A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Canadian writer Dan Rubinstein traveled from Ottawa to New York City by paddling.
DAN RUBINSTEIN: I kind of liken it to walking on water - Jesus allusion notwithstanding.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, not a miracle necessarily. He stood on an inflatable paddleboard.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And he says it has better views than a kayak.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
RUBINSTEIN: You can look down into the water. So you can see fish. You can see plants. You can see yourself more integrated into this aquatic environment.
INSKEEP: OK. Canada to New York City - 1,200 miles round trip down the Ottawa River to Montreal. Then, if I understand the maps, you portage. You go over land for a little bit, and then you're in the river system, going down the Hudson River all the way to New York, where he met a friend.
RUBINSTEIN: Where we went out and around the Statue of Liberty - so much boat traffic, so many tour boats, police boats, tugboats, tankers, et cetera.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. How's this for multitasking? On the way, he wrote about how water helps people - the benefits of being in blue space.
RUBINSTEIN: The aquatic equivalent of green space, whether it's a vast ocean or a river or an urban pond or even a fountain.
MARTÍNEZ: Rubinstein says when he'd wake up anxious about his work or about turning 50 or about climate change, he would paddle.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
RUBINSTEIN: Within an hour of setting out in the morning, I would stop worrying. Sometimes I would just stop thinking. Looking at and listening to the plants and animals - I'd be talking to whatever animals I saw.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS HONKING)
RUBINSTEIN: So I really felt at home in that environment.
INSKEEP: And Rubinstein says the 11-week voyage helped him to explore communities.
RUBINSTEIN: Blue space does have this capacity to connect people. It makes us feel good. It slows us down. And because of the dangers of water, we tend to watch out for one another when we're around water. So because of those three things, I think it has this capacity to help people see one another as fellow human beings. And that's something that's, one could say, in short supply these days.
MARTÍNEZ: Dan Rubinstein wrote a book about it all. It's called "Water Borne: A 1,200-Mile Paddleboarding Pilgrimage."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WALKING ON SUNSHINE")
KATRINA AND THE WAVES: (Singing) I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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