Richard Blonna
If you love sunrises, paddling, or being on the backwaters surrounding Marco Island, you’ll love this book. I am a kayaker and love to watch the sun rise over Marco Island from my kayak on the water. This book is a collection of sunrise photos taken with my cell phone while paddling around the backwaters of Marco Island.I love to watch the sunrise over Addison, Goodland and Palm Bays as well as Whiskey, Turtle, and Fruit Farm Creeks. All of these bodies of water offer incredible sunrise vistas. I have captured all of them in this book. You do not have to be a paddler to enjoy the book. Many of my friends who fish or just get out on the open water in their powerboats to watch the sunrise have expressed the same joy in doing so as I feel in my kayak.Being in my kayak in the middle of the water at sunrise is an indescribable experience. My photographs only scratch the surface of what it feels like to be enveloped by the sun as it rises over the infinite waters surrounding Marco Island.Watching the sun rise over an endless horizon of water is a spiritual event for me. It is my sanctuary. It connects me to something greater than myself that is infinite and at times overwhelming. It makes me feel both insignificant yet connected to something greater than myself. It is also my safe space that lets me experience the full range of human emotions.While paddling at sunrise I have been comfortably silent, cried, smiled, laughed, and whooped with joy. It is my therapy, a place to in the present moment with each stroke of my paddle. I have been blessed to be able to do this for the past decade. I am 73 and plan on paddling until the day I die.
