Pacific Ocean (Central California) and now the Golfo Dulce. If the nearby body of water was inhospitable for swimming, like the Hudson, I would swim three times a week in an over-chlorinated pool at the local YMCA. Now, it’s a great joy to live near the Golfo Dulce and it is a thrilling experience each time I enter the water. So, during this time I am prohibited from swimming or surfing, I sought a different kind of water related experience. For an alternative, Ben and I borrowed our friend’s ocean kayak to explore the nearby Rio Coto, a wide,
