Postcards From The Edge

I had checked off everything I wanted to experience while paddling across the isolated Louisiade Archipelago: sleeping on deserted islands, lighting fires on untouched white-sand beaches, rigging a makeshift sail to traverse long sea passages, and playing with bioluminescent plankton beneath a star-filled sky, among other things. But after a monster wave that came out of nowhere left me stranded on Patrick and Susan’s tiny islet—scraped, bleeding, with only one sandal and half a kayak— I realized what I had overlooked: spending time to forge a deep, genuine bond with the locals.