A grandmother seeks adventure by kayaking the entire Potomac alone
Cathy Brennan glided through town this week attracting little attention. A heron or two glanced her way, and ospreys circled overhead. But as Washington whizzed around her in an impossible hurry, Brennan calmly paddled her bright yellow kayak down the Potomac and under Memorial Bridge, continuing the journey she began May 29 in Keyser, W.Va., near the source of the Potomac.
She hopes to complete the trip in a week or so when she reaches Chesapeake Bay.
It’s a slog. But it’s also beautiful. And it lets Brennan let go of everything else, empty her brain of the everyday and focus on the now.
“I’m in the moment. I’m looking at the chop, looking at the waves. I’m noticing that stuff,” says Brennan, whose voyage down the Potomac is just the latest of her epic solo trips on major waterways. She has kayaked the length of the Susquehanna, James, Hudson, Allegheny and Connecticut rivers and completed a two-month, 700-mile trip through New York, Canada and Maine on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail.
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The Mississippi is on her wish list, says Brennan, who turns 63 next month and is awaiting the arrival of her third grandchild.
On Thursday morning she sat on a sofa at the Washington Sailing Marina in Alexandria preparing to launch her nine-and-a-half-foot kayak on day 25 of the journey. They’re adventures, says Brennan, not vacations.
No glamping for her. It’s a minimalist approach: sleeping bag, small tent, rain jacket, change of clothes, first aid kit. Apples, granola bars, cheese sticks, ramen.
When she’s thirsty she scoops water from the rivers and pumps it through a filter. “I always drink the river,” she says.
Every few days Brennan will find a hotel for the night where she can get a shower and eat a cheeseburger. She’ll check in with her husband John, who has helped her select the river and research the trips at their New Jersey home. “He’s my virtual sherpa with benefits,” Brennan says, laughing. But most of her time is paddling on the river or camping on its banks.
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She has a phone with her but rarely calls or texts anyone. She doesn’t listen to the news or podcasts or music. Occasionally Joni Mitchell lyrics will pop into her head. On some trips she’ll bring a slim book of poetry — Mary Oliver is a favorite — but she forgot to this time.
Her husband and her grown children can keep track of her via the transponder that pings them her location every 10 minutes or so, but she’s not sure how often they do. “I think they get bored of that now,” she said.
Brennan, an artist and photographer, is alone on these journeys but she isn’t lonely. If she has a message, it’s that we all need this disconnect from the wired world to find the wider world around us. And inside us.
When she made her first long trip at age 50 it was because she “decided to just go into the woods and think for a while.” That was the 700-mile excursion on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. What she discovered was what she didn’t discover.
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“I didn’t think any deep thoughts. I didn’t figure it all out. I didn’t come out like, woohoo, a Zen master,” Brennan said. “But it cleansed my palate. When I came out, I felt better. I felt confident. I felt clearer. I felt I had accomplished something.”
Staying the course, it turned out, was its own reward. She keeps a diary and blogs about her trips, but only after she’s completed them. Friends have told her to write a book but she isn’t sure what she’d say. Preaching isn’t really her thing.
But Brennan does say she wants women and girls to take more chances and to not be afraid. She knows that solo kayaking is not for everyone, and that many believe it is unsafe. But she’s not reckless. Brennan grew up on a lake and was a strong swimmer and boater from an early age. She portages around rough rapids and watches the weather carefully. Thunderstorms are her biggest concern.
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There are other precautions. Brennan is careful about where she camps and who is around her. Bears don’t worry her, but she keeps a wary eye out for creepy men. She has packed up her gear and headed back out on the river when she has felt unsafe.
Nevertheless, she persists because she loves being on the rivers, seeing the bald eagles above, deer on the banks and a fascinating array of bugs and insects that never find their way into homes and offices. She wants others to see that, too. Especially women.
“Women, I think, are unreasonably afraid about being alone,” she said. “Sometimes people think [kayaking alone] is so dangerous. And I tell them I drive on the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. In my estimation, that is far more dangerous than what I do.”
In the late morning Thursday, Brennan dragged her sturdy, 17-year-old Perception kayak down a paved path toward the marina landing. Nearby, kids in a sailing camp practiced deft turns in their colorful crafts on a damp, windy day. The waves slapped hard at the dock.
It took just a few minutes for Brennan to cram her gear into the kayak, put on a life preserver, roll up her pant legs, slide the boat into the water and clamber in. Then a quick wave goodbye. In moments she was gliding away, following the current, seeking solitude, attracting little attention.
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