JUNE MONTHLY CHALLENGE
Flow Like Water — the Finale
Picking a favorite one out of a big pile of great submissions
Water attracts humans. Water is the source of all life on earth. People move to all kinds of bodies of water. Cities grow around the delta of rivers and next to lakes.
And water is fascinating. You can swim in it and even dive to the ground. You can paddle, kayak, float on top or take a boat ride around. You can glide down a river or throw yourself into dangerous rapids.
As our monthly challenge is coming to an end we have received so many stories that my travel bucket list has grown into eternity and the list of activities I still want to explore.
We all loved traveling through the world while listening to your stories shared. The topics were diverse and the stories didn’t get boring.
The end of the month has arrived and it is now our time to pick a favorite one. As editors, we have the joy of reading through all your work but now we face the difficult part of choosing the best one among all those lovely posts.
Each of us has submitted our own responses to the prompt which did not count as a challenge submission but acted as inspiration for others to pick up the pen.
I started off with a list of adventures I have done over the years around the world:
Anne Bonfert with “Flow Like Water — My Adventures in the World”
JoAnn also wrote a list of diverse trips she’s done in and around water. She takes us from snow to tropical beaches.
JoAnn Ryan with “This is My ‘Waterworld’: How Some of My Favorite Travel Photos Help Me Appreciate Water”
Gerald describes his relationship with and feelings about water as he takes us on a trip through time and places.
Gerald Sturgill with “Flow Like Water — A Journey From Water to Even More Water”
Adrienne had more than one story to share. She talks about her love for swimming in the water, shares experiences of snorkelling over beautiful reefs, and takes us on trips around the world between hot springs and spas.
Adrienne Beaumont 🇦🇺 with “I’m a Water Baby”, “I’m a Hot Water Baby” and “It’s Another World Down There”.
Now enough about our adventures and experiences. It’s time to announce the winners.
The finalists:
Anne Bonfert
I’m taking the lead on announcing my personal winner of the water challenge. It wasn’t an easy one but I’m going for what I love about water. I love adventures in and around water but my favorite thing about water is the force it comes with.
Waterfalls.
Waterfalls demonstrate the power of water while displaying it in the most natural but breathtaking way. Vidya Sury scrolled through her photos and chose the topic of waterfalls.
“Waterfalls have such a soothing effect-they seem to stop time and freeze that moment of happiness as we watch the water flow, over and over.” Vidya
As a lover of all kinds of adventures on the water I also had a second story pulling my attention. Owning a paddleboard and a kayak ourselves, my husband and I often paddle out in unknown waters.
The one thing we still would love to do but haven’t come around to yet is going on an overnight trip with our camping gear paddling from one campsite to the next one.
And that is exactly what Jill has done. She’s telling a story about a kayaking experience in 2001. Times were a bit different and so were the adventures people went on.
“As we sat on the beach, we noticed, not one, not two, but three crocodiles out in the water swimming back and forth past the beach. We could see that they had their eyes on us.” Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages
Jillian Amatt definitely fascinated me with her story and I can’t wait to read part two about the paddling trip.
JoAnn Ryan
A big thank you to everyone for all of your great water stories! They were all so fun and enjoyable to read.
It’s always difficult to pick one out of so many wonderful submissions. Here are a few that especially resonated with me:
- Loved reading about the waterfall adventures of Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and the photos were really magnificent: “Chasing Waterfalls”.
- Also enjoyed reading Allison Ditmer’s story of her and her husband getting caught in the rain in Rome: “Who Knew Raindrops in Rome Would Be So Memorable”.
- Harry Hogg’s story of his “Water Home” was lovely and poignant to read.
- Also appreciated Darren Weir’s more cautious take on water: “Water, Water, Everywhere”.
However, Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages had a couple of great stories that I especially loved. The first is about her kayaking adventures in the Florida Everglades: “A Kayaking Adventure For the Books — Part One”, but my top pick is this story about her amazing adventures sailing around the world. It was truly fascinating to read:
Again, thank you all for the wonderful stories. Looking forward to reading more great stories for our upcoming July Challenge!
Gerald Sturgill
All of the submissions this month were excellent and unique. The picks for my favorites, notable ones, and honorable mentions though go to Harry Hogg, Darren Weir, Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and Elvie Lins.
Harry’s story was so moving and compelling that I had to read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss any details.
Harry Hogg with “Water Home”
I was surprised by Darren’s hydrophobia given his adventures.
Darren Weir with “Water, Water, Everywhere”.
The story about Jill’s trip through Florida was my favorite out of the ones that I read from her submissions to the monthly challenge.
Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages with “A Kayaking Adventure For the Books — Part One”
Vidya’s collection of waterfall memories and photographs was a very lovely take on the prompt.
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles with “Chasing Waterfalls”
Elvie’s story about the environment and taking photographs of those places that have been affected by human activity made me think and was very moving.
Elvie Lins with “Travel the World and Take Nothing But Pictures”
I loved all of these stories for various different reasons and enjoyed all the stories as they all had unique stories and perspectives. I really enjoyed reading this prompt a lot.
Adrienne Beaumont 🇦🇺
Well, I’ve read them all and loved them all! All of them unique — not one even similar to another. Congratulations to everyone who participated in the challenge. I hope you enjoyed writing them as much as we enjoyed reading them.
But I can’t go past Harry Hogg’s poignant story of how his life changed when he was adopted. I loved his descriptions as if coming from a child. Describing the car ferry for the first time,
“The great mouth opened like a whale feeding. Dad encouraged me to sit up and watch as the car clattered over the metal grated bridge and into the belly of the monster.”
His touches of humour pulled me into his story.
“He told me I would come on the ferry to school. School, that’s when the idea of escape first took shape.”
I also loved Ryan Frawley’s adventure kayaking in the Gulf of Lion. I love the way he uses language to describe the ocean’s terror and beauty…and all the while recounting a simple day out kayaking.
Down there, in lightless caverns, the bones of Roman and Greek, and Carthaginian sailors effloresce into singing coral and knock against the ribs and kneecaps of British sailors and Nazi fighter pilots. I’m in no rush to join them.
We want to thank each and everyone who has shared their fascinating stories and adventures with us. We were overwhelmed by the load of submissions coming in and were happy so many people got inspired to start writing on the topic of water.
Stay tuned for the next challenge coming up. With this post, the June monthly challenge is officially closed (but you can still submit your water-related stories as normal submissions).
Thank you for reading and writing. Here is the full list of submissions to “Flow Like Water”.
Darren Weir with “Water, Water, Everywhere”
Randy Runtsch with “Swimming Alongside a Sea Turtle at Zamami Island”
Elvie Lins with “Travel the World and Take Nothing But Pictures”
Sandy Maximus with “You will Find me Where Earth meets Water”
Klara Jane Holloway with “Flow Like Water….Enjoying the Waves in Curacao on Christmas Day With the Island Natives”
Robert Knight with “Flow Like Water — Water and Me”
Marcia Gage with “Dr. Sanjay Gupta Says I’m Suffering from Blue Space Deprivation”
Barb Dalton 🇺🇦 with “Water is for Nourishment, Not Playing”
Ticapo with “Have You Ever Lost Your Sight (and Found It Back Again)?”
Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages with “Flow Like Water — Floating By Anguilla”
Ronald Smit with “Enjoying the flow of water”
Aarti Tailor with “The Many Faces Of Water — The Essence Of Life”
Shelley Rohm with “The Kapoho Tidepools: Found and then Lost”
Julia Guerra Slater with “The Best Scuba Diving In the World Is In New Zealand’s Waters”
Osan Fernando with “Flow Like Water — The Water From My Veins To The World”
Alex P. with “My Husband and I Hitchhiked Our Way Back From Our Beach Honeymoon in Europe”
Steffany Ritchie with “Ten Things I Did In Water”
Simon Whaley with “48 Hours In Plymouth”
Wendi Gordon with “My Life-Long Love Affair With Water”
Catherine Dunn with “Water Adventure”
Harry Hogg with “Water Home”
Gina Pacelli with “Kayaking to the Benagil Cave”
Catherine Dunn with “A Water Adventure in Venice”
Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages with “I Sailed Around The World!”
Sam Millichap with “Defying Watery Curses in the Danube Delta”
Allison Ditmer with “Who Knew Raindrops in Rome Would Be So Memorable”
Aarti Tailor with “A Journey Of Deep Healing”
Anne Bonfert with “Celebrating Someone Who Was Born on a Friday the 13th”
Aun Gregg with “7 Things You Should Know Before Moving To Utah”
Ryan Frawley with “The Sea Will Set You Free. And Maybe Kill You, Too”
Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages with “A Kayaking Adventure For the Books — Part One”
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles with “Chasing Waterfalls”
Nella DiCarlo with “Water Views, Wandering, and Wellbeing”
Janin Lyndovsky with “Nothing Went to Plan, but I Had a Wonderful Time”
