I tried something new this weekend, kayaking at sunset and into the night after it got dark, with no lights or headlamps with only the moon's hazy glow to guide us. As the tired orange sun tucked in behind the mountains, the wind died down and the water became a black, silken gloss, interrupted only by the careful dipping of our paddles and some seven or eight beavers whose long wet dark bodies broke the glassy surface leaving a trail of ripples behind them as they swam. We would paddle, then stop, and drift silently as we listened to the faint, subtle sounds of the night. If I sat motionless, barely breathing, I could hear beavers chewing and gnawing on shore and was mesmerized by the surrealness of the quiet that enveloped us like a soothing, smooth, inky-black blanket wrapped around our faces and arms and torsos and legs and souls. That is, quiet until I screamed. I was floating gently and saw a beaver moving along toward me in a steady line at my left. I sat perfectly still, intently watching his approach, and at "full beaver speed ahead" he smacked right into my kayak and thrashed around before diving under to safety. The impact so startled me that I added my panicked scream to the blend of peaceful night sounds and likely gave the beavers a story to tell that next morning as they snuggled into their cozy dens and updated their own Facebook statuses.
