On July 11, the local papers reported a boating accident on the Hudson just north of Tivoli. At 4:30 in the morning a motorboat crashed into a cement wall, killing four. Two made their way to help and were in intensive care. These boaters were all in their twenties, except one who was 41 years old. Young people, from Kingston, the city south and across the river from Tivoli. The reports were quick to note that alcohol might have played a role in the accident.  They also noted that no one was wearing a life vest.

I knew that there would be a storm of response, a sort of "blame the victim" and then a call for regulations on boaters. But my first response was to wonder what the boat had hit. I paddle this stretch of the river regularly and I mentally scanned the shoreline for a cement wall sticking into the river. None came to mind. So I needed to go out and see what had led to this sad accident. I suppose too that seeing the site was part of what we all do, witness in order to understand the many ways that we can die.

I’ve thought about death a lot while paddling on the river. Not the expected thoughts of going over in my kayak and drowning. I’ve thought of the deaths of my parents, the death of turtles and sturgeons, and once when I saw a dead body on shore of the life and death of this person I did not know. I do not think that I am morbid; the river forces these thoughts in its endless flow in and out with the tides. The river gives and it takes away.

It was eight in the evening when I slid my boat into the summer-warmed water. Cicadas were buzzing their song on shore, letting me know of the heat of the day. The river was a shiny black surface. I stroked north, as the sun spiraled toward the west, leaving an orange-pink glow behind the Catskills.

I soon realized that I wasn’t alone on my paddle. A group of people talking loudly were walking the shoreline, that gravely space between the train tracks and the shrubs that line the river. Through the shrubs I caught sight of them, most dressed in black. Several carried twelve-packs of beer. And I knew right away what this group of 12 were doing. They were on a pilgrimage to the site where they had lost their friends.

Since kayaking is walking on water, we moved at the same pace, those trudging on land, making calls, laughing, swearing. I rarely caught what was being said except  for the louder curses. There was a sense of jollity and outrage. I stroked north, keeping pace, as the Saugerties Lighthouse appeared to the west. I kept away from the shoreline to allow the mourners their space.

I was a good mile north of Tivoli then I saw the cement wall, not but fifteen feet stretching into the water.  It must have been the remains of a dock. Those boaters were too close to the shoreline, I thought. But in the dark that shoreline, the shadows and eddies can be deceiving.  I knew this from my nighttime paddles, how disorienting the river can be in the dark. It’s hard to gauge speed and depth, it’s hard to know where the shoreline is. And, throw in a few beers and it could become even more complicated to read the water.

I floated on the river off of the cement wall as the friends, bathed in grief, gathered near the wall. At that moment a bald eagle flew over, and I pulled out my binoculars to follow its powerful flight. The group turned to watch the eagle as well, and they became silent. The silence stretched as the eagle disappeared over the ridgeline. Finally one young man spoke: “Goosebumps.”

I continued north a bit further, waiting for the moon to pop over the ridge. We were one day short of the full moon, the July full moon, the Buck Moon. This is when new antlers push out on buck deer. Bugs pricked my skin, as lights dotted the shoreline.

Through the tall trees that lined the hillside on the eastern shore I could see the deep glow of the moon. Slowly it rose, like a hot air balloon, silent but steady. And there it was, full and round, bathing the water, casting shadows from the shoreline, washing this sad spot in light. Goosebumps, I thought.