Rowing for the sake of rowing

I had the water and the sky, the sun and the palm trees. That was enough. I lifted the oars and rowed on a little slower to make my trip last longer. Rowing for the sake of rowing was my only purpose. I wanted only to feel the water passing close beneath the hull of my boat, to hear it swilling around my oars. 

Rosemary Mahoney, Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2007), p. 220.