Go kayaking or canoeing on a lake or river.

“With the basic kayaking techniques checked on Day 1, in spite of the pretty strong wind, I should’ve felt more confident. But the exact opposite feeling crept in. [...] Eddies seemed scary in that dark water and I admit that pushing my kayak into Buzău River that morning was the most frightening thing I had ever done. I knew that I couldn’t control the boat, I was aware that I lacked the experience necessary to steer it and discover the right lines, yet I was crazy and foolish enough to try it, with the fear of flipping and staying underwater for who-knows-how-many minutes getting a hold of me with every stroke.”

“My first day on the River was a fall day in New England. The trees burst into the brightest colors I’d ever seen; orange leaves were like monarch butterfly wings. I was on Miller’s River, a 50-mile tributary to the Connecticut River just above Turner’s Falls. I was nervous at first, but as we went downstream—bouncing up and down through waves, surrounded by a forest on fire with color—I thought: I want to do this for the rest of my life.”

“IT WAS A MISTAKE to think that my lake kayaking experience counted toward today. The thing about rivers is that they have currents, which I obviously knew but didn’t really recognize as legitimate. When I try to eat my sandwich and stop paddling, my kayak drifts into weeds. I stop and paddle myself into the middle again, then set the paddle down for my sandwich, and am then swept into some protruding branches. I am a hungry human pinball.”