I have been rowing for almost 25 years, although those are Canadian years, where we can only be on the water for half the year or less. My rowing travel company has extended my season, allowing me to row in spectacular settings, and expanding the breadth of my experience with this sport. The passion that rowers share comes from the years invested in learning balance, catch, release, power. Perhaps it comes from the reward of a shell moving lightly and smoothly through the water, with the sound of the run and perfect pools from the blades swirling away. Maybe it is the perverseness of succeeding at something backwards. For me it is especially about the beauty of being on the water, wherever that might be, sensing the calmness of a lake, the power of a sea or the flow of a river.