Onset resident Richard Wheeler ended his month-long, 281-mile kayak trip through Buzzards Bay on-island. Penikese Island, that is.

The adventure began on May 19 on the Westport River. The 81-year-old paddled the Buzzards Bay shoreline in short legs — educating area students along the way and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the nonprofit Buzzards Bay Coalition, which works to protect and restore the bay.

Wheeler ended the trip on Sunday, June 17, at Penikese Island, one of the Elizabeth Islands and one of the healthiest areas of Buzzards Bay.

"You kind of get to take a trip back in time," Rob Hancock, Buzzards Bay Coalition vice-president of Education and Public Engagement, told a group of explorers gathered Sunday for the Coalition's Bay Adventure on the island, which coincided with Wheeler's return.

A trip back in time both because of water quality — visibility is more than two meters below the surface — and because of the 75-acre island's history.

Though it is now a bird sanctuary owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and home to the Penikese Island School, a small school for troubled teenage boys, the island served as a leper colony from 1905 until 1912. Though the hospital was destroyed, foundations from old buildings still pepper parts of the island.

It was Wheeler's first paddle around the Elizabeth Islands. He started in Quissett Harbor in Falmouth. The trip took three-and-a-half hours.

"It was just a beautiful, beautiful ride," Wheeler said. "That must be the biggest stretch of uninhabited land on the East Coast."

Wheeler said he was happy to have completed the month-long journey.

"It was something I always wanted to do," he said, adding that he encourages more people to paddle across Buzzards Bay "to see the beauty in their own back yard."

"You don't have to do it all at once!" he noted.

A friend, Ted Knopf, was Wheeler's "sidekick throughout the whole thing," he noted. Knopf dropped Wheeler and his kayak off and picked him up after the various legs of the trip.

So, is he tired?

"I felt stronger in the end than I did in the beginning," Wheeler exclaimed, pointing out that the trip was great training for the Blackburn Challenge, which will have him circumnavigating Cape Ann via kayak in July.

Wheeler talked to approximately 500 students during the trip, teaching them about the importance of keeping waterways free of pollution.

"I get energy from the kids," he said. "The whole thing was about raising awareness."

For more about Wheeler's trip, visit www.savebuzzardsbay.org/wheelerpaddle.